The nomad cities

In the vastless deserts of O 
Shush, clouds without number 
(zero) dotted the sky not at all
and the nomad cities moved 
about crossing each others' 
weird tracks, occasionally 
bumping into each other. 

Then their towers and walls 
trembled, then. Then there 
was war! Or could have been
- but the people of one city 
(used to it) said excuse me 
to the people of the other, 
and each place awkwardly
adjusted its course around
and past the other - once
the direction could be found.

In all ageless time, no protocol
for this had developed. It was
just
then
that a

hero

came in
to this waste and expanse of sand
and wind. Well, not much wind. Not 
just then. It was Ak-Akoom! The self
-defender! Hundreds of years old already
by then in the full bloom and vigor of youth, 
a young man still! His span unnaturally drawn 
out but not attenuated at all by a curse. Driven
since then to be not killed or maimed, in a fit
of utter maniac cowardice he devoted himself
to one task: become the ultimate living instrument
of war! Which he had done long since.
He found
it pretty easy, given
time and application. So on he came,
searchlessly questing always for someone, anyone,
entire armies even not to kill him! Coming out 
upon the desert where this phase of our story 
is set, he set rapidly about finding not much,
and moved on uneasily. 

For so was his track ever laid, so his path led
ever onward, forward, upward and downward
to either side - unbending in his swerving way!

"If only," he thought, "There were moving cities
- then I could settle down. Nomad cities. I could
just hang out! Let the city do the moving."
Unfortunately
just then, these
cities were all
in another part 

of the desert,
which they were whenever anyone
tried to find them. All they'd find were
the weird citywide tracks, crossing,
converging, bumping into each 
other - edging around and 
past. The cities themselves 

were not even a legend. No one spoke 
of them. It hadn't occurred to any that 
such tracks were made by cities! 

People simply presumed the tracks
were some natural phenomenon,
a problem for the gods, tops. Nothing
we need to explain with fancy stories
of a preposterous kind. Meanwhile,
the sands of the desert beckoned 
in no very appealing way. They
stretched endfully in no directions, 
as numberless clouds 
failed to dot the sky