It took about an hour for the camp to be set up in the lee of the granite crag. The camels were tethered by the entrance to the cave which led to the small, clear spring and around there were pitched a rough semicircle of white-beige tents. People flitted back and forth, gathering up items and moving them from one tent to another. The only fires were a scattering of torches. Not much wood in a desert, I supposed.
Something I had noticed while I was watching the camp being set up - there wasn't much else I could do, as I didn't want to spook them by doing anything overtly 'magical', and they seemed to take pains to keep a few metres between me and them - was how tired they all looked. Even the children looked almost dead on their feet, yawning even as they helped pull tight the ropes for the tents. They looked as though they had been walking for days with little in the way of rest or sleep. I wondered what would drive them to do so. Was it just how things were, when you were crossing the desert? I didn't know.
Eventually, though, the tents were pitched, watchem set and food eaten, and the shaman - and I still hadn't figured out whether they were a man or a woman - walked over and asked me to follow him.
I was led to one of the slightly larger tents, a circular-ish affair with a central pole which looked something like a stunted teepee. He pulled aside a flap of canvas and, ducking, I followed him through the opening.
Inside, the ground was covered by another sheet of canvas, as well as a number of sacks and bags piled towards the outskirts of the tent. A globe of yellow-orange light hovered near the peak of the tent, illuminating the interior. Facing the entrance four people stood.
The youngest of them - a man in his early twenties at the oldest - sat in the middle, flanked on one side by a pair of older women, about fifty if I had to guess, and on the other side by a man of about the same age, his face deeply lined by both age and scars. The men both wore their dark hair in a tight braid down the back, stretching past their shoulders, the elder's streaked with grey. The women wore their hair in tight buns, impaled by ornate pins.
All four of them wore the same light robes as the rest of the tribe, the only deviations in the embroidered belts that the elders wore, and in the patterned band that circled the younger man's head, faint sparkles of light from the globe above our heads glancing off the tiny gems woven into the fabric. Some kind of leader, I assumed.
"Honoured spirit," the shaman said - I had given up on deciding a gender, for the time being - "This is Sagabato-no Gurama Dularat, chief of the Gurama. Beside him are honoured mothers Getaruda and Nasudara and honoured father Rikitari."
As he spoke, he used his staff to indicate first the younger man in the middle, then the female and male elders in turn.
I nodded in what I hoped was a respectful manner as the group, including the shaman - Ulukarana, I remembered - sat. Somewhat awkwardly, I folded myself into a sitting position facing their semi circle. A moment passed in silence before the young chief spoke.
"Forgive me if I offend, honoured one, but I must ask. Why have you not revealed yourself before now? Both our tribe and many others have used this oasis before, but none have ever seen a being such as yourself."
Fortunately, that was a question I had guessed would be coming sooner or later.
"Until I was woken a day ago, I slumbered for years upon years. In truth, I know not how long I have been asleep. Yesterday, though, a band of treasure hunters managed to wake me from my dormancy, although they fled, thinking me a monster. That is where the supplies in the cave came from. Does that answer your question?"
"Yes, thank you," answered the chief, "If I may ask, though, what manner of being are you? You told Ulukarana that you were not a spirit, but I know of no other creature that might have such a shape as yours."
And there it was. Here goes…
"Originally, I was human."
The change of atmosphere in the tent was almost tangible. All five of them seemed surprised, almost shocked. It seemed that humans turning into other kinds of being was quite rare here.
"I was once a user of magic, and transferred myself into the form you see before you-" I gestured to my artificial body, "So that I might face a great enemy of my people on an even footing. The war was fought, won, and the need for me and mine passed away. I do not remember much else, I am afraid."
There, hopefully vague enough that I hadn't said something immediately impossible and all set long enough ago that it would be hard, if not impossible, to disprove.
A battery of rapid-fire words in the same language as the shaman had first spoken to me was exchanged. The shaman had paled slightly, and seemed to be having trouble keeping his composure. Finally, the male elder - Rikitari, I thought - spoke. His voice was scratchy, ill-aged.
"I must say that I have never heard a tale such as yours, not in all my years. If I'd heard it from any other, I suspect I'd have told them that they'd spent too long in the sun. and yet, I've got the proof right in front of me. Reminds me of the stories my old Ma used to tell me, of the dragon riders who'd split mountains with their magic,and that was why the desert had so many rock in it. 'Course, there's not many around to do that kinda stuff nowadays."
He trailed off with a gruff laugh to the glare of the shaman, who was still unhealthily pale. Still, it gave me some more to work with. There were dragon riders-
Shit.
Alalea. Dwarves. Magic. Dragon riders who weren't around anymore. Spirits, and a physical spirit makes a shaman blanch. A desert with wandering tribes.
Alagaesia. I'm in fucking Alagaesia.
Still, I needed confirmation. Needed to confirm my wild, insane hunch. Now how to do it so that I didn't blow my cover, such as it was.
"If I may ask a question in my turn, is this land still known by Alagaesia?"
"It is," replied one of the female elders, Getaruda, a faint note of confusion in her voice, "Or at least the people of the Empire call it such."
Well, fuck. On the bright side, it meant that I had at least some knowledge to draw on, although it had been a long time since I'd read the Inheritance Cycle. On the other hand, it also meant that I knew the kind of stuff that was in this world. Shades, urgals, the Empire and its godlike mad king Galbatorix. Still, a lot depended on when in the timeline I had arrived. After the fall of the Riders, obviously, but it could be decades until the Varden's open war on the Empire, or they could have already won.
"That is good," I said, playing for time while my mind whirred furiously, "I had feared that in my long slumber, I was taken to a different land altogether."
They looked at me oddly, and I remembered belatedly that it was unlikely that the idea of completely different continents was one which meant much to them. Hurriedly, I continued.
"Still, even if the land remains the same, I have little doubt that much has changed since my time."
The old soldier laughed again, a bitter, aborted sound.
"Not everything's different, if what you said about an enemy is right." The shaman made a shushing gesture, but Rikitari ignored him. "You've seen the state we're in, haven't you. You ever deal with slavers? Took half of us before we managed to lose them." The elder who hadn't spoken yet, Nasudara, gave him a hard glare and he finally quieted, still looking angry.
I was never sure why I said what I did next. Perhaps it was loneliness. Perhaps the fact that these were the first people that I'd actually spoken to since that nightmare of terrible, mechanical, murderous purpose that was my arrival here. I'd like to think that it was altruism, but in truth I suspect that it was just me wanting a purpose, something I could do.
"I can help you."
They looked at me, obviously surprised that I offered to help so easily. A Moment passed, and then the chief spoke.
"I am truly thankful for your offer, but what do you believe you can do? You may be mighty, but can you fight a hundred men at once? And not only men, but the spirits that their sorcerer conjures?"
I was ad-libbing completely by this point. The mental script I had composed was out the window.
"I am a… ferromancer. As a part of my art, I can make devices and artefacts to fight, and equip your men with weapons to outmatch your enemies', if they are at all like the ones you yourselves use." I nodded towards the curved scimitars which hung, sheathed, from their embroidered belts - the women as well, I noticed. I was gambling on this being a roughly medieval world, and the materials I could make with my fabricator being superior to their metals.
Another round of rapid-fire conversation followed, incomprehensible to me, although Rikitari and the chief seemed to be eager, while Nasudara and the shaman seemed more hesitant. Eventually, after a few minutes of discussion, an agreement was reached, and Ulukarana turned to me.
"Before we accept your offer, we must know what you would desire in return," he said, bluntly.
"Information on the modern world and the creatures that inhabit it, as well as the chance to study whatever maps you have or, failing that, a description of whatever lands you can give me. Beyond that, I have no need for riches, nor for your food or possessions. An introduction to possible allies, and perhaps a favour to be held against the need for it?"
Another round of discussion followed, which finally ended with an agreement to my requests, with the caveat that they had the right to not fulfill the favour if they deemed it unreasonable, at the cost of it still hanging over them.
Now I just needed to make sure I could pay the cheque I had signed.
