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The Nomads

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The people he had taken up with at the oasis had soon taken a liking to him. Day by day he slowly used a few more words and phrases in their tongue, but there was little need for speech to understand what needed mending: they would simply lead him to the scene and point to the problem. A cracked axle here or a bent bridle ring there, they discovered he had a knack for improvising solutions to such mechanical problems with few resources, and among the caravaners he quickly became quite popular. Often they would ask his age, especially the children, for none could quite tell whether he was old or young, as his silver hair conveyed the experience of many years, but his fair face did not look quite aged enough to match it. Indeed he was so knowledgeable in both craft and lore they began to suspect that he could be one of the rumored fair folk whom none of them had never seen, who were said to last indefinitely.

He taught them all many things. The men he instructed in all manner of craft: building and carving and smelting and smithing, improving their skills in the construction of buildings and efficiency in the design of their tools and carts and riding gear. Even with the women he would share knowledge to ease their duties: ways to get the cook fires hotter, and faster, and keep the smoke small and dispersed, better designs for looms and tillers and cutters and other such tools for activities according to their traditions.

And because he knew deep lore of those strange and beautiful folk whom his look and speech brought to mind in his hosts, in the evenings around the fires the young ones (and their elders too) would ask for more tales he could tell. And he would tell them what he was willing, of those folk in the western lands known as the elves, and their friends who lived alongside them.

"They are the peoples favored by the gods," he told them. "The gods grant them gifts and lands and power to order the world as they will."

"Why would they give such gifts to some and not others?" asked one young girl.

The guest looked over. "The gods have a plan, I'm afraid," he replied. "One that does not involve you good people."

"But why do they prefer these others and not us?" inserted a boy about the same age. "And how do you know of such plans?"

"Pfft!" scoffed one of the elders, an old woman tending to the great pot of boiling dinner over the smoldering fire around which they were all gathered. "There are no beings as these gods with any such plans. We mortals live hard lives, grasping in the darkness and coping with the evil things that affect us as we can. If there are any such gods they have long forgot about us."

The guest looked over at her, and a bevy of thoughts and memories swirled up within his mind. He thought of the dark days when her kind first awakened, and indeed when the First Born had awoken before them. "Dark places there are indeed," he said slow and thoughtful, "and dark times there have been. There are memories in your hearts of a distant past that remain shrouded in this darkness, and these gods will shine no light on them, sharing gifts of wealth and might and skill with those few folk who are their favorites, but not with all, as they should. But there is one god who shares freely with all as what he is able to provide. He is the god of darkness."

At this more of the men around the fire took notice of the conversation. For their foreign guest, who looked to be one of these favored people about whom he spoke, sounded suddenly like an oracle out of ancient legend that peoples would turn to for guidance and blessings of good fortune.

"You sound like one of the old sages of the eastern realms," said one of the men, a scrawny sort of fellow who tended the herds which pulled the burdens and, every so often, provided labors of slaughter and butchering for these feasts of the caravaners. He often had a remark for any small thing that was said.

His comrades chuckled. "Indeed!" said another, a burly husking pile of a man helped guard the train against the gangs of raiders lurking in the wilderness. "Old windbags full of air hotter than the desert winds of the sand sea in the far south across the straits." This earned an even bigger round of laughter from the crowd.

The old woman looked sidelong at the guest curiously for a moment, with a thoughtful gleam in her eye. Then she shrugged. "Hmph," she snorted. "Perhaps the lords of the eastern clans might like to hear such things. They still pay homage to this dark you speak of, enamored of the mysteries that may be discovered within."

The traveler stopped to think about this idea for a moment. "Has anyone ever seen this sand sea?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Why would anyone want to see that wasteland?" scoffed the old woman as she stood by the fire, her hand going back and forth between the poker for the fire and the big stick of a ladle in the pot, keeping an eye on both.

"I hear there are bright forests beyond the sand sea," said the scrawny fellow. "With rich kings whose realms see no winters, and even the poorest subjects have gold with which to adorn themselves."

"Hah!" said the bigger one. "There are no such places so far to the south. I hear the folk there are all poorer than we, and certainly dimmer. If such riches could be found there it would have been looted by folk like us, or the robbers who pester us, a long time ago."

"Perhaps I will go see for myself," the guest replied. "And discover whatever there is to be found."