Desert sands, desert winds, desert fire. Aumua was earth and fire,
the only one of the Web to be two lesser Elements at once. He
appeared empty, but he was not barren, for everywhere was life, life
and death and frenzied existence hiding in the shade and in the
shadows. He was dry but not dead, and life sprang from oases and
lonely cacti. Aloes, jumping mice, miniature foxes, scorpions,
snakes, palms, desert of the mind, desert of the soul. The Amari
Desert was a refuge of wonderful, strange life.
Dunewind was an illusion, a fabled mirage. It rose from the desert
only when it wanted to be found. Dunewind had the temperament of a
small child – very open and trusting, but only to those it knew and
was comfortable with. When Dunewind decided to trust someone, it
rose in a magnificent oasis from an endless ocean of sand and wind.
To everyone determined distrustful, the city was a glimmer on the
horizon, and sometimes a swirling vortex of sand in the distance. No
matter how far one walked toward it, it never got any closer. Those
allowed into the secret sanctum of Dunewind were rewarded with a
magnificent sandstone city surrounding a freshwater spring. It was
the last great refuge of the Geophorians. Only a few scattered,
hidden villages remained elsewhere in the world.
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