Xavier Relaford followed the old man through the thin burlap fabric that served as his front door and into the mud brick hovel. It was more mud than brick he suspected, the floors were dirt, but there was a roof at least. It was mostly dark inside and very dusty and smokey. There was a fire burning in a small fireplace whose chimney evidently didn't function just perfectly. It allowed small puffs of smoke to escape out into the hovel, and that smoke seemed to hang in a blanket around four feet off the floor until the natural drafts eventually nudged it away. A few lanterns burned lowly here and there, shedding just enough light on the interior so one could see the dirt.

"Who are you? Relaford asked, as they made their way into a tiny sitting room where the fireplace was.

"I'm Muqtammad. Who are you?" The old man wheezed, as he began working at preparing the tea.

"I'm Doctor Xavier Relaford. Nice to meet you." He responded.

"No, you're not." The old man said, matter of factly, in the same manner one would tell a child that they in fact, were not a bird.

Relaford's eyebrows furrowed. Perhaps he should think twice about drinking that tea. There may be more in it than tea leaves. "Then who am I?" He asked.

The old man laughed and Xavier could have sworn he saw a cobweb fly out of his mouth on his breath. "Tea first, then answers." He said, as he hung the tea kettle over the fire, and settled on  pillow to wait for it to whistle. "Why did you help the girl?"

The question had come from nowhere, and suddenly. The honest truth was, Xavier didn't know why. He hadn't even known for sure that he could help, and he had taken a huge risk showing the locals the spell of Armicus. If things had gone wrong, he might have been stoned to death by now. "She was going to die." He said.

"Yes, she was... but thats not the why, is it?" The old man's eyes positively twinkled in the dancing orange light as he leaned forward, as if anxious to hear the answer.

"I helped her because she needed my help, and no one else could." Relaford said quietly.

"Yes, there is the why. You have been in Zonavi for two weeks, wandering about aimlessly, looking for answers to questions you've never even thought of yet. Now, as you are ready to abandon your search, you show the quality of your character."  The old man paused and Xavier thought that perhaps he should respond, but he didnt have to, the old man continued.

"Fortunate. Too fortunate by half, I'd say." He smiled, that one tooth peeking out from under his lip and the scraggly moustache. "The world brings men opportunities every day, the only true gauge of a man's integrity can be seen in how he reacts to them."

The tea kettle started to whistle as Xavier began to frame his next question and the old man rose and moved to finish his task. He worked in silence, steeping the thin silver perforated balls filled with the ground tea leaves in the boiling water. When  he judged them to be the proper color, he removed the steeping balls, and brought the two cups back into the sitting area, handing one to the scholar before he settled on a pillow.

Suspicious, but not wanting to seem rude, Relaford sniffed at the steaming cup, then took a sip. It was bitter but there was a thick flavor behind that. Quite good. He began sipping, and the old man began speaking slowly, and that was when things started to get weirder.

As Xavier sipped the tea, he listened to the man's speech, but the words were hard to hold onto. Slippery. He felt like he recognized some of them, but a strange feeling was growing inside him, and around the time he started to think about how good he felt, he realized the man was telling a story. The words themselves seemed mostly gibberish, but the smoke and dust that hung in the room began to swirl, and take form.

The old mans story told about the Vizier Farhid Aidid, a scholar who had discovered a treasure trove of a civilization that existed before the the settling of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, which modern historians all said was the seed of homo sapien advancement.

That discovery led him to still others, civilizations rising and falling for 150,000 years. Atlantis, and other civilizations, far older. Xavier watched as the smoke figures gained detail and Farhid Aidid made his discoveries narrated by One Tooth. Aidid had brought his discoveries back to Zonavi and secreted them there while he learned, and experimented. The ancients had other ways of fueling their progress besides combustion, and Aidid learned them all.

He became a mighty wizard, and gained the favor of the Caliph, appointed Grand Vizier and counselor. But as adept as he was at finding secrets, he was woefully inadequate at handling the subtle machinations of the Caliph's court. Framed, and arrested, he had fled the desert, leaving the family of his servant in Zonavi to keep the stores of his discoveries safe and secret until his return.

The smoke figures faded away, flowing back into the blanket that perpetually hung in the air. Xavier  looked up at the old man, unsure why he had shared this with him. The man seemed just as stoned as Relaford felt, at least. Relaford blinked ... twice... and the old man said, "Welcome home, Farhid Aidid."

This took Relaford by surprise. Stoned.. yes, stupid, no. "Im not --" he began but the old man cut him off.

"Yes, you are!" He said, his eyes still twinkling as he produced an ancient portrait. Relaford was no art history expert but he knew a thing or two about ancient papers and ink, knew enough to know that the picture was very very old. But it wasnt the age that shocked him, it was the image itself. It was him, right down to the brown eyes, and salt and pepper hair. He wore a blue turban, and his beard was fitting for a Vizier.... but the face, was undeniably his.

"That's uncanny....." He said, unsure of what to make of all of this. "Am I him, reborn?" He asked.

"Who can know?" The old man wheezed. "You have his face, and you have demonstrated his integrity. You have come out of the west to this small place, seeking what was his. These coincidances are enough for me. Welcome home Farhid Aidid."

This was just too much.He wasn't some Disney Character reborn. He was a linguistics professor from New Jersey. He sipped at the tea again, and smiled, as  fresh wave of euphoria slid around him. "In Dubai... someone tried to keep me from coming here..."

"The Alacarvra." The old man said immediately. "They are a dangerous group of people, who believe the knowledge you have found and seek more of is better left buried in time. It was them who conspired and acted against Farhid Aidid in the first place to discredit him before the Caliph. To this day, their descendants work to keep things buried they do not believe should be unearthed."

"Why not just kill me?" He asked... it would have been a simple thing to do, in Dubai. Then they wouldn't have to worry."

"This is not their way... " the old man said. "You had not found the knowledge. Now you have, and you are a threat. You will see their agents again, and they will not be seeking to warn you away. They will be trying to erase what you know."

"I still haven't found anything. I'm no threat to anyone." Xavier started, only to be interrupted.

"Yes, you have, and yes you are." The old man's wheezing laughter filled the hovel again, before he continued. "Your library is intact, and whole, and right beneath your feet."

Far under the hovel, one layer of civilization after another had been built atop the library of Farhid Aidid. The servants of the Vizier rebuilding time and again, and digging down to the previous level. Ladders and holes, trap doors, and sands. Until one reached the still opulent library filled with lost tomes, scrolls, diagrams and pictures. Laboratories where the power could be tamed and learned, and even a small living quarters had survived from antiquity, this was the mother lode.

From that moment forward, Xavier Relaford would not be 'just a linguist' ever again.