Did anyone know the names of the dead gods these days? Were there scholars who studied the subject? Perhaps in the cities. Ordinary men and women, struggling to make the best of their short lives, did not care about such things.

Emerahl looked down at the cluster of houses further along the shore. As she did a movement closer to the lighthouse caught her eye. She groaned quietly in dismay. It had been weeks since anyone had dared to visit her. A thin girl dressed in a ragged tunic scrambled up the slope.

Letting out a long sigh, Emerahl looked at the houses again and thought back to when the first people had arrived. A few men had found their way up the cliffs from a single boat and camped in the area. Smugglers, she had guessed. They had erected makeshift huts, dismantling and rebuilding them several times over the first months until they found an area sheltered enough from the regular storms for the huts to remain standing. They had approached her once, thinking to rob her, and she had taught them to respect her desire to be left alone.

The men had left and returned regularly, and soon the single boat was accompanied by another, then more. One day a fishing boat arrived full of cargo and women. Soon there was the thin cry of a baby at night, then another. Babes became children and some lived to become adults. The girls became mothers too young, and many did not survive the experience. All villagers were lucky to live into their forties.

They were a tough, ugly people.

Their rough ways mellowed with each generation and with the influence of outsiders. Some newcomers came to establish trade, and a few stayed. Houses made of local stone replaced the huts of scavenged materials. The village grew. Domestic animals were let loose to graze on the tough grasses of the cliff top. Small, carefully maintained vegetable plots defied the salt air, storms and poor soil.

Occasionally one of the villagers would trek up to the lighthouse seeking cures and advice from the wise woman there. Emerahl tolerated this because they brought gifts: food, cloth, small trinkets, news of the world. She was not averse to a little trade if it brought a small variation to her days and diet.

The villagers did not always make good use of Emerahl’s remedies, however. One wife came for velweed for her hemorrhoids, but used it to poison her husband. Another man was sent to Emerahl by his wife for a cure for impotence, then, after his next journey away, came in search of a cure for genital warts. If Emerahl had known that the Gifted boy who wanted to learn how to stun fish and make fires was going to use these abilities to torment the village simpleton she would not have taught him anything at all.