There are few sanctuaries to be found on the Old Road, either for the body or the mind, and those who seek the fabled Occident must take refuge where they can. Thousands of miles of howling, trackless wastes may lie ahead before the lights of civilisation hove over the horizon again, and none willingly risk being caught on a starry night on the high dead plateaus where the barrier between the sky and the outer spheres wears thin. So it is that merchants and mendicants, scholars and prophets, thousands from every race and nation come yearly to the gates of Manifest, no matter how long its shadow grows. Those that return are strange and melancholy of aspect, however fabulous their wealth, and they tell the tales of an unknown lore never heard in West or East.
