To the north of their territories, nearing the edge of that empty steppe land that they inhabit lies the city of the nomads, Chalcedony. Once it was as other cities, but the nomads were unfamiliar with the ways of cities. They had determined that the city should be built entirely from the stones from one quarry. At first this quarry had seemed infinite, the great slabs of rock that had outcropped, it seemed as if they would stretch on far beneath the thin turf. Believing that they enjoyed a near infinite wealth in their chosen stone, they were wasteful discarding pieces with a poorer figuring or cutting large pieces that necessitated much waste. Their city too, though smaller than it is today, was built with extravagance and architectural abandon. The buildings had many stories, turrets and such other features as amazed the visitors eye.
After a few short centuries, the seams of rock were petering out. They were cutting smaller and smaller pieces for building, and even that was not enough to allow fresh building. Barely enough for an outbuilding could be cut in a year. Being nomads, they did as nomad did. The city was not in where it was, but in what it was. They had resolved at some nameless point in time, that the city was built solely of those rocks from that quarry, internally supported and floored with such wood as they could find. Though in truth, in that empty land, wood was scarce more common, or more accessible than their chosen stone.
As nomads do, their city shifted, the wasteful stone foundations were dug up, and houses and great public buildings were installed on more rocky lands, where weatherworn rock made up the whole of the surface of the land. Gentle slots were cut to fix the base of their walls, and atop those the self same stones of old Chalcedony city were laid in fresh configurations. The old city now is marked by robber trenches, setting out where the streets and walls once lay, the diligent and poor are still prospecting for the odd slab of stone that might have been neglected and left behind, and might once again be reunited with its migrant city.
The city is never fixed, not as a city, nor as streets, houses or other buildings. Only the stones of Chalcedony are permanent, endlessly rearranging into different forms of building or city. The city was once small and ambitious, but the constant parsimony of their situation has imposed a pessimistic mien to their fresh city. The stones of Chalcedony cannot last forever, facing blocks are worn in the harsh desert winds, sand batters stone, until only sand remains. They seek to use their blocks until the very last, but eventually every stone must be a pebble and useless for building. And so their fine public buildings, with great spans and impressive arches, are becoming more mean and squat. Houses sit low in their landscape, huddling to the ground, the many stories of the old Chalcedony are a distant memory, if indeed they ever did exist. For now all there is is some low buildings, much as any other village, sunk low to the ground. The nomads are out of love with their idea of a city, the robber trenches sometimes reveal a fresh large block of cut stone, or even a fragment of such, exciting much telling of stories and fantasy. I do believe that for all their talk of the splendours of old Chalcedony, those desert people would fain recognise a real city now, one that stretched beyond a huddle of low huts sheltering against the sandy wind.
But in truth their city of Chalcedony has never left them, it is all around them now, as the pebbles and sand that they piss on, on cold winter nights.
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