By David Tallerman

Three thousand years we have waited.

Three thousand years since we fought and lost to them.  Were they stronger?  No, but they were bigger and more numerous.  For all our magic, they were too many.  I remember--the fierce northmen with their axes, and the blood of my brothers.  I remember, for I was there.  We are very old, we are, and age does not decay us as it does them--no, it teaches us.  We who are old and do not die have learned much in our waiting and in our patience.

And they?

Their memories are like fruit flies, which blink out as soon as they are born!  Two thousand years, no more--but they have forgotten.  With their cars, their tarmac, their factories, their hard dead world--they have forgotten us, we who cannot forget.

So much the better, for we have waited only for one thing.

For centuries we hid, in our cold barrows deep beneath the earth.  For centuries we watched and learned and fed ourselves on hatred.  And the time came, finally, when we were nothing to them but a story to amuse their children; not even to affright them, no, an amusement and nothing more.  And we knew that our time was close at hand.

And our scout parties went forth then--the bravest of us.  Is it so brave to hide?  Yes, when the hiding is in plain sight.  Oh, they had their magic, which made them like stone by day.  They were disguised beneath pointed hats and behind painted smiles, so that their anger did not show.  But still, to wait with patience in the very heart of the enemy's lands--upon their lawns and by their ponds, seeming to guard what they would sooner tear down.  Yes, they are the bravest of
us all.

And their bravery has not been in vain.

For a century and more they have watched and heard and learned and planned.  Our enemy has no weakness that we do not know, no fear that we shall not exploit, no secret that cannot be turned against them.

At dawn the war begins.  We shall slay them with magic, which they have long forgotten.  And if that should fail ... we have our axes; we have our spades; even a fishing rod can be deadly if there is hate enough in the heart of he who wields it.

The day is now, my brethren.

We are Gnosis, the knowing ones.  We are Kuba-walda, with hearts of stone.  We are gnomes, my brothers ... and soon the world shall be our garden.