A debalba, also devalpa or dawalbay, is a fae of the desert that appears as a decrepit old man on the side of roads or near streams. They especially prefer salt flats and dried lake beds, themselves smelling intensely of salt. They do not speak, and looking pitiful and worn, they make gestures for travelers to carry them along the way on their backs. As soon as one does this, though it may be as light as a spirit at first, a debalba will grow, doubling in size and weighing the kind traveler down unbearably. Now the debalba can exact what he needs. He will drive his helper to the nearest oasis, no matter how far that may be, so that he can pick fruit from personback that he could not reach on his own. His legs are woolly and leathery like a cow's and he has a long cowlike tail he will produ