Thus I continue to search, true to my oath. I question travelers, and I write new letters subtracting some facts and adding others, composing flatteries and threats I hope will bring this town and that to my assistance; no doubt my scribe thinks I am penning another such letter at this moment, a letter that he, poor fellow, will have to copy out with broad, fair flourishes upon sheepskins scraped thin.

We need a paper mill here, and it is the only thing that I am competent to do.

I wish Oreb were here.

Now that I know what I mean to do, I can begin. But not at the beginning. To begin at the beginning would consume far too much time and paper, to say nothing of ink. I am going to begin, when I do, just a day or two before the moment at which I put to sea in the sloop.

Tomorrow then, when I have had time to decide how best to tell the convoluted tale of my long, vain search for Patera Silk-for Silk my ideal, who was the augur of our manteion in the Sun Street Quarter of Our Sacred City of Viron in the belly of the Whorl.

When I was young.

The mainshaft had split-I remember that. I was taking it out of the journals when one of the twins ran in. I believe it was Hide. “A boat’s coming! A big boat’s coming!”

I told him that they probably wanted to buy a few bales, and that his mother could sell it to them as well as I could.

“Sinew’s here, too.”

Just to get rid of Hide, I told him to tell his mother about it. When he had gone, I got my needier from its hiding place and stuck it in my waistband under my greasy tunic.

Sinew was stamping up and down the beach, lovely shells of purple, rose, and purest white snapping beneath his boots. He looked surly when he saw me, so I told him to bring the good telescope out of the sloop. He would have defied me if he had possessed the courage. For half a minute we stood eye to eye; then he turned and went. I thought he was leaving, that he would put out for the mainland in his coracle and stay there for a week or a month, which to tell the truth I wanted much more than my telescope.