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. "I
am not unaccustomed to seeing wayfarers as youthful as
yourself fall victim to any number of unfortunate mishaps in
the undisciplined confines of the wilderness. Being
moderately fond of our visits together in the recent past, I
was hoping to hear some motive or rationale for your
presence here before you, too, encounter any of the
aforementioned mishaps. Are you perhaps running away
from home?"
"No," I said, and then I said, "Yes," and then I said,
"No. Maybe. I don't know."
"Mmm." Cotterpin took another sip of his tea and
looked off at the sun, which was just above the hill that
hides New-shore from view. He didn't say anything more
for a long time, and before I knew it I had told him
everything, even the part about the question that you wanted
Ark to answer (but I didn't tell him about the facts
machine).
"Mmm," he said when I was done. "I see." Cotterpin
was quiet for a while, and we looked at the open fields
around us and watched deer graze and a hawk hunt for
rabbits. The wind was getting a little cooler, but it was still
okay to be out.
"It seems like an eon ago that I dwelled in Istar," said
Cotterpin at last, watching the hawk with a peaceful face.
"Yet even now I remember it far better than I would like. In
the twilight years of that sea-buried land, I labored as a
menial slave, the chattel of a priest. I had arrived there but
scant decades before as a fully accredited diplomat from my
homeland - the extinct geothermal vent called Mount Nevermind
by the knights
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