Ken lit up when Arthur entered. Any meeting with a fellow taleweaver was an occasion worth celebrating, but this one not only had stories from Earth. He came from Earth. Ken had searched. For half a millennium he had travelled the corners of the world in hopes of finding someone who knew about the home he'd lost. To find him in Verd of all places. All ways lead to Verd, indeed. That phrase, or at least one similar, had been ancient when he woke up here in the middle of the nightmare he'd taken years to accept as home. Seven hundred years. How many back home? He shrugged the thought away and greeted Arthur.

"Welcome. Your food should be here in moments."

Arthur gave him a look of disdain.

"But you already knew that," Ken continued as if he hadn't noticed. A pity he's such an arrogant prick.

"I've decided to accept you as my teacher, in as much as you have anything but history to teach me."

"And you've Woven for how long?" Ken stifled a yearning to slap some sense into the boy. Looks thirty, can't be much older. So full of himself.

"Half a year, here." Arthur smirked. "Two decades as a newscaster back home," he added.

Another of the words with a maddening similarity. Newscaster, some strange mix of journalist and media mogul. They had tried to strike up a conversation on his way to The Tree. English was nothing like what it had been. A smattering staccato with so many Arabic and Chinese additions it was almost impossible to understand. They had switched to De Vhatic before agreeing to meet here today.

The memory made him laugh. Ironic enough that he'd grown up with English as the lingua franca. To see De Vhatic take the position was hilarious in extreme.

"That would still leave me with a few years more experience, I believe." But he's well over forty then. Need to learn how to evaluate their age.

"You were in commercial casting? Never seen you."

You probably wouldn't. "No, I taught history at university before coming here," Ken answered instead.

"Academy drone. Should have guessed. Reading instead of experiencing, teaching instead of living, yes I know your kind."

The little shit! "Manners apart I think we should be able to come to some kind of agreement." Kick his arse all the way to Chen, but dammit, I've waited so long for news I'll take a piece of swollen head to get it. "We've both to benefit from one, wouldn't you think?"

Arthur shrugged. "Not in faci dress, at least."

What's his problem? Hates uniforms, that is certain. Some kind of takeover at home? I have to know. "I haven't been in a uniform for a long time. Promise you I have no plans changing that."

The relief on Arthur's face was frightening. "And we travel?"

"We have to." Ken grinned. "The experiencing and living part, you know."

"I guess."

Damn, a lemon would be sweeter.

"Oh bloody hell. I apologize. You can't help your background any more than I can mine. Has to be something you can teach me."

And if that is a sincere apology I don't want to know what he considers an insult. "I'm sure we will come up with something. Day after tomorrow?"

"Day after tomorrow," Arthur confirmed. "South gate?"

Ken agreed and they shook hands. He marvelled. Shaking hands. He hadn't met anyone who took that gesture for granted since he arrived here seven hundred years earlier.

#

Harbend stirred in his sleep. He was dreaming, but it felt like the dream didn't belong to him. Too many smells, and the sounds were too clear and distinct. It made him feel like a meal being prepared. It made him feel like... Gring! What are you doing in my sleep?

As shocked as he was sensing the predator's mind of a khraga in his dreams another shock jolted him awake. Something had happened. Something terrible. Something beautiful.

Suddenly Gring's thoughts flared clear in his mind. He could sense her somewhere out on the Sea of Grass, her determination and rage. Rage?

Her fury was terrible enough to drown the sense of inhuman wonder that filled the darkness, but her sorrow, her sorrow was worse. She told him everything, and her mind cried like a human mother trying to comfort a stricken child as Harbend roared his grief into the night.

#

Mairild rushed from her apartment into the streets, six members of the Imperial Guard flanking her on all sides.

The night had gone mad.

Yellow light from the lampposts all over Verd was mixed with that from lanterns and torches. Poor and rich alike had left their homes in the thousands.

Tens of thousands, unholy gods, they're everywhere!

She stopped at the edge of Ming Hjil de Verd. There was nothing else she could have done. The square was filled with people of all ages. Some dancing, some shouting, some singing in ecstasy but most silent in prayer.

The air vibrated with power. She had sensed it a few times when her duties took her to places she had to keep secret, but nothing like this. A day's rain had given way to a dense fog, and every tiny drop of water caressed her with the forbidden power, every gust of wind filled her lungs with the gift, and all around her people stared ahead, and up.

The castle shone.

Magecrafters of an age past had wrought the living art from power and artistic skill, but what she saw was far, far beyond the skill of any human. Legends fought and loved. They were born, aged and died. Every song they heard she heard, every flower she smelled and every caress she felt, even those of steel.

High, high above them all a star she didn't recognize shone brighter than any other. It would dim eventually she knew, but for now she was filled with wonder. Nothing could erase this moment, not even the horrors of a hundred years past. For the first time in her life she understood deep inside why all of Erkateren had erupted in flame and violence the last time a god was born. Killing to celebrate a god, singing to celebrate a god or praying, what did it matter? Only celebration mattered. Celebration and ecstasy.