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But an orphan he was, and a Strange, and though he was prone to fantasy, he never had any delusions about that Even as a little boy, he understood that there would be no revelations No one was co for him, and he would never know his own true name

Which is perhaps why the mystery of Weep captured him so completely

There were two mysteries, actually: one old, one new The old one opened his mind, but it was the new one that clirunt—like a satisfied dragon in a cozy new lair And there it would rema for years to come

It had to do with a naotten, they could also be stolen

He was five years old when it happened, a charity boy at Zemonan Abbey, and he’d snuck away to the old orchard that was the haunt of nightwings and lacewings to play by himself It was early winter The trees were black and bare His feet breached a crust of frost with every step, and the cloud of his breath accohost

The Angelus rang, its bronze voice pouring through the sheepfold and over the orchard walls in slow, rich waves It was a call to prayer If he didn’t go in, he would be missed, and if he was missed, he would be whipped

He didn’t go in

Lazlo was always finding ways to slip off on his own, and his legs were always striped fro froet away from the monks and the rules and the chores and the life that pinched like tight shoes

To play

“Turn back now if you knohat’s good for you,” he warned iinary enemies He held a “sword” in each hand: black apple branches with the stout ends bound in twine to make hilts He was a small, underfed ith cuts on his head where the ainst lice, but he held hinity, and there could be no doubt that in his own mind, in that moment, he was a warrior And not just any warrior, but a Tizerkane, fiercest that ever was “No outsider,” he told his foes, “has ever set eyes on the forbidden city And as long as I draw breath, none ever will”

“We’re in luck, then,” the foes replied, and they weredrifted downhill fro breath for er”

Lazlo’s gray eyes narrowed to slits “You think you can defeat me?”

The black trees danced His breath-ghost scudded away on a gust, only to be replaced by another His shadow splayed out huge before his, a mountain of melted demon bones and the city on the far side of it—a city that had vanished in the mists of time

This was the old mystery

It had come to him from a senile monk, Brother Cyrus He was an invalid, and it fell to the charity boys to bring hiure, no rip, and was known to hold the boys by the wrist for hours, forcing them to repeat nonsense catechisms and confess to all manner of wickedness they could scarce understand, let alone have conarled raptor hands, and the bigger boys, sooner than protect the smaller, sent them to his lair in their stead Lazlo was as scared as the rest, yet he volunteered to bring all the meals

Why?

Because Brother Cyrus told stories

Stories were not smiled upon at the abbey At best, they distracted froods and festered into sin But Brother Cyrus had gone beyond such strictures His s He never seemed to understand where he was, and his confusion infuriated hirew clenched and red Spittle flehen he ranted But he had his h some cellar door in his randmother used to tell him He couldn’t remember the other monks’ names, or even the prayers that had been his vocation for decades, but the stories poured from him, and Lazlo listened He listened the way a cactus drinks rain

In the south and east of the continent of Namaa—far, far from northerly Zosma—there was a vast desert called the El of which was an art perfected by few and fiercely guarded against all others Somewhere across its emptiness lay a city that had never been seen It was a rumor, a fable, but it was a rued, carried by cainations of folk the world over

The city had a name

The ht the marvels, they told the name and they told stories, and the name and the stories made their ith the littering dos, women so beautiful they melted the mind, and men whose scimitars blinded with their shine

For centuries this was so Wings of palaces were devoted to the rew rich Adventurers grew bold, and went to find the city for themselves None returned It was forbidden to faranji—outsiders—who, if they survived the El, were executed as spies Not that that stopped the and he craves it like his soul’s salvation, all theis the source of incomparable riches

Many tried

None ever returned

The desert horizon birthed sun after sun, and it seee But then, two hundred years ago, the caravans stopped co In the western outposts of the Elmuthaleth—Alkonost and others—they watched for the heat-distorted silhouettes of cae from the emptiness as they always had, but they did not