24

The skies are expansive as you walk, the sunset before you making you squint. Billingsley behind you is still humming with activity, and yet for all its seeming size and bustle you know that in the entirety of the Kingdom of Brenton, 'tis closer in scale to your average beehive than, say, the mighty metropolis of Hondelet where King Saul IV reigns.

Such a vast world you inhabit…and you, so small a mote within it, fit to be snorted into and sneezed out of Your Maker's nostrils at any second.

And yet, mote though you are, a grand dream has held on within you ever since you were a stripling. The dream took root when, against your parents' wishes, you ran with other children to see the traveling players who had set up a wagon in a meadow near your farm.

More than their ramshackle finery, you remember the way the players commanded the attention of their audience…and their raucous portrayals of kings, queens, nobles, and their fools.

Onward