The Metaphorager.

MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN OF the nomadic Xao, one of three peoples descended from the Exilic Lands’ original inhabitants. But of their sundered cousins, the forest-dwelling Xai, few tales have been told – and fewer still are those outsiders who have visited their native home and returned with tales of their own.

As was his longstanding habit when his coin jar became heavy, Prosatio Silban and his dray-beast Onward were taking their ease by meandering through someplace unfamiliar to either of them: in this case, the vast and light-dappled Greenlanes, north of the Uulian Commonwell. From the forest’s flat, leaf-carpeted floor sprouted tall and variegated stands of spirewood, teal cypress, half-moon bay, and many other trees the cook-errant couldn’t identify.

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DESPITE ITS GENERAL ALLURE, IMMORTALITY isn’t necessarily suitable for everyone.

“To the point: You shall live forever as the centerpiece of my next theatrical work, The Cook For Any Price; or, A Delicious Wage,” Amaeus Tozar said, raising his yava-mug for emphasis. “Nothing more, and nothing less. And I will not allow you to decline.”

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SOMETIMES, THE MOST RANDOM OF encounters can also be the most memorable.

Prosatio Silban was driving his galleywagon high on the switchback road between Mountainfoot and Overlook, and passing the time by whistling selections from Orcio Phatar’s famous musical suite, Grand Dreams Delayed. The early afternoon was as perfect as one could wish – warm sun, passing clouds, exquisite view, lazy drone of distant sapphire-bees – but the worried cook-errant paid scant attention.

If I don’t arrive by sunset, my would-be patron will not be pleased, he thought.

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“WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT element of the Perfect Meal?” someone once asked Prosatio Silban.

“The company,” came his reply.

“But cannot one have a perfect meal by oneself?” his inquisitor persisted.

The cook-errant thought for a moment. “Only if that one,” he said with a smile, “is at One.”

IT WAS AS BEAUTIFUL, BREEZY, and otherwise uneventful a day as any in the Three Cities and Thousand Villages of the Uulian Commonwell, save for one particular: the long queues of people, in every settlement of any size, waiting their turn for the Decennial Tally.

Prosatio Silban’s galleywagon was parked in the rustic riverside village of Frogbottom, near the end of the human line that stretched to the Tabulators sitting at a wooden table. The two bored-looking, guard-flanked officials, wrapped in the tricolor robes of Commonwell bureaucrats, asked each person the same three questions: “Name?” “Age?” “Occupation?” This slow parade of individuals, couples, and families had been going on all morning and looked as if it would continue into the afternoon as well.

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