Lens of the World Read Online Free PDF

Nazhuret and the ten stubby fingers on his hands and the two splayed feet that moved him from place to place. Out of what instinct or guidance I do not know I turned from that shrinking light amid the darkness and let go of Nazhuret and of all of the first-person-singular pronoun as well.
    My king, this is a memory of a memory, but I speak as truthfully as I know how. Try to follow me, no matter where.
    The darkness was not darkness (is not darkness, even now) but light, and in every reach was knowledge, content and endless. So, too, was time (that thing which we know only through its being gone): content and endless, not a river but a sea.
    Yet there was a voice, and it said, “Tell me about Nazhuret.”
    Amid infinite light nothing is hidden, not even Nazhuret, so the answer came easily. “Nazhuret looked often into the mirror, yet he was not vain.”
    “What else?”
    “He made third in the ranks at Sordaling School, and would have
been first, but for his background.” “What was his background?”
    “He had none.”
    “Tell me more.” The voice was familiar. Ironical.
    “Nazhuret loved the Lady Charlan, daughter of Baron Howdl. But she is gone.”
    This, although true, had never been said aloud.
    “Go on.”
    “So is Nazhuret. Gone.”
    The voice amid the light was no stronger than a draft through a cold hallway, but it could not be escaped.
    “Was Nazhuret a good fellow, as men go?” it asked, and after slow. rolling time came the answer.
    “Yes. He stayed out all night sometimes, but he was a good fellow.”
    The voice laughed: not an annoying laugh. “Good fellows are not everywhere, these days. Nazhuret could be useful. There is even a need, perhaps. And perhaps he will come back to us.”
    The reaches of light were moving. There was a haze, a glaze, a network of brightness through them. “Nazhuret is dead,” it answered, but the voice continued, “Nazhuret can come back, if he chooses. If he cares.”
    The light ran into veins, coalesced, leaving dark and unknowing around it as it shrank.
    “Will he come back? Will you come back to us, Nazhuret? Back to the world and the cold stone floor?”
    The light spun cobwebby fine, tighter and tighter until it extinguished its own inner radiance. I became aware that it was I. That I was. I. First person singular.
    Oh, grief and loss and straight necessity, that light and time and knowing be pressed down until it is matter, until it is I.
    “Why must I?” I said. “Nothing is worth this. Not this. This is terrible.”
    And he answered, “You are not compelled to return. Yet I have a use for you here. I ask this sacrifice of you, Nazhuret, Will you return?”
    I opened my eyes, saying, “Yes. Enough. All right, damn it,” and there, leaning over me, was the smooth face of the man with the hedger and the bald spot and all the fine tailoring. “Nazhuret,” the voice said as he lifted my head and put white linen on my bleeding cheek. “Welcome. My name is Powl. I am your teacher.”
     
    I can scarcely believe it has been four weeks since I began this manuscript, sir. I am appalled to have been so slow in fulfilling a command of the king, but believe that I have not been merely desultory; along with the local haying we have had epidemics both of summer fever and dueling, and they have kept me tolerably occupied. I hold the pen now in a hand neatly silk-stitched from knuckle to wrist to prevent the flesh from gaping.
    No, I mislead you. It is an injury from a grass scythe. I lent a hand (this hand) to replace a sick harvestman. I could try writing left-handed, but it is not fair, sir, that you should be the sufferer in such an experiment. I will proceed slowly, but I will proceed.
    In the garden of your city palace at Vestinglon, where I hazard the guess you sit to read this—that is, if the weather remains fine and I do not continue writing on into the winter—there you have a very clear pool. Rise if you will, take this page with you, and go to the