Morlock was not a talkative type, but the rest of the customers made up for that. Three of his line-mates were writing books about the end of the world, which they hoped to have completed to great acclaim before the world actually ended, and another was writing a book about how the world was not really ending, just going through a natural phase of transition, which would bring an end to all life. Another, who did not believe in the writing of books, proved through a set of syllogisms that the world’s weather was no different than it had ever been, as far as anyone could tell. Another was proving through syllogisms that nothing could be proven through syllogisms.

“What’s your opinion, Citizen?” asked the man behind him in line.

Morlock mulled over his options and then said, “I have heard that the Sunkillers are responsible—malefic beings from beyond the northern rim of the world.”

There was general laughter at this. He was informed, on good authority, that there was no northern rim of the world and that, if there were, there could not be anything beyond it. He was asked to define his terms. He was asked for the physical evidence or at least eyewitness testimony to support his claims. Then a red-faced, red-haired academic in a scarlet gown said, “This gentleman has been talking to Iacomes.”

Silence fell and every eye turned to Morlock. He said, “I did talk to a colleague of yours yesterday, but he said his name was Angustus—”

“Preposterous!” shouted the red academic. “‘Angustus’! How would one even pronounce that?”

“Angustus?”

“No, it must be one of his pseudonyms. Tell me, was he a tall, dark-skinned man with dark eyes and a pleasing manner?”

“No.”

“Then it must have been him! Do you know what he has been telling my students?”

Morlock didn’t answer, but the red academic didn’t seem to notice. “He tells my students that it’s not wrong to steal if they are hungry! Can you believe it, sir?”

There was a general murmur of outrage.

“What if the students starve to death?” Morlock asked. “Whom will you citizens teach at the Lyceum?”

“It would be a great relief to have less students,” remarked one of the academics. “Then I could write more books about the importance of education.”

There was a general titter at this citizen’s expense. “Fewer, Arnderus, ‘fewer students.’ You can’t use less as an adjective with a noun denoting a set of discrete objects.”

“Except for numerical measurements,” reminded another academic.

“Oh, yes, of course.”

Arnderus turned screaming on his tormentors. He grabbed fistfuls of reed pens from a nearby stand and began stabbing at anyone within arm’s reach.

“No discussions of grammar or usage, citizens!” bleated Shardhut, but it was too late; the linguistic analysis and the violence threatened to become general.

It was then that Shardhut’s bulky assistants proved their worth. They waded into the fight, stripped the combatants of their goods, and tossed them into the street. In a few moments order was restored and the line to the cashbox was considerably shorter.

The conversation, when it resumed, was much more subdued, and it did not hinge on such fiercely disputed topics as the ethics of stealing or which adjective might be used with which noun. Mostly they talked about the end of the world and whether it would arrive before the next summer recess.

As Morlock was pondering the paradox of windbags who could contemplate their students starving with equanimity but were moved to blows over a point of language, he suddenly saw in his mind’s eye the perfect design for his airship. He no longer needed the pens and paper. He left them on a table and walked out into the street, where the linguistic fistfight still continued. He walked past, hardly noticing, thinking of a bag of gas floating high in the air, its angry heat perpetually renewed by contact with a living mind.

Morlock was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice when his basket became lighter by a couple mushrooms. But the thief in her haste let her hand brush against Morlock’s left forearm. An instant later, the thief’s wrist was in the grip of Morlock’s left hand. The thief gasped in pain and surprise, and the guilty mushrooms fell to the ground, where hands started to scrabble for them instantly. Morlock stomped on a few fingers, and soon he was left in peace with his thief and his mushrooms.

The thief was a young woman in an academic gown. Her face was thin and grayish, her eye-sockets shadowed with dark green, like old bruises. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I was just so hungry. And there’s a teacher at the Lyceum who says it’s all right to steal if you’re hungry.”

“Only if you get away with it.” Morlock let her go and recovered his mushrooms. When he looked up, she was still standing there, looking sadly at his basket packed with food.

Morlock was strongly opposed to theft, and he damned Angustus in his heart for setting children like this on a path they were utterly unprepared for. How many had ended up in jail or worse?

“I need the food,” he said harshly. Then on impulse he took a bag of gold and tossed it to her. “This should buy you something.”

She opened the bag, looked at it suspiciously. “Why are you giving me money rather than food?”

“I can’t make food.”

“That implies you can make gold.”

“Eh.” Morlock walked away.

There was a draper’s shop on his way and he went in and bargained for some ulken-cloth, to be sent to his camp south of the city. It was surprisingly cheap, compared to food, but he did need a lot of it, and the deal diminished his stock of gold considerably. He went back to his camp and secured his food in the wilderment there.

He turned to face the thin-faced scholar who had followed him all the way back.

She said nothing to him, so he said nothing to her. He turned away and went down the bluff to the banks of the River Nar.

He pulled sheckware buckets from a sleeve pocket, unfolded them, and filled them with yellow mud from the river. He hauled the buckets up the bluff to his campsite.

The young scholar was sitting nearby, resting her chin on her knees.

Morlock shrugged, dispelled his occlusions and wilderments, and set about his business. He made a fire, unpacked the portable forge the dwarvish makers of the Blackthorns had given him, and while he was waiting for it to rise to a useful temperature he had a drink of that mushroomy beer that the dwarves were fond of. Morlock was not fond of it, but he did feel that any drink was better than none.

“Master,” said the scholar tentatively.

“I am not your master.”

“What’s your name? Mine is Varyl.”

“My name is my business.”

“Are you about to make gold?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“May I take notes?”

Morlock thought for a moment. He did some math in his head, the primitive math of economics. He almost said no to her. Then he thought of those plump, red-faced, student-hating teachers in the stationer’s shop. “Eh,” he said aloud.

She took this as permission and pulled a tablet and stylus from pockets in her gown.

He ended up calling her over to the forge and explaining a few things to her. Raising the mass to equal the appropriate volume of gold involved a transition through a higher space, and he was concerned that she might not be able to follow it. But it turned out that she knew a good deal of metadimensional geometry. By the time his gold was cooling next to the forge, she had pocketed her tablet and was wandering away, chewing thoughtfully at her stylus.

Morlock never saw her again. But the next day when he went down to the market to cheapen some thread, he found that the price of food had doubled overnight. Many of the buyers were hollow-cheeked young people in academic gowns who seemed to have plenty of gold.