Macao paused in front of the map, pretending to study it, but they could see her eyes look away while she considered what came next. “In fact, we don’t even know what lies beyond the Skatbrones.” Digger had heard the term before and believed it referred to the mountain range that sealed off the northern continent from the Intigo.

“We come here and talk about all manner of curious beasts, some of which I’ve actually seen, and some of which not. But not one of you knows which is true and which an imagining. And I put it to you that that is not a supportable state of affairs.”

“It’s not a perfect representation,” Digger continued. “Arms are too long. Feet are too much like their own. But it’s close.”

A cup of water and an oil lamp stood on a table beside Macao. Digger decided she looked good in the glow of the lamp. Large malleable ears. Supple arms. Cute in the way, maybe, that a giraffe was cute. If her features were less than classic, they were nonetheless congenial and warm. Her eyes swept across him and seemed for a heart-stopping moment to linger. As if she knew.

More hands were going up. She recognized one.

“I’m Koller. It’s true we can’t see far, Macao; but it’s impious to talk the way you do. The gods (something, something) these things for a reason.”

“And what is the reason, Koller?”

“I don’t know. But we should (something) the will of the gods. You come here and make up these wild tales, and I wonder whether the gods laugh to hear what you say. I’m not sure I want to be sitting this close to you when we all know that a bolt could come through the roof at any moment.”

She smiled at him. “Koller, I think we’re safe.”

“Really? Have you looked at the sky recently?” And with that Koller got up, made his way into the aisle, and left the building.

“Well,” Macao said. “I hope nobody gets (something, but probably ‘singed’) when it happens.”

The audience was silent, except for a couple of nervous laughs.

“The thing is,” said Digger, “it looks like us, but not quite. And it’s sitting on one of those rhinos. But the rhino has wings.”

She had to go look for herself. When she came back she touched his arm. “Never see the day one of those things could get off the ground,” she said.

“That’s what I’m wondering about.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s obviously a mythological beast.”

“So you think—”

“—The guy that looks like us is a mythological beast, too.”

“Hey,” she said, “he looks like you, not me.”

So the next question was, what sort of mythological beast? Considering the way everyone had panicked whenever they’d caught a glimpse of Digger, he thought he could guess.

“I actually have done a fair amount of far traveling,” Macao was saying. “There are a lot of strange things out there. Some strange things in here, too.” She said it lightly, and they pounded their appreciation. “If you go out the front door of this place and turn left, and walk a few hundred paces, there’s a park. It’s called Binlo, or Boplo—”

“Barlo,” someone said from the third row.

Digger suspected she’d known all along. “Barlo.” She tasted the word on her tongue, rolled it around in her mouth, smiled, and took a coin out of her sleeve. “Later this evening, when we’re finished here, if your way home leads through Barlo Park, stop a minute, and consider that this is the world that we know.” She held the coin so it flashed in the lamplight. “This small piece of metal encompasses the entire known world. Where we live. It’s the isthmus, and the land up to the Skatbrones, and the Sunrise Islands, and the Seawards, and the Windemeres, and the shoreline as far as we can see. And south to the Skybreakers. Every place where we’ve walked.” She gazed curiously at it. “And the park is the world beyond. The great darkness into which we’ve cast no light.

“We boast of our maps, and we call ourselves (something). We pretend to much knowledge. But the truth is that we are gathered around a fire”—she lifted the lamp, and watched shadows move across the room—“in a very large and very dark forest.” She turned the stem and the light flickered and died. “I can’t bring myself to believe there’s an infinite amount of water in the world. But maybe I’m wrong.” Someone was trying to get her attention. “No,” she said, “let me finish my thought. We live on an island of light. What extends beyond us in all directions is not the sea, but our own ignorance.” The lamp blinked back on, as if by magic. “Persons like me can come before you with the most preposterous stories, and no one really knows what is true and what is not. In fact, despite everyone’s (something), there really is a falloon. It doesn’t actually gulp down ships.” She moved to the edge of the stage, gazing out over her audience. “As far as I know.”

Digger and Kellie moved cautiously around the stage so they could see better.

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” she continued. “Yet when I tell you about it, you assume that I make it up. Why? Is it because you have evidence to the contrary? Or because you expect me to invent such tales?

“Each year, in the spring, the citizens of Brackel celebrate the founding of their city. Kulnar, which is, of course, older by several hundred years, celebrates in midwinter.”

Several of the audience stood to repudiate her remark. Someone flung a scarf into the air. The question of which city was older was obviously a matter in dispute, and advocates were present for both claims.

Macao let it go on for a bit, then waved them to order. “The truth is, nobody really knows which city is older. But it’s of no consequence.” Her audience quieted. “However—” She drew the word out. “—That we have been here so long, and know so little, even about our own history, is to our discredit.” Digger could hear a cart passing outside.

She held up a scroll. “This is Bijjio’s Atlas of the Known World. It’s accurate, as far as anyone knows. But it is really no more than a few introductory remarks and a lot of speculation.” She paused and took a sip of the water. “We all know the story of Moro, who sailed east and returned from the west.”

An arm went up in back. “My name is Groffel.” The speaker swelled with the significance of what he was about to say. “You’re not going to tell us the world is round, I hope?”

“Groffel,” she said, “it’s time we found out. Found out if there really are lands over the horizon. If there really are two-headed Goompahs. But we need support. We need you to help.”

There were shouts. “The Krolley mission,” someone said. And: “They’re lunatics.” And: “My honored friend should open his mind.”

A voice on the far side, near the wall: “I assume, Macao, we’re talking about contributions.”

She waited until her audience had subsided. “We are talking about an investment,” she said. “We are talking about our future, about whether we will still be wondering about these issues a hundred or six hundred years from now.” She seemed to grow taller. “I don’t say who’s right and who’s wrong. But I do say we should settle the matter. We should find out.

“Three ships will make the voyage. Like Moro, they will travel east, into the sunrise. They will record whatever islands they encounter, and eventually they will return over there.” She pointed toward the back of the auditorium. West. A murmur ran through the audience.

“But why now? When the signs are bad?”

Kellie stirred. “Signs?” she asked. “Does he mean the cloud?”

Another voice: “How long will it take?”

“We estimate three years,” she said.

“And on what is the estimate based?”

“The size of the world.”

“You know the size of the world?”

Another smile. “Oh, yes.”

“And how big is it?”

“It is a sphere, 90,652 gruden around the outside.”

“Really?” This was Orky again. “Not 653?”

“Round it off a bit, if you like.”

Someone in back stood up. “You’ve measured it?”

“In a manner of speaking. I have seen it measured.” She waited for the laughter, got it, let it die away, and added: “I am quite serious.”

“And was it done with a measuring rod?”

“Yes,” she said. “Actually it was done with two measuring rods.” She was completely in control. “Scholars placed rods of identical lengths at Brackel and at T’Mingletep. Who knows how far T’Mingletep is from here?”

“A long walk,” said someone in back. But he didn’t get the laughter he expected, and he sat down.

“That’s right. Although it’s on the western sea, it’s almost directly south of Brackel. And the distance has been measured. North to south, it is precisely 346 gruden.” Digger had seen the term gruden before, but until that moment he had no idea whether it was the length of someone’s arm or a half dozen klicks.

“The shadows cast by the rods were measured through the course of the day. The shadows are longer in T’Mingletep. And the difference in lengths between T’Mingletep and here makes it possible to calculate the size of the world.”

“It’s too much for me,” said Orky.

Whether 90,000 gruden seemed outrageously big or too small to the audience, Digger couldn’t tell. But he knew the experiment, of course. It was similar to the one performed by Eratosthenes, who got very close to the size of the Earth in 240 B.C.

They were silent for a time, and she recognized a big Goompah in the front row. “Klabit,” he said. “Macao, I don’t know whether it’s round or not. But if it really is round, wouldn’t the water run off? Wouldn’t the ships themselves fall off when they got far enough around the curve?”

Macao let them see the question had stopped her. “I don’t know the answer to that, Klabit. But the ground between here and T’Mingletep is curved. That’s established beyond doubt.” She looked out over her audience. “So the truth is, nobody really knows why the water doesn’t run off. Obviously, it doesn’t happen, or there’d be no tide tonight.” (Laughter.) “I admit I don’t understand how the world can be round, but it seems that it is. I say, let’s find out. Once and for all. Let’s send the ships east over the ocean and watch to see from which direction they return.”

Her audience had become restive. Macao left the stage and went out among them. “The mission will cost a great deal of money. The funds from this evening, after I’ve taken my expenses—”

“—of course—” said a voice on the far side.