The notebook in front of him now seemed inert, useless. The thoughts welling up behind the pen receded into some middle distance, waiting for him to call them forth again.
"Tell me, if I'm not bothering you," Farid said, "how you came to write Myths of the Green Tablet."
"You mean you don't know?" He'd meant it as self-deprecating but it came out vainglorious. "I guess I've told it so many times I expect anyone who wanted to know would know."
It had gotten him in trouble. Vague death threats from a bunch of doddering priests. A shorter stint at the university in Smaragdine than he would have liked. The Green Tablet not the gospel, not even vaguely true? He hadn't realized the effect it would have when he was writing it - he just wrote it.
"I know, but it's different reading it in the p
