Location:The field at Harl's Bottom, ninth on the new board
Date/Time:4 Blazepeak 9943 AZI, Quenchday, before first light
Realm:Lower Realm
Nothing on that ground had rotted in nine thousand years, and Eden stopped at the edge of it and did not go on.
There was a tree down about forty paces in. It had come down a very long time ago — the break at the root was weathered smooth and gray — and it was lying across the pale ground exactly as it must have lain the morning it fell, bark on, every branch still where the branch had been, not one inch of it softened. No moss. No fungus in the bark. Nothing that eats wood had ever come to eat it, because nothing that eats anything had been alive in that ground since before the calendar.
"I have read it," Eden said. "I have read every report you have written since Voidmarch, and I have written it into my own."
"I know."
"It is different."
