Under a Broken Sky·Book 2 of 2
The Wall of the World
A title he never asked for. A knot that unties itself. A wall at the edge of the world.
The survivors of an air crash are prisoners in a settlement that stands where the sea should be, and the old man locked in with them is not frightened of anything. He teaches them a trade language, gives their captain a name in his own, and answers only the questions nobody thinks to ask. When men arrive from the east to collect the prisoners, he looks at the tied door and says it is not a very good door.
What it teaches while you read
- Finishes the modal ladder that book one starts. Seven explanations are recited in order at a fire, and then something ends the argument and the modals stop.
- A language lesson runs inside the story, so the words the characters are taught are the words the reader meets: door, open, wait, who is outside, how many days, north, river, boat.
- Dialogue-forward, and most of it is two people misunderstanding each other on purpose.
Part two of two, written to stand on its own for anyone who starts here. The old man is the argument of both books: he says he only asks people questions, and every impossible thing in the story is something he could plausibly have talked somebody into. The narration never rules on it, and never rules on him, right up to the last two lines. Read what he actually answers and what he refuses to, and you will notice he is generous with distances, days and routes, and useless about meaning.
Begins with
Under a Broken Sky
