In the summers, the constant chink-chink of blacksmiths and other metalworkers hammering away, the pitter-patter and eager shouts of children playing in the street, the murmur of old men and women conversing, the occasional grind of wheeled carts upon the cobblestone, and the impalpable but undeniable groan of people sweating, cattle grazing, and crops growing combine with the hazy sunlight of the valley to create a pleasingly languid radiance of familiarity that lends the townsfolk a feeling of safety and of vague but definite kinship with one another. The smell of meats curing sometimes hangs in the air; other times, the unmistakable aroma of cow's manure wafts into the city from the outlying fields. During the winters, which are cold but not icy, and which bring veritable mountains of snow down from the mountains, the chink-chink of the blacksmiths continues, as does the play of the children, but all else is silent. It is a time of preparation for the busy rainy spring to come, a time of rest, like night. Nights are always silent in the Valley of the Silver Star, save for the occasional wail of a lonely wolf, owl, or loon, and in the winter, the crackling of burning wood warming the little stone huts.

This was the place Teelia and Rillop were born, and the place they grew up, the place they became adults. It was the place they battled for when its long peace was threatened by the unholy allegiance of Garvin the Terrible of the nearby Crow Clan, and the Black Phantoms of Cypress Forest, who had always left the cities of the valley alone, as long as they stayed out of their forest, but who were bought by Garvin; and it was the place they hoped to live out their days together, kissed by eternity. They were part of the place, and it was part of them.

They were born on opposite sides of Pearthorn, and though they probably crossed paths a time or two, they never actually met each other until they were both well into adulthood. Teelia had sweated through twenty-nine summers, and Rillop thirty, when they first looked into each others' eyes and knew that they were wrong about existence, and that life did hold a greater joy than simply being, after all. They met in battle.

Rillop, the son of a shepherd, was a solitary man. He wasn't a pariah — in fact he was well-liked, being strong, dependable, honest, generous, and willing to lend his remarkable strength and endurance to anyone who needed help, say mending a fence, or fixing a house, or cutting some wood. No, it was just that he had spent the majority of his childhood and the early days of his manhood in communion only with the sheep he tended. He often spent weeks at a time alone in the pastures with his flock, observing the world, ruminating about life, doing everything himself, with nobody to tell him how to do it, and nobody to worry about when he was doing it; and becoming used to this solitude, he had adopted the way of it even among others.

At supper, for instance, when visiting friends or family, he would grab his plate, and sit down cross-legged on the floor, as he always did when alone in the fields, with his back against a wall instead of against a tree, while everyone else sat together at the table. He never made small talk, and if someone else did, he did not respond to it. Conversely, if he happened to think of something he considered interesting, such as the complex and seemingly purposeful design of the thousand constellations that dotted a shepherd's sky, the philosophical underpinnings of the economic structure of Pearthorn and nearby cities, or the mating habits of sheep, he would not hesitate to mention it, and to go on and on about it while his listener yawned. He could sit silent in the company of strangers, and not be awkward, for he was always thinking about something, and was wont to forget he was not alone. He was considered stubborn, not because he ever demonstrated the indomitable will that later got him through the war and across the sea alone, but because he did things his own way, and seemed unable to change even a little bit. He had never had to consider what others thought of him, and seemed unable to, even in company. So he would sit against the walls, his plate between his knees, and talk and laugh with the others from there, and they would get used to him.

Most forgave him his peculiarity because of his good qualities, this stout, gentle, soft-spoken bear of a man, and because they had a natural liking for him, for his friendly laugh, his guileless demeanor, and the quiet smile he always gave when you told him something about yourself that perhaps you were a little embarrassed to tell. He enjoyed the company of others, for the most part, as much as they enjoyed his presence, but he always perceived a veil between himself and them. He thought maybe there was a veil between each of them, as well, but he could not speak to others' perceptions. He thought often, and even spoke occasionally, of the "breath of eternity," that intense feeling of existence, of clarity, of freedom, that he knew in the field, tending his flock, ruminating, listening to the soft sweet music of the river and the wind and of the flute that floated to him across the fields many a late evening in the valley. There was a greater existence, he had decided, perhaps not after you died, as some cults believed, but somewhere, within you, behind you, somewhere, an eternity, that you couldn't quite perceive in total, but could feel brushing up against you like a soft wind, like breath — and around the others, even his closest friends, his perception of this eternity faded, as the veil, the mist, went up between him and them. He accepted his solitude as a fact of his life, accepted and was content to tread the length of his days enjoying simply being alive.