There was a time, not long after Vakochev laid down his Scales of Existence, when the laying was still new enough that beings could remember when it had not been there. This story comes from that seam between the ages.
In those days there was a Primeval Lifeform called THE Verdant Antecedent, old past the reckoning of the new Scales, who took on students the way an ancient tree takes on the vines that climb it, without much comment and without much mercy. Two of these students are the ones the story remembers.
The first was named Sallowe. The second was named Bryndel.
