In the beginning. Once upon a time. A small group of you became separated from your world while on an expedition. In a word, lost. A problem or mistake in the doors between places. Suddenly there are hundreds or thousands of doors between you and home. Suddenly you’re adrift. You find yourselves washed up on an alien shore, along the banks of a strange and magnificent river. You can’t find your way back to where you came from, even though at first all you do is try. And try and try.

After a while of trying and failing, you decide to settle down where you are, establish a colony that we will later call “Cinsorium.” It’s a better place for you than other choices for exile. You live a long time but procreate slowly so the isolation is good. No competition. No real threats. You create buildings that remind you of home. No corners. All circles. You bend the local fungus to your will, because you’re spore-based and everything you do is based on this fact. Plenty of raw material to use in and around Cinsorium.

But, still, you’re always looking for a way back, a way out. You might even have been close at one point—right before Cappan Manzikert sails upriver with his brigands. Because as soon as Manzikert appears, it’s back to square one for you. Even less than square one. He destroys your colony, drives you underground. He burns your records, all of the information in your library. Not just the clues you’ve gathered of how to get home, but your whole knowledge base. Essential things.

Ironic, really, Finch. Because Manzikert’s a barbarian. Yet as far as I can tell, he saved us all with that one brutal act. Something even Duncan Shriek didn’t understand.

So you stay underground to rebuild. You’re cautious, you’re far from home, and there aren’t very many of you. Will never be very many of you, no matter what you do. You let the people above become comfortable. You lie low, so to speak.

Then you try again. At last. And because you’re cautious you build it underground. A door. A machine.

But the door doesn’t work. Something goes wrong. Who knows what? It could’ve been anything. Maybe it’s the wrong location. Maybe it was always a long shot. Many of your own people are killed. And everyone in Ambergris disappears, except the ones in the fishing fleet. Either dead or taken elsewhere. Scattered across worlds and time. Unable to get back. (Think about that, Finch—somewhere out there, there must be a colony or two of Ambergrisians who survived. Can you imagine what they might be like now, after so long? Stranded. Vague tales of another place, one crueler, kinder, more hospitable, less so.)