Long ago, when Ward had first turned up in the doorway of the Palace, he had touched Egdod’s knee with a tendril of his aura and it had produced a fizzing sensation. There was some of that now, but for the most part it was more perfectly formed than that. To make such contact between auras, Egdod now saw, was to feel what the other was feeling and even to think what they were thinking without the necessity of putting it into words. He was seeing things now as Ward saw them, not just in the here and now but in his memory. Ward was recollecting a visit to Town earlier today. Through his mind’s eye, Egdod was regarding the faces of souls whom Ward had encountered there. It was all clearly recognizable, yet curiously faded and mottled, as if contaminated with chaos. Perhaps this was a defect in how ideas were transmitted between auras, or perhaps it was actually how Ward saw everything.

Egdod made an effort to summon up a memory of high mountains, seen from above, the snow that collected on them and dark forests that cladded their lower slopes. He sensed that this was getting through to Ward, and so he called to mind other memories of the lands that, a minute earlier, he had been trying and failing to describe in words.

It was all a bit much for Ward. If the latter’s perceptions had seemed small, wan, and unclear to Egdod, then what was it like for him to see the full grandeur of the lands beyond with the clarity and force of Egdod’s eye? Ward became dazzled or weary. The aura bridge narrowed, weakened, and snapped back to his head. After that his aura was small and closely contained. He withdrew to his Gatehouse and lay on a thing he had made there—“Bed”—and did not stir for a while.

Egdod for his part was pondering some of the images that had entered his mind from the aura bridge. Among other things, he had seen the park in the middle of Town. It was a flat square of grass and it was empty of souls, buildings, and trees. This was how he had made it, a long time ago, according to his normal practice, which was to shape the land first in a crude manner, putting a mountain here and a river there, and then return later to better them. The glimpse of the park that he had seen through the eyes of Ward told him that its improvement was overdue. Moreover his own lack of facility with forming words told him that he might benefit from more contact with souls in Town.