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Who nursed me back . . .
in which the true nature of the story is first revealed.
Ah. Let me tell you a story, then, about a time very long ago, or perhaps only yesterday; and a place that never was, but will always be.
It was (and is) a city, but not any city, no glorified village nor swollen township, but the most magnificent of metropolises, so far across that a horse at full gallop would take three whole days to circle its walls. And within those walls stands far more than a collection of mud huts and stone hovels, for a hundred times a hundred multicolored towers reach up to caress the clouds, and the avenues at the city’s center are so broad that forty strong men striding shoulder to shoulder might walk down them without impediment.
