The silence that followed the Artist’s question was different from any that had come before. It was not the silence of anger, nor of disagreement, nor even of thought. It was the silence of a great weight being lifted, of a door long closed beginning to creak open. The Critic did not look at the Artist, but at their own reflection in the silent stream, at the fractured, ever-changing image that stared back at them.
Finally, they spoke. Their voice, when it came, was not the sharp, incisive instrument the Artist had known. It was softer, lower, laced with a weariness that seemed to emanate from the very stones around them. “You ask ’why’,” the Critic began, “as if the answer were a simple thing, a seed that can be held in the hand. It is not. It is a root, buried deep, and tangled with all that has ever been.”
The chapter ends with the Critic beginning to tell a story, a memory from a time before the First Art, a story that holds the key to their perspective.