HOID the beggar sat on the side of a mountain, carefully unwrapping the bandages from his face. A small crystalline pool filled a cleft in the rock beside him. Perhaps waist deep at its lowest point, it barely counted as a pool. Hoid had taken baths in tubs larger than that.
Beneath him, the city of Elantris glowed with a splendid light. Soft, reassuring, the light seemed to ascend high into the sky, to the Unknown God’s domain itself.
Hoid finally got the bandages off his face, then whipped his gloves off his hands with a dramatic gesture and thrust both arms out before himself, fingers splayed.
His arms and hands looked exactly as they had when he’d first put on the bandages a day earlier.
“Damn,” he said.
“You didn’t honestly expect to find yourself transformed.”
“I kind of did,” Hoid admitted, looking over his hands, hoping to spot something glowing beneath the skin. He failed to locate even the faintest glimmer of illumination.
“You would have felt the effects earlier, Hoed.”
“Hoid,” he said. “That’s a rather important distinction here.”
“That’s what I said. Hoed.”
“Never mind,” Hoid said, standing up and absently brushing off his trousers, which sent up a cloud of dust. Beggar costume. Right.
He turned to regard his companion: a hovering dark sphere, about the size of a melon. It somehow sucked in the light, and didn’t have distinct edges Hoid could make out—it just kind of blended out into the air, warping everything around it like a stone dropped onto a sheet of silk stretched tight. It was ringed with a pattern of misty symbols—they ran like a hoop from its top, around the side, to the bottom, then back up to the top.
“Well?” the sphere said. “Now what?”
“I once ate a live frog, you know,” Hoid replied, tucking the bandages away into a hidden pocket. “Well, it was mostly like a frog. Had an extra leg or two and was violet in color, but basically the same thing. Slimy. Amphibious. Et cetera.”
“I’m certain it tasted awful.”
“Perfectly nauseating in every regard. It wiggled as it went down.” He shivered. “When I reflect upon my illustrious life, that moment inevitably surfaces as the nadir of my experiences so far.”
“I thought I’d found mine,” the sphere said. “And then I met you.”
“Good execution,” Hoid noted, stepping up to the rocky edge of the pool. “Unexpected and snappy. I thought your kind wasn’t allowed a sense of humor.”
“Nonsense,” the sphere said. “You think there isn’t poignant and undeniable humor in the fact that we are so reliant upon humankind? The entire universe laughs, Hoed. We’d have to be deaf not to hear it.”
Hoid smiled.
“So…” the sphere said. “Frog?”
“I think of that moment,” Hoid replied, holding up one finger, “and I realize something important.”
“That your most awful experiences are never the ones you’re anticipating?”
“No, but I’m sure I can use that idea someday. So thank you.” Hoid took a deep breath, looking out over the shining city, brilliant even in the face of the dawning daylight. “No, I realize that as terrible, revolting, and miserable as that day was for me … at least I wasn’t the frog.”
He fell silent. A moment later, the sphere chuckled. Yes, they did have a wider range of emotions than Hoid had assumed. He needed to be careful not to let interactions with one member of a race—even a synthetic race—color his view of them all.
He turned back to the sphere. “There is beauty in every disaster, friend, if you are clever enough to find it.”
“Is that so? You have failed utterly, Hoed. You are not one of them; you haven’t the powers you promised us you’d gain. You’ve accomplished nothing. What beauty is there in this situation?”
Hoid stepped out over the pool with one foot. “You do not know me well, friend, so I will forgive such a silly question. The beauty? It lies in the fact that there are secrets that remain unknown.” He smiled broadly. “And I love a good puzzle.”
He leaned forward and dropped into the small pool with a splash.
Then vanished.