Testimony of Mute Things2025

This one is a prequel, falling between "Penric's Fox" and "Masquerade in Lodi" during Pen's Martensbridge years. The seed was that throw-away line toward the end of "Mira's Last Dance", where Duke Jurgo's secretary Stobrek is greeting Pen effusively with "[We met] at that extraordinary Temple conclave in Carpagamo." This has dangled off Pen's timeline as an empty box labeled "Insert Story Here" for years. (Indeed, its working title was the alliterative "Conclave in Carpagamo" till about half through, when a better one arose out of the material.) I very much wanted to write this before I got too far from younger Penric to recall him.