"By no one."
"Why—someone must have told you!"
The Grey Weaver shook his solemn head. "I was just told."
Dan ceased his questioning, content for the moment to drink in the beauty about him and then Galatea returned bearing a crystal bowl of the strange fruits. They were piled in colorful disorder, red, purple, orange and yellow, pear-shaped, egg-shaped, and clustered spheroids—fantastic, unearthly. He selected a pale, transparent ovoid, bit into it, and was deluged by a flood of sweet liquid, to the amusement of the girl. She laughed and chose a similar morsel; biting a tiny puncture in the end, she squeezed the contents into her mouth. Dan took a different sort, purple and tart as Rhenish wine, and then another, filled with edible, almond-like seeds. Galatea laughed delightedly at his surprises, and even Leucon smiled a grey smile. Finally Dan tossed the last husk into the brook beside them, where it danced briskly toward the river.
"Galatea," he said, "do you ever go to a city? What cities are in Paracosma?"
"Cities? What are cities?"
"Places where many people live close together."
"Oh," said the girl frowning. "No. There are no cities here."
"Then where are the people of Paracosma? You must have neighbors."
The girl looked puzzled. "A man and a woman live off there," she said, gesturing toward a distant blue range of hills dim on the horizon. "Far away over there. I went there once, but Leucon and I prefer the valley."