I had felt the shot coming; I hadn’t realized the bow was loaded with this very quarrel, perfectly calibrated to hit him hardest. What part of me had been studying him, stockpiling knowledge as ammunition?

Interpretation gives knowledge value, but it must evolve as new knowledge emerges. From a myriad incomplete truth, a greater whole.

Orma moved a pile of books off a stool for me but seated himself directly on another stack. This habit of his never ceased to amuse me. Dragons no longer hoarded gold; Comonot's reforms had outlawed it. For Orma and his generation, knowledge was treasure. As dragons through the ages had done, he gathered it and then he sat on it.

And I realized a wondrous truth: that knowledge could be our treasure, that there were things humankind knew that we did not, that our conquest need not comprise taking and killing, but could consist of our mutual conquest of ignorance and distrust.

All the important parts, yes," I said firmly. "Maybe not all the eccentric details. Ask, and I will answer. What do you want to know?""Everything." He had been leaning on his elbows, but he pushed back now and gripped the balustrade with both hands. "It's always this way with me: if it can be known, I want to know it.