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He compares the variations each taleteller works on a traditional story to the improvisations of a jazz musician embellishing a familiar song.

All that was left of the great stronghold of the First Men were three towers . . . three where there had once been twenty, if the taletellers could be believed.

Petersen ties the stories together as a bar contest, where the most successful taleteller gets his tab erased.

And essential to a taleteller who leaves us with one hopeful question: "Do you see?"

Thenceforth these gloomy taletellers come to an end.