But the synthetic Trislan was not a remembering metal. What did it have to remember? It had just been born. It was not a talking stone. It was not the Philosopher’s Stone, nor the Alchemist’s Stone, nor the Touchstone by which all things could be tested, not the King’s Stone that would cure almost all diseases and deficiencies. It hadn't the knack of inculcating sanity, piety, rectitude, good humor, and happiness. And the owners of the small totalities from the fractured ston

“It was like an old Puca comedy: one person falls into the quicksand, drags another in after him, then a third, then a fourth—until they...