He will cease to be Tomas Sefari and become Thotmas the Artisan. A boulder, polished by the ages, protruded from the flat field. Here the ploughman had connived with necessity and bent the furrows around the unyielding rock, making it a thing of beauty, a place of power, a place to welcome the morning sun. He walked to the boulder, pulled by it. The boy bolted from under the rock, sleep still in his eyes, and fear.
Fate rules the world.
Never were two people better met than Thotmas and Jabedi, a time traveler and a run away slave boy. Jabedi taught Thotmas the Theban language, guffawing at his mispronunciations. Thotmas taught Jabedi to carve soap-stone into figures and to whittle faces from the driftwood. They wandered along the Nile, going North. One hot afternoon, thirsty and tired, they came upon the Inn.