The whole of this Author's "story" is extremely difficult to establish with any certainty: no external clue has yet been found to definitively link him to any other person in the Archives (with the obvious exception of the Author of {purple berries}), and the overall narrative roughed out by this clutch of fragmentary Writings contains little to help us.

As elsewhere, however, this has not prevented — indeed it certainly has inspired — extensive theorization, about where he fled from, where he fled to, what precipitated his flight, and, most mysterious of all, how his Writings came to be part of the Archives Pertaining to Egderus Scriptor at all.

One of the most tenacious theories links him with the Writing {this work}, most often attributed to Egderus (consult the later Writings of Egderus in WDvols1&2 — Ed.), the hypothesis being that the person here called the Exile was one of the band of insurgents mentioned there who are about to leave on a mission to "carry out... acts of interference and resistance" against "the enemy", a powerful figure oppressing the world, or so he is described by that Author. Presumably, these acts were unsuccessful, and the Exile was forced to flee alone, perhaps the only survivor of the expedition.

However, the fragmentary profile provided by the Exile's Writings could fit any number of even vaguely similar scenarios, including a more recent theory (preferred here) that places him among the "terrorists" who brought down the Temple during the Scholar's time, some generations later.

Although this story line presents fewer problems, it affords no more concrete evidence to support its outline than any other. It is possible that newly discovered documents pertaining to the Archives may provide resolution for these competing conjectures, but that is only a fond hope at the moment.

The sequence in which these Writings are here presented is speculative, of course, but it does seem to make general sense on the basis of internal evidence.

The first Writing, {fog}, sketches in the Exile's situation: escaping capture, he has, after a long and arduous flight, found temporary haven in a foreign town, a stranger who knows nothing of the local language or customs, but feels safe for the time being.

In {stars}, the Exile remembers with fondness his early adventures in a large city where he made a life as a singer; in {Manhunter Moon} he is welcomed tentatively into his new community, causing him to offer up a kind of prayer of thanksgiving; soon, however — as he foresaw from the beginning — his sanctuary is wrecked, most likely by his pursuers, as recounted in {attack}. But he is able to aid a small number of his new friends to escape, among whom he makes an odd friendship, the subject of {grandmother}, the elder of the group, who reappears briefly in the last extant Writing of the Exile, the tragic {flight} — and possibly figures in the almost certainly related Writing {purple berries}, a supposition addressed in its proper place, the {Legomenon for SOLDIER} (qv).