"Because a moment ago I thought I heard it. Felt it. I don't know the words, Highness. A tickling, almost, like a fly crawling in my head."

"Let us hope for your sake that you did indeed sense some of Gyir's thoughts, Captain Vansen. Because there are other things behind the Shad-owline, as you doubtless already know, that you would not want crawling around in your head, or anywhere else on you."

Will you tell me now who this Jack Chain is that the raven has been prattling about? Barrick asked Gyir. And the Longskulls? And the things he called Night Men?

You are better not knowing most of that. The fairy-man's speech was grow¬ing more and more like ordinary talk in Barrick's head. It was hard to re¬member sometimes that they were not speaking aloud. They are all grim creatures. The Night Men are those my folk call the Dreamless. They live far from here, in their city called Sleep. Be grateful for that.

I am a prince, Barrick told him, stung. I was not raised to let other people do my worrying for me.

He could feel a small burst of resigned frustration from Gyir, something as wordless as a puff of air. "Jack Chain" is a rendering of his name into the com¬mon tongue, he explained. Jikuyin he is called among our folk. He is one of the old, old ones-a lesser kin to the gods. The one in the bird's story, Emptiness, she was his mother, or so I was told. In the earliest days there were many like him, so many that for a long time the gods let them do what they would and take pieces of this earth for their own, to rule as they saw fit, as long as they gave the gods their honor and tribute.

The gods? You mean the Trigon-Erivor and Perin and the rest? They're truly real? Not just stories?

Of course they are real, Gyir told him. More real than you and /, and that is the problem. Now be quiet for a moment and let me listen to something,

Barrick couldn't help wondering exactly what "be quiet" was supposed to mean to someone who wasn't talking out loud. Was he supposed to slop thinking, too?

There is nothing to fear, Gyir said at last, fust the sounds that should be heard at this time, in this place.

But you're worried, aren't you? It was painful to ask, painful even to con¬sider. He was still uncertain how he felt about the fairy, but in these few short days he had grown used to the idea of Gyir as a reliable guide, some¬one who truly knew and belonged in this bizarre land.

Anyone who knew what I know and did not worry would be a fool. Gyir's thoughts were solemn. Not all lands under the Mantle are ruled from Qul-na-Qar, and many who live in them hate the king and queen and the rest of the… People. One word was a meaningless blur of idea-sounds.

What? What people? I don't understand.

Those like myself and like my mistress. Can you understand the idea of High Ones better? I mean the ruling tribes, those who are still close to the look of the earliest days, when your kind and the People were not so different. As if without witting thought, his hand crept up to the tight drumskin of his empty face. Many of the more changed have grown to hate those who look similar to the mortals-as though we High Ones had not also changed, and far more than any of them could understand! But our changes are not on the outside. He dropped his hand. Not usually.

Barrick shook his head, so beset by not-quite-understandable ideas that he almost felt the need to swat them away like gnats. Were… were you mor¬tals once? Your people?

We Qar are mortal, unlike the gods, Gyir told him with a touch of dry amusement. But if you mean were we like your folk, I think a better answer is that your folk-who long ago followed ours into these lands you think of as the whole world-your folk have stayed much as they were in their earliest days walking this world. But we have not. We have changed in many, many ways.

Changed how? Why?

The why is easy enough, said Gyir. The gods changed us. By the Tiles, child, do your people really know so little of us?

Barrick shook his head. We only know that your people hate us. Or so we were taught.

You were not taught wrongly.

Gyir's thoughts had a grim, steely feel Barrick had not sensed before. For

the first time since they had begun this conversation he was reminded of now different Gyir was-not just his viewpoint, but his entire way of being. Now Marriek could feel the fairy-warrior's tension and anger throbbing like muf¬fled drums behind the unspoken but still recognizable words, and he realized that what the faceless creature was thinking of so fiercely was about slaugh¬tering Barrick's own folk and how happily he, Gyir, had put his hand to it.

Very few of my people would not gladly die with their teeth locked in the throat of one of your kind, boy-sunlanders, as we call you since our retreat under the Mantle. Startled by the force of Gyir's thought, Barrick turned to look back at the fairy. He had the uncomfortable feeling that if the Storm Lantern had anything like a proper mouth, he would have grinned hugely. But do not be. frightened, little cousin. You have been singled out by the Lady Yasammez herself. No harm will come to you-at least not from me.

In the days they had traveled together, Barrick had tried to winkle in¬formation about the one called Yasammez, with little success. Much of what Barrick did not know the faceless Qar thought too obvious for ex¬planation, and the rest was full of Qar concepts that did not make words in Barrick's head but only smeary ideas. Yasammez was powerful and old, that was clear, but Barrick could have guessed that just from his own muddled memories, the bits of her that still seemed to drape his mind like spider-webs. She also seemed to be in the middle of some kind of conflict between the fairy rulers Gyir thought of as king and queen, although even these concepts were far from straightforward-they all seemed to have many names and many titles, and some of them seemed to him oddly contradic¬tory: Barrick had felt Gyir think of the king as recently crowned, but also as ageless, as blind but all-seeing.

It was hard enough just to understand the simple things. You were going to tell me about fack Chain. Jikuyin. Is he really a god?

No, no. He is a child of the gods, though. Not like I am, or you are, or any think¬ing creature is-a child of great power. His kind were mostly spawned by the con¬gress of the gods and other, older beings. The gods walk the earth no more-that is the first reason we are living the Long Defeat-but a few demigods such asjikuyin apparently still remain.

Barrick took a deep breath, frustrated again. They had left the over¬grown road hours ago because it had been blocked by a fallen tree, and had wandered far afield before they had spotted the road again, now on the far side of a rough, fast-moving stream. They were trying to make their way back to it on something that was closer to a deer track; the rains had

stopped, but the trees were wet, and it had occurred to Barrick several times that every branch that smacked him in the face was one that did not hit Gyir, who rode behind him. I don't understand any of that. I just want to know what this Jack Chain is and why he worries you. Why is the bird still so frightened} Aren't we going away from Northmarch where he lives?

Yes, butjikuyin is a Power, and like any of his kind, he rules a broad territory. I think among your people there are bandit lords like that, who respect no master but their own strength, yes?

There used to be. Barrick at first was thinking of the infamous Gray Com¬panies, but then he remembered the adventurer who held their father even now-Ludis Drakava, the so-called Lord Protector of Hierosol. Yes, we have people like that.

So. That isjikuyin. As the bird said, he has made the ruined sunlander city of Northmarch his own, although it was ours before it was yours-it is an old place.