Not probable.

‘‘There ain’t no dragons,’’ Winger kicked in, supporting her boggled old campaigning buddy, Garrett. ‘‘They’re whatcha-macallums, arch types. Symbols for thoughts. Externalized.’’

Jon Salvation beamed.

Damned if the runt wasn’t having an influence.

I said I do not necessarily mean dragon in the literal, mythic, fire-breathing sense. That creature almost certainly never existed. Put storybook dragons out of your mind.

Consider the concept of the deathmaiden instead.

‘‘Now you’re getting way out there in the tall weeds, Old Bones,’’ I said around a gobbet of soft white cheese. Pungent stuff. ‘‘What’s a deathmaiden?’’

Also called a cairnmaiden. A custom your peoples have abandoned in recent centuries. To the joy of young girls everywhere.

‘‘Cairnmaiden. Rings a bell, sort of. But it’s so far off I can barely hear the tinkle.’’

Some of your more remote ancestors thought it was a good idea to murder girl children and bury them under the gates to graveyards, or at the corners, or in the entranceways to burial mounds, or on top of a treasure that someone wanted left undisturbed. The theory being that the spirit of the deathmaiden would be so traumatized and outraged that she would stay around and savage anyone who disturbed her grave. The reasoning may be elusive to us today, but thefact is, everyone involved, including the murdered children, credited the concept absolutely.

The fad today is to bury a vampire on top of your treasure.

‘‘Kind of a waste,’’ I observed. ‘‘Inasmuch as, traditionally, little girls grow up to be big girls. Why not use mothers-in-law? You’d get more attitude, you’d conserve a valuable resource, and you’d perform a public service.’’

Tinnie poked me. She was too busy eating to fight. But she wanted to remind me that she had a mother.

If this relationship was going to go anywhere, we needed that finger turned into a deathmaiden.

Winger asked, ‘‘What’re you snickering about, Garrett? This’s some grim shit.’’

‘‘Lady fingers,’’ I said. ‘‘And that wasn’t no lady, that was my wife.’’

Winger told the Remora, ‘‘He’s lost it. It’s having that thing get inside his head all the time that done it.’’

Having that thing get inside his head all the time is what keeps him as sane as he is. Garrett. Set aside your panic over potential nuptials. The Weider establishment is paying us a fortune. We have to deliver.

A fierce glower came over my true love’s face. But she had a full mouth and couldn’t comment. I pulled down a long draft of Weider’s finest. Which did little to ease my nerves. ‘‘Could you share the reasoning that brought you to such an unsettling conclusion? About the dragon, I mean.’’

Attitude for attitude.I do enjoy a challenge.

He had no trouble making himself clear. Where he fell down was, because he was so proud of having pulled it all together, he insisted on identifying every little connective detail that only he had been in a position to jiggle into place.

Bottom line was, according to him, in a time immemorial, before humanity wandered into this region, possibly before here was here at all—indeed, perhaps even before the arrival of the elder races—somebody buried something valuable way down deep in the silt, then plopped a sleeping guardian on top. More silt piled up. Everything remained undisturbed till the Faction started building bigger, badder, hungrier bugs that found their way down to it. The ghosts were the dragon’s sleepy thought projections, tools it used to frighten threats away.

Bugs don’t worry about ghosts. Their frights are more basic, animated by two drives. To eat. To reproduce.

I kept an eye on Kip while the Dead Man patted himself on the back.

The kid ate the story up. All Kyra’s mystic powers weren’t enough to extinguish his intellect completely.

You’ve got to admire a kid who can keep his head, even a little, under pressure from a female Tate. He said, ‘‘There’s a hole in your reasoning. The ghosts only bother humans.’’

The Dead Man had an answer. He usually does.Humans are the only sentient species to have gotten down deep enough for the dragon to reach and unravel the secrets of their minds.

Nobody argued. Chances are, nobody understood. Singe snorted. I was sure she’d say something about all the rats that John Stretch had sent down. Then His Nibs would come back with something to the effect that he had said ‘‘Sentient.’’

‘‘I’ll get it,’’ Singe said.

What?

I said, ‘‘Kip, I need to talk to you about a better way to light a place the size of the World.’’

But he was preoccupied. No way could he remain focused long.

I remember days like that. Some of them not that long ago.

We had company. More company. Only Singe had heard the knock.

Barate Algarda and his marvelous daughter, both with hair gone wilder than Kip’s, added themselves to the mix. Which meant that they had to be brought up to date. And that they had to fill me in on whatever had happened after I’d left the World. I suggested, ‘‘You guys go first. Anything you tell us won’t be half as hard to swallow as what’s being served up here.’’

Algarda did their talking. ‘‘Link couldn’t be saved. Slump and Schnook are distraught. Schnook will be out of action a long time. Broken bones and internal injuries. Shadowslinger has a broken arm and a crop of bruises, too. The rest suffered minor injuries. Belle caught them preoccupied with getting Schnook’s beast under control. He led with a combo of stun and panic spells. Only what happened to Link was deliberate. The rest was collateral damage. Link has been after Belle for a long time. Belle must’ve had enough fear. Finally. It took forever but, like Schnook, the beast came out.’’

I glanced at the Windwalker. She seemed almost a zombie, interested only in scratching her head. She showed no expression and had nothing to say. Nor did she radiate any sensuality.

I asked, ‘‘Did Kevans get home all right?’’ Of the room in general. Since she wasn’t present. But Kip’s attention was elsewhere.

Algarda responded. ‘‘We hope so. We haven’t been home yet. It’ll be a while, too. I have to check on my mother, then make the rounds of the parents who couldn’t get down there today. That tragedy needn’t have happened. But Link had to start something. And now he’s dead. Belle is going to wind up dead. The Guard are after him hard. He’ll overreact again when they close in. And they will because they won’t have Schnook sabotaging the search the way Link did.’’

He didn’t sound happy. Who would in the circumstances? But he didn’t sound like he blamed me for anything. And that was the most important thing. Right?

‘‘He wasn’t using Lurking Felhske? Link, I mean.’’

Algarda went thoughtful. He scratched his head. ‘‘He did try that, years ago. It didn’t do him any good. I think Schnook bribed him to fail. Why?’’

‘‘Because we’ve had a Lurking Felhske in the shadows since my first visit to the ruin where the kids had their clubhouse. He was watching them.’’

‘‘Curious. That would’ve been before we realized the kids were doing something dangerous. Felhske costs. None of us would have taken on the expense before we knew there was a crisis.’’ Algarda went after his scalp like he had a toad in there instead of a flea.

Why was my sidekick leaving the talking to me, never so much as suggesting a line of attack?

‘‘So. Parents wouldn’t be running Felhske.’’

‘‘It doesn’t seem likely.’’

‘‘The twins. Berbach and Berbain. They left the group. Possibly to market something the Faction developed.’’ I glanced at Kip, expecting a comment. I could go right on expecting. He hadn’t heard a word.

‘‘I know there was a parting. It wasn’t explained. With kids that usually means bad behavior. If they did create something with potential, Felhske could have to do with that. People on the twins’ side of the Hill are a little strange and shifty.’’