'From the start the First Law was filled with contradictions. All magic comes from the Other Side, falling upon the land as the light falls from the sun. Euz himself was part devil, and so were his sons—Juvens, Kanedias, Glustrod—and others beside. Their blood brought them gifts, and curses. Power, and long life, and strength or sight beyond the limits of simple men. Their blood passed on into their children, growing ever thinner, into their children's children, and so on through the long centuries. The gifts skipped one generation, then another, then came but rarely. The devil-blood grew thin, and died out. It is rare indeed now, when our world and the world below have drifted so far apart, to see those gifts made flesh. We truly are privileged to witness it.'

Logen raised his eyebrows. 'Her? Half devil?'

'Much less than half, my friend.' Bayaz chuckled. 'Euz himself was half, and his power threw up the mountains and gouged out the seas. Half could strike a horror and a desire into your blood to stop your heart. Half could blind you to look upon. Not half. No more than a fraction. But in her, there is a trace of the Other Side.'

'The Other Side, eh?' Logen looked down at the dead bird in his hand. 'So if I was to touch her, would I break the First Law?'

Bayaz chuckled. 'Now that is a sharp question. You always surprise me, Master Ninefingers. I wonder what Euz would say to it?' The Magus pursed his lips. 'I think I could find it in myself to forgive you. She however,' and Bayaz nodded his bald head at Ferro, 'would most likely cut your hand off.'

Logen lay on his belly, peering through the tall grass into a gentle valley with a shallow brook in its bottom. There was a huddle of buildings on the side nearest them, or the shells of buildings. No roofs left, nothing but the tumbledown walls, mostly no more than waist high, the fallen stones from them scattered across the valley's slopes, in amongst the waving grass. It could have been a scene out of the North. Lots of villages abandoned there, since the wars. People driven out, dragged out, burned out. Logen had watched it happen, often. He'd joined in more than once. He wasn't proud of it, but he wasn't proud of much from those times. Or any other, come to think of it.

'Not a lot left to live in,' whispered Luthar.

Ferro scowled at him. 'Plenty left to hide behind.'

Evening was coming on, the sun had dropped low on the horizon and rilled the broken village up with shadows. There was no sign of anyone down there. No sounds beyond the giggling water, the slow wind slithering through the grass. No sign of anyone, but Ferro was right. No sign didn't necessarily mean no danger.