So why should I be able to do it? Vansen asked. He was fearful of what the answer might be—some taint in his family, some witchy blood, another mark of shame laid on his quiet, hard-working, abashed people.

Some say that all the sunlanders once could speak with us this way—that they, or at least some of them, were of the same great branch as the People, that they cameofthe People and not just after them. Perhaps Jikuyin merely thrust the gift of True Speech upon you, somehow—his kind, the Old Ones, are grandchildren of the Formless and have many powers that are unknown. But also it may simply be that when he spoke to you the power of his voice cleared the channels of your heart as a great flood may scour clean riverbeds long filled with silt. It is possible he only gave back to you that which is the birthright of your kind.

But…but Prince Barrick… Vansen turned and saw the boy staring back at him with something in his eyes that looked almost like hatred. Shaken, it took him a moment to remember what he had been saying and to form the words in his mind. Prince Barrick could speak to you already, and understand you, long before we met this thing you call Jikuyin. Vansen could not approach the complexity of images which Gyir used when he “spoke” their captor’s name, but he felt certain just his horrified memory of the ogre’s massive, ravaged face would be enough.

Prince Barrick is different, Gyir said abruptly, otherwise he would have been dead long ago and you would not have followed him here. That is all I may say.

“Don’t talk about me.” The boy wiped angrily at his eyes. “Don’t.”

Why can’t I hear him—Barrick—in my head? asked Vansen.

It could be in time you will, Gyir replied. Or it could be that both of you can only speak with me.

Vansen wanted to go to the prince, to bring him back to sit with them, but something in the boy’s expression kept him seated where he was. Why are we here in this mine or prison or whatever it is? Why aren’t we dead? And what is the monster who’s captured us? Does he have any weaknesses? You said he was one of the Old Ones, a god or a god’s bastard.

Gyir looked at him for a few moments before answering. As to why we are not dead, I cannot say, Ferras Vansen, but it is clear that Jikuyin wants slaves more than he wants corpses. The fairy looked as though he was almost asleep, red eyes only half open. What he wants them for, I do not know, but this place has an old, grim reputation. As to what he is, I told you—a grandchild of the Formless.

This means nothing to me. I have never heard of such a god.

You have, but among your people the true lore is almost lost. Even here, in our own land, the stories have become children’s tales. You remember the raven’s little tale of Crooked and his great-grandmother, Emptiness? There were bones of truth buried in it, but the flesh was corrupt. The truth at its core is that the Formless begat both Emptiness and Light, and those two in turn begat gods and monsters. The One in Chains is such a one—a small monster, not a god but a demigod. Still, he is a great power.