‘You’re getting hung up on my example, Valentin,’ she said. ‘I’m making it up as an illustration. This Draven Sark… you said he was a rich man. Influential. He had a grand country seat. He could have cheerfully trashed any name it used to have and given it a new one. Something his friends and acquaintances would know it as, but it wouldn’t be official.’

‘So it could mean anywhere,’ said Garofar. ‘Any old site in the province?’

‘Potentially,’ said Macks.

Drusher sighed.

‘I don’t think so. Near to Helter, but towards the pass. I know that’s not specific enough, but it’s still specific. That’s the area.’

‘Well, you’ve seen for yourself,’ said Macks. ‘There’s nothing in that area at all. It’s wilderness.’

‘We could try older maps,’ said Garofar. ‘What about the settlement-era territory surveys? They might be on file at the Administratum annex. Or even in the museum?’

‘No,’ said Drusher. ‘We’re not looking for some site so ancient it had vanished before we started making modern maps. It was an occupied dwelling less than a century ago. It can’t have completely vanished in that time.’

‘Unless, you know, it’s a shade hall,’ said Garofar.

Macks and Drusher looked at him. The deputy gestured, embarrassed, to brush his remark aside.

‘Ignore me,’ he said. ‘It was supposed to be a joke.’

‘I’ll ignore you, Garofar,’ said Macks, ‘once you explain what a shade hall is.’

‘Well, that’s what they said about Keshtre in the old stories,’ he replied reluctantly. ‘In the faerie stories. That it was only there some of the time. It appeared at night, so the monsters that lived inside could roam, then it faded away at dawn, back into the realm of shades.’

Macks glared at him.

‘I shouldn’t joke,’ said Garofar. ‘I know this is serious, mam. I’m sorry.’

‘The shade hall or faerie mound is an ancient trope,’ said Audla Jaff, looking up from her work. ‘A liminal location, a threshold place, that exists between the material world and the otherworld. It’s a concept that recurs in works of folklore right back to Old Terra.’

‘Don’t try and make excuses for him, mam,’ Macks said to her. ‘We’re not looking for a faerie mound.’

She turned her attention back to the deputy.

‘Garofar? Why don’t you go see if Master Nayl needs help with the sweep?’

‘Yes, mam,’ said Garofar sheepishly, and hurried from the room.

‘Anything?’ Macks asked Voriet. He was still at work on the cogitator.

‘I might have found a reference to the name Sark,’ said Voriet. ‘But the link is damn slow. I keep having to resend and start over.’