"But Crooked she kept close to her heart and taught him well. The more Crooked learned, the more words and powers he gained, the more he felt it unfair that his father should have been killed and his mother stolen and his uncle and all his kin banished into the sky while the ones who had done it to them, especially the three biggest brothers-Perin, Kernios, and Erivor, as your folk call 'em-should live and laugh on the earth, happy and singing. Crooked brooded on this a long while until at last he thought of a scheme-the deepest, craftiest scheme that ever was.

"Now all of the three brothers were surrounded by guards and wards of frightsome power, so it were not enough simply to come upon them suddenly, looking to do harm. Water Man Erivor had sea wolves swimming all around his throne, and poison jellies, as well as his water soldiers who guarded him all the green day and green night. Sky Man Perin lived in a palace on the highest mountain of the world, surrounded by rest of his kin, and he carried the great hammer Crackbolt that Crooked himself had made for him, which could break the world itself if it hammered on it long enough. And Stone Man (called Kernios by your folk) had not so many servitors, but lived in his castle deep in the earth among the dead, and was warded round with tricks and words that could burn the eyes from your head or turn your bones to cracksome ice.

"But one weakness all the brothers had, which is the weakness any man has, and that were their wives. For even the Firstborn, it is said, are no better than any others in the eyes of their own women.

"Long had clever Crooked grown his friendships with the wives of two of the brothers: Night, who was Sky Man's queen, and Moon, who had been cast out by Stone Man and then taken to wife by Water Man, his brother.