I've just been sent a neat Grateful Dead shard. Here is how it appears, at http://cracksandshards.com/jokes.html#micasroute : Mica's Route Tim in San Francisco writes: ----- In The Phoenix Guards right before "our friends" are about to engage the Eastern army, Mica is sent on a mission to get word of these development to Lord Adron. At one point Paarfi writes something to the effect that Mica soliloquizes: "I could return at once to my lady, and tell her that there is help on the way along the Slipknot past Nil K' Narf's Tower." The first three songs on the GD's Blues for Allah album are: Help on the Way Slipknot! Franklin's Tower ["Franklin" spelled backwards is "Nil K' Narf"] Live, it was not uncommon to hear them play those three songs in order, arranged as a kind of psychedelic suite. When I first noticed it I perused the rest of the TPG and all of Brust's works looking for similar "shards". There were a few but none come to mind right now. ----- This passage is on p. 357 in my copy (Tor edition, first m.m. printing, June 1992). There it is "Nilk'arf's Tower"; "Nilk'arf" is one "n" off >from "Franklin" reversed. But unless the text is different in another edition, Tim is only supplying the letter replaced by the apostrophe, for we read on p. 356 that this "tower" was actually two rocks upon which watch-stations had been built, and which were called Nilk'arf's Tower (the one on the right being named for Nilk e'Terics, the one on the left for her brother, Narf) -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website