A high point of the story is the Master's attempt, as a young man, to travel throughout Nevèrÿon and collect material for a biography of the Barbarian genius Belham, dead a generation before, whose name is connected with many of the land's architectural wonders. Even as the Young Master learns how provisional his attempts at gathering information are (and his attempts double the young smuggler's attempts to gather like information about Gorgik), the readers by this time will have seen a good deal of what was involved in the creation of these monuments and will presumably bridle at the cursory way, with the best of intentions, our young scholar overlooks any and all contributions of various women intellectuals, such as Venn and Pryn's great aunt, to some of these accomplishments — contributions whose import we have seen first hand.