A few nights later, William Legrand had a second, vivid dream. His enemies, a cruel inquisitorial sect of ecclesiastics, had left him secured with leather lashings to a low wooden platform in a dimly lit chamber. Above him a massive pendulum swung back and forth and was slowly lowering toward him. The weight of the metal ball that formed its bob would have been enough to crush him but attached below it was an enormous human tooth. It was vastly larger than a normal tooth and its cutting edge had been sharpened to a keenness matched only by sword blades made of the finest Damascus steel.