In this chapter, we're introduced to a new character, the horseman. The horseman is the one who rescued Desdemona from the swamp, and he's very upset to learn that the horse has been made from his own flesh. Desdemonas is very upset, because the horse isn't his. He's also very upset that the guy in black is telling him not to go back into the swamp. The dude in black says that he doesn't have any power to sense where the noks are hiding, because he'll have to expand his sensory cortex, which is the part of the brain that's connected to the rest of the body. The point of this chapter is to get Desdemonat to tell us where he is, so that we can better understand what's going on with him.