"I know where we are," Jack said. But Enoch prevailed on him to check the compass anyway. Jack got it out and removed the cover: It was just a magnetized needle coated with wax and set afloat in a dish of water, and to get a reading, it was necessary to set it down on something solid and wait for a minute or two. Jack put it on a rock at the lip of the Black Vale of Vhanatiya, and waited for two minutes, then five. But the needle pointed in a direction that obviously was not north. And when Jack moved it to another rock, it pointed in a different direction that was not north.