The styracosaurus is a very challenging beast to describe adequately. In shape, it resembles the more famous triceratops, but is much smaller and much better equipped. With a row of long horns all around the frill of his head, the styrac was quite imposing, even though these horns were dangerous only to those seated behind its head—something we shall see the joust in the second book.

The wizard, of course, is Radan, who is introduced in this scene. The object he holds is a sextant, used to calculate position on a map with only the time, the horizon, and the sun. He is, as you can see, quite lost. The weeds that fill the field are horsetails.