hance would you stand in the temple against me,
whose cousin serves in the mansion of Ewyo of Dolfya?"

It was true, Jerran was slightly higher in the ruck than the brothers,
being related to a servant of the gentry. Revel hoped Rack would be
scared off by the threat. He had become perfectly cold now and could in
the blinking of an eyelash bury his pick in Rack's head, but he didn't
want to do it.

When Rack said nothing, Revel spoke. "Brother, agree to hold your
tongue, or by Orb, I'll cut you down where you stand!"

Rack glanced at his own pick. "You could do it," he acknowledged.
"You're fast enough. All right. I promise." He turned to his work
stolidly; only Revel could see that he was blazing with anger.

The three began to dig coal from the wall. Revel kept glancing at the
small Jerran. What was there to the man that he had never suspected? How
did he know that globes were stymied by rock? Why had he taken the death
of the god so lightly?

_What was Jerran, anyhow?_

CHAPTER II

The squire has gathered all his kin,
To hunt the fox so sly;
'Tis not a beast with paws and brush,
But a man like you or I!

They hunt him down the thorny glen,
And up the hillside dark;
"O hear him gasp and hear him sob,
Whenas our hounds do bark!"

--Ruck's Ballad of the Mink

When Revel was due for a rest space, he went through the blue-tinged
dusk of the mine, cleaned his arms and face at the washers, scrubbing
the coal dust from his big hands, and climbed the ladders, up and up,
till day shone in his face.

He stood beneath the cross-beam of the entrance, sucking in clean air.
The red and blue buttons shone in the sun; far down the valley a globe
passed between trees, bent on some private business. Another floated by
him into the mine; under it trotted a zanph, one of the ugly beasts,
six-legged and furry with the head of a great snake, that followed the
globes and sometimes attacked men on orders from the hovering gods.

Would the deities discover that one was missing? If they found the
corpse, he and Jerran would be foxes for the gentry....

Revel was a man of the ruck. The ruck was millions and millions of
souls, faceless, without rights; Revel had some little protection, more
than most others, being a miner and therefore important to the gentry.
The gentry numbered thousands, and they had many rights--owning great
estates, lighting their homes with candles, dri