* * * *

There was a white square lying beside the tiny guns, with black printing
on it. She was deciphering it, painfully, for not only did she read very
slowly, even in the priceless old books of her father's library, but
this print was in a language slightly different from Orbish, when she
felt two hard hands on her waist.

"Get your stinking paws off me," she said, without moving.

She was picked up and set down gently on one side. Revel bent over the
chest.

"What are they?"

She thought fast. She had deciphered enough of the card to know they
_were_ guns: _American handguns of 1940-1975 period_, it said. She
couldn't let him know it. The rucker must not get hold of a gun, or he'd
attack the gentry themselves, for hadn't he slain innumerable gods
already?

"They are children's toys," she said. "I don't know what sort of
children would be interested in such weird-looking things."

"Did you ever hear of the Ancient Kingdom?"

She shook her head; the term was new to her.

"The ruck knows of it; the ballad-singers have many sagas of the Ancient
Kingdom, but I imagine the gentry have forgotten. It was the world and
people of a long time ago. I think these things were walled up here
then." His face, really a handsome face if you forgot he was a rucker,
screwed up in thought. Then he started to chant something.

"The people of that far-off time,
They carried little guns;
They had so much more freedom
Than we who are their sons."

He stared at the weapons. She thought fast. "These are toy guns, yes.
The writing says they are guns for children."

"Maybe the toys of those children worked," he said looking at her.

"You talk nonsense."

He felt the transparent stuff over the chest, pushed on it hard, then
raised his pick and struck the stuff a heavy blow. It shattered into
bright daggers and fell on the guns and on the floor. Picking one of the
small things from its place, he examined it closely.

"No toy, Lady Nirea," he grunted. "You lied to me."

"I didn't! Can _you_ read the writing?" she asked sourly.

"No rucker reads, as you know. But this is no toy, and you knew it." He
tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, took three more. "You can
show me how to use them later."

She laughed in his face and was given a rough slap on the cheek. Skin
tingling, she said, "Play the squire, miner, you don't have long to do
it!"

"They won't find this hole."

"I l