With precision and force, Nirea socked her sister in the left eye. Then she strode down the hall and knocked on the door of the private room and immediately went in. The sight that greeted her, completely incomprehensible, was still as revolting and horrifying a thing as she had ever seen. Her father lay back in a big armchair, relaxed and half-asleep to judge from his hanging arms and barely open eyes. A curious sound, a kind of brrm-brrm, came from his chest. Resting on his throat was a golden globe. Two of its tentacles were pushed almost out of sight into his nostrils, two more dipped into his gaping mouth. The remaining four waved slowly above the squire's face. Nirea screamed. The globe floated upward, slowly, grudgingly. Its tentacles withdrew from the squire. Ewyo stirred and opened his pale eyes to glare at her. A flush of hideous fury spread up his cheeks. He struggled to his feet and lurched over and slapped her face, so that she ceased to scream and fell against the wall, moaning. The squire stood over her. "You meddlesome bitch, I ought to have you cut up for the hounds!" "In the name of the Orbs," she said, whimpering, "what were you doing?" He grimaced at her like a madman. "You're not supposed to be told till you're twenty, and you don't do it yourself till you reach twenty-eight." "_Do it myself._" "Certainly." He gave a humorless snort of laughter. "D'you think we don't pay for the privilege of being gentry, you fool? Now leave me alone!" He lifted her and flung her at the door. The golden sphere hovered motionless in the air. "Never speak of what you saw, and never ask another question of me till your twentieth birthday ... if you live to reach it!" She fumbled the door open and staggered into the hall, and wept there with awful tearing sobs, while her sister Jann looked at her and giggled hysterically. CHAPTER VIII The Mink he seeks the gentrylass; He eyes the gods above; He laughs their might to scorn, the while He hunts his highborn love. A fearsome lion bars the way, The Mink he cannot pass; He lifts his pick with fearful rage, And blood besmears the grass! --Ruck's Ballad of the Mink Revel was plowing through the brush like a wound-crazed bear. Jerran came behind, shouting directions, for Revel's impatience would not be stilled enough for him to follow anyone, especially the small Jerran, whose head rang, he said, from the skull-cracking blow he'd been given by Rack, and who was slowed as a consequence. Revel got farther and farther in advance, tearing with his pick at vines and creepers, trampling small trees, making enough noise for seven men. Dimly he remembered much of the trail hereabouts, and at last he was so far ahead of Jerran that he couldn't hear him.