Someone scuttled off the road before her; she reined in, peered unsuccessfully into the darkness, and called softly, insistently, "If you're a rucker, please come out! Please come here!" A rustle in dry brush was her answer. She tried a bolder tack. "It's the Lady of the Mink who commands it!" After a moment a man stepped onto the road from a clump of bracken. Red were his hair and beard in the moon, and the white walleye stared blindly. Fate, chance, the gods--no, not the false, horrible globes, but whatever gods there might be elsewhere--had crossed her path with Rack, the giant whom she trusted more than any other rucker. "Rack!" she called quietly. "Come here, man." He was at her stirrup. "What are you doing, Lady?" His voice was anxious: "I'm joining the rebels, big man. Where can I find the Mink?" "I don't know. Lady, are you mad? The rebels are saying that the gods are overthrown and there will be gentry blood running all over Dolfya by noon tomorrow. They're out of their heads." "No, Rack, they're honest men fighting a hideous corruption." She told him rapidly what she'd seen in her father's room. "I don't know exactly what it means, 'but it's bad--degrading, horrible! I don't want to be a gentrywoman any longer. I--I'm the Mink's girl. Listen," she said, leaning over to him, "he took me two days ago, and Revel is my man, hell or orbs notwithstanding. Now where is he?" "I've heard he's alive," said Rack slowly. "I thought he would be; he's too tough to kill. Where he is, no one knows." "Do the rebels trust you?" "No." His face turned up to hers, honest and bewildered. "I'm of two minds.... I serve the gods, as any sane man must, but I have seen things...." "So have I. Rack, come with me. We must find the Mink." He bit his lip. Then he took hold of her stirrup. She thought he was going to pull her off, and edged her toes forward toward the signal points of her roan; but he merely said, "I'll hang on to this and run. Go ahead, Lady." She tapped the horse to a canter, feeling better than she had in hours. Rack was a servant (say rather an ally) worth four other men. "Head for the mines," grunted Rack. Her own idea. Surely it must be worth something. Soon they were coming into the coal valley. God-guards shone with an eerie and now-abominable golden light at the various entrances. "Which is Revel's?" she asked. "Up there. He wouldn't be there, but if I can get past the guard, and there's no reason I should be stopped, there are men on our level, the fourth down, who might know about him. There's no other place to check. I don't know the meeting places. I have never been a rebel." He seemed to brood darkly for a minute, then added, "Before!" * * * * * They hobbled the horse in a nook of upended rocks, and she hid the portmanteau under some brush. They walked to the mine, she now remembering the location by certain landmarks, and Rack said, "There's no god showing. That's strange."