The death’s-head stared in on him, two dark eye sockets set in a bone-white skull. As Gom stared back at it, the skull grew brighter, and brighter, exploding into silver light, filling him with terror.

“Them eggs, Gom,” she said. “What shall I do about them?”

. . . He took off the rune and flung it into the darkness. . . . For a moment he lay rigid, feeling guilty, and not a little afraid, half-expecting something bad to happen. But nothing did. With a defiant shrug, he turned over and went to sleep.

. . . Gom began to struggle, twisting in the man’s grasp, and as he did so the sun caught the silver bracelet on the man’s upraised arm: a plain wide band . . . except that on its center was embossed the unmistakable shape of the death’s-head.

“Wanderer?” Mudge repeated. “What kind of no-good occupation is that to make a woman leave her boy with neither mother nor father now to tend him?”

From Air and Earth comes seed;

“Suddenly a cold came upon him, colder than the chill of the winter plain. Icy hands touched him, as though exploring his shape . . .”

“If Father’s dead, you must stay with Hilsa or me until the thaw. . . . You’re woodcutter now. You promised Father.”

“ . . . for all your smartness you’re still but a simple mountain boy and ignorant of the great wide world out there. Gom: promise me you’ll stay here and lead a sensible life and be a credit to yourself and me, then I’ll rest happy.”

Fool! Mandrik cried . . . This is what she would have you learn: bury a thing of great price and you deserve to lose it! Out there in the wide world, gold buys not cabbages, but kings!