The heart of that elder world beat strangely in one of the upper chambers where they came upon a little work-shop, strewn with unknown metals and tools and empty crucibles, and in their midst a rectangular metallic plate partly traced with a device of boughs, appearing, in one light, slightly fluorescent.
"It is the work of the Princess Simyra, adon," said Jarvo.

"She was the daughter of King Thabion, and when she died what she had touched in this room was left unmoved.

But it was very many years ago--I have forgotten.

Every one has forgotten." They went down among the very roots of the palace, three full storeys below the surface of the summit.

Jarvo went before, lighting the way, and they threaded vaulted corridors and winding passages, and emerged at last in a silent, haunted chamber whose stones had been hewn and sunken there, before Issus.