On an impulse he hung a pouch on it, and it served as a rock-solid peg-stuck into nothing-but try as Rod might, he couldn't get it to do anything else. Maybe it didn't do anything else.

Likewise the powders in the little bags, and the rings. He could make four of the rings glow and tingle just by putting them on, but tapping and rubbing them did nothing, and none of them-unlike in his books-had helpful little words engraved on their inside curves, that could be read aloud to unleash their powers. He didn't leave any of them on his fingers.

The big rune-chain proved to be the one bright spot. It did have words graven on those morningstar-like spike-studded bars at both ends, and when you said one of them aloud, the chain snapped out to a rigid spear-like length that could take all his weight, even jumping and kicking at it-without bending. The other word made it collapse back into a clinking heap of chain again.

Pouch ye fourthe was the one he'd stuffed full of coins. They all looked a bit odd-weird shapes rather than round, for one thing-and certainly didn't bear the names or kingly faces of anything he'd ever written about, but only one of them had an inscription he could read: "Sarbrik."

When Rod said that aloud, the coin started to glow, and got so hot that he had to drop it or sear his fingers. It set the wet leaves underfoot to smoldering, until he hastily scuffed it all out with his boot and kicked the coin onto a rock. By the time he'd been through the last two pouches, it had lost its glow and its heat again.

So he had a firestarter. If he dared carry it.

He decided he did, and put it all alone in pouch five.

Whatever he'd put in that pouch-he had a vague memory of a cluster of gruesome-looking eyeballs, enclosed in a gold-encaged spherical glass or rock crystal egg; eyes that turned and focused on him as he'd stretched out his hand to pluck up the egg-had vanished, all by itself, right through the closed fastenings, leaving behind only a spicy smell.