The palace
was curiously and wonderfully an habitation of more than two
thousand years ago, furnished with a taste and luxury in advance
of this moment's civilization of the world. 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.
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