A Meeting of the Guild
As a marriage gift, Silvergleam gave to Pale Daughter a box of wood,
carved with the shapes of birds, and in it she put all that she could
remember of her family and old home. When she opened the box, its music
soothed her heart. But her father Thunder could not make music to cool the
burning of his own anger. He called out to his brothers that he was
afflicted, dying, that his heart was a smoldering stone in his chest. They
came to him and he told them of the theft of his daughter, his dove.
— from One Hundred Considerations out of the Qar's Book of Regret
I DON'T LIKE IT," OPAL SAID. "No good can come of telling everyone."
"I'm afraid this once I can't agree with you." Chert looked around the front room. Evidence of the distractions of the last days were everywhere-tools uncleaned, dust on the tabletop, unwashed bowls and cups. "I am no hero, old girl. I've come to the limit of what I can do."
"No hero-is that what you say? You certainly have been acting like you thought you were one."
"Not by choice. In all seriousness, my love, you must know that."
She sniffed. "I'll put the kettle on. Did you know the flue is blocked? We'll be lucky if the smoke doesn't kill us."
Chert sighed and sank deeper in his chair. "I'll see to the flue later. One thing at a time."
He had been so tired that when the ringing began he did not at first re-alize what it was. Half in dream, he imagined it as the bells of the guildhall, that the great building was floating away on some underground river, being sucked down into the darkness below Funderling Town…
"Is that our bell?" Opal shouted. "I'm making tea!"
"Sorry, sorry!" Chert climbed onto his feet, trying to ignore the protest¬ing twinges from his knees and ankles. No, he was definitely not a hero.
/ should be settled back to carve soapstone and watch grandchildren play. But wv never had children. He thought of Flint, strange Flint. Until now, I suppose.
Cinnabar's bulky form filled the doorway. "Ho, Master Blue Quartz. I've come on my way back from quarry, as I promised."
"Come in, Magister. It is kind of you."
Opal was already waiting by the best chair with a cup of blueroot tea. "I am mortified to have visitors with the house in this state-especially you, Magister. You do us an honor."
Cinnabar waved his hand. "Vistiting the most famous citizen of Funder¬ling Town? Seems to me I'm the one being honored with an audience." He took a small sip of the tea to test it, then blew on it.
"Famous…?" Chert frowned. Cinnabar had a rough and ready sense of humor, but the way he'd said it didn't sound like a joke.
"First you find the boy himself, then when he runs away you bring him back with one of the Metamorphic Brothers holding the litter? Big folk visitors in and out? And I hear rumors even of the Rooftoppers, the little folk out of the old tales. Chert, if anyone in the town is not talking about you and Opal, they would have to be as ignorant as a blindshrew."
"Oh. Oh, dear," Opal said, although there was a strange undertone of something almost like pride in it. "Would you like some more tea, Magister?"
"No, I've still got supper waiting at home for me, Mistress Opal. It's one thing to work late, but to come home to Quicksilver House without an ap¬petite after my woman's been in the kitchen all afternoon is just asking for trou¬ble. Perhaps you could tell me what's on your minds, if I'm not rushing you?"
Chert smiled. How different this fellow was from Chert's own brother, who was also a Magister: Nodule Blue Quartz was not nearly so important as Cinnabar in Funderling Town, but you would never know it from the airs Nodule put on. But Cinnabar-you couldn't fail to like a man who was so easy in himself, so uninterested in position or rank. Chert felt a little bad for what he was about to do.
"I'll get to the point, then, Magister," he said. "It's about our visitor. I nerd your help."
"Problems with the boy?" Cinnabar actually looked mildly concerned.
"Not the boy-or at least that's not the visitor we mean." He raised his voice. "You can come out now, Chaven!"
The physician had to bend at the waist to make his way through the doorway of the bedchamber, where he had been sitting with Flint. Even with his head bowed so as not to touch the ceiling, he loomed almost twice Cinnabar's height.
"Good evening, Magister," he said. "I think we have met."
"By the oldest Deeps." Cinnabar was clearly amazed. "Chaven Makaros, isn't it? You're the physician-the one who's supposed to be dead."
"There are many who would like that to be true," said Chaven with a rueful smile, "but so far they have not had their wish granted."
Cinnabar turned to his hosts. "You surprise me again. But what is this to me?"
"To all of us, I'm beginning to think," said Chert. "My bracing can't take the weight of all these secrets any longer, Magister. I need your help."
The head of the Quicksilver clan looked up at the physician, then back at Chert. "I've always thought you a good and honest man, Blue Quartz. Talk to me. I will listen. That much at least I can promise."
When Ludis saw that his visitor had arrived, the Lord Protector of Hi-erosol gestured for his military commanders to leave. The black-cloaked of¬ficers rolled up their charts of the citadel's defenses, bowed, and departed, but not without a few odd glances at the prisoner.
Ludis Drakava and his guest were not left entirely alone, of course: be¬sides the Golden Enomote, half a pentecount of soldiers who never left the lord protector's presence even when he slept, and who stood now at atten¬tion along the throne room walls, the lord protector also had his personal bodyguards, a pair of huge Kracian wrestlers who stood cross-armed and impassive on either side of the Green Chair. (The massive jade throne of Hierosol was reputed to have belonged to the great Hiliometes, the Worm-Slayer himself, and certainly was big enough to have seated a demigod. In recent centuries, more human-sized emperors had removed much of the
throne's lower foundation so they could sit with their feet close enough to the ground to spare their pride.)
Ludis, a former mercenary himself, was broad enough in chest and shoulders to mount the Green Chair without looking like a child. He had once been lean and muscled as a heroic statue, but now even the light armor that he wore instead of the robes of nobility-perhaps to remind his subjects he had won the throne by force and would not give it up any other way-could not hide the thickness around his middle, nor could his spade¬like beard completely obscure his softening jaw.
Ludis beckoned the prisoner forward as he seated himself on the un-cushioned jade. "Ah, King Olin." He had the rasping voice of a man who had been shouting orders in the chaos of battle all his grown life. "It is good to see you. We should not be strangers."
"What should we be?" asked the prisoner, but without obvious rancor.
"Equals. Rulers thrown together by circumstance, but with an under¬standing of what ruling means."
"You mean I should not despise you for holding me prisoner."
"Holding you for ransom. A common enough practice." Ludis clapped his hands and a servant appeared, dressed in the livery of House Drakava, a tunic decorated with a stylized picture of a red-eyed ram, a coat of arms that had not been hanging in the Herald's Hall quite as many years as the other great family crests. You can make yourself emperor in one day, warned an old Hierosoline saying, but it takes five centuries to make yourself respectable. "Wine," commanded Ludis. "And for you, Olin?"
He shrugged. "Wine. One thing at least; I know you will not poison me."
Ludis laughed and pawed at his beard. "No, no indeed! A waste of a valu¬able prize, that would be!" He flicked his hand at the servant. "You heard him. Go." He settled himself, pulling the furry mantle close around his shoulders. "It is cold, this sea wind. We plainsmen never get used to it. Are your rooms warm enough?"
"I am as comfortable as I could be any place with iron bars on the doors and windows."
"You are always welcome at my table. TWre are no bars on the dining hall."
"Just armed guards." Olin smiled a little. "You will forgive me. I cannot seem to lose my reluctance to break bread with the man who is holding me prisoner while my kingdom is in peril."
The servant returned. Ludis Drakava reached up and took a goblet from the tray. "Or would you like to choose first?"
"As I said." Olin look the other goblet and sipped. "Xandian?"
"horn Mihan. The last of the stock. 1 suppose they will make that foul, sweet Xixian stuff now." Ludis drank his off in one swallow and wiped his mouth."Perhaps you scorn my invitations because you are a king and I am only a usurper-a peasant with an army." His voice remained pleasant, but something had changed. "Kings, if they must be ransomed, like to be ran¬somed by other kings."
Olin stared at him for a long moment before replying. "Beggaring my people for ransom is bad enough, Drakava. But you want my daughter."
"There are worse matches she could make. But I am told her whereabouts are… unknown at the present. You are running out of heirs, King Olin, al¬though I also hear your newest wife has whelped successfully. Still, an infant prince, helpless in the hands of… what is their name… the Tolly family…?"
"If I did not have reasons already to wish to put my sword through you," said Olin evenly, "you would have just given me several. And you will never have my daughter. May the gods forgive me, but it would be better if she truly is dead instead of your slave. If I had known then what I know about you now I would have hanged myself before allowing you even to suggest such a match."
The lord protector's eyebrow rose. "Ah? Really?"
"I have heard of what happens to the women brought to your chambers- no, the girls. Young girls."
Ludis Drakava laughed. "Have you? Perhaps as you curse me for a mon¬ster you will tell me what your own interest is in girl-children, Olin of Southmarch. I hear you have developed a… friendship with the daughter of Count Perivos."
Olin, still standing, bent and put down his goblet on the floor, sloshing a little wine onto the marble tiles. "I think I would like to go back to my rooms now. To my prison."
"My question strikes too close to home?"
"All the gods curse you, Drakava, Pelaya Akuanis is a child. She reminds me of my own daughter-not that you would understand such a thing. She has been kind to me. We talk occasionally in the garden, with guards and her maids present. Even your foul imagination cannot make that into any¬thing unseemly."
"Ah, perhaps, perhaps. But that does not explain the little Xixian girl."
"What?" Olin looked startled, even took a step back. His foot tipped over the goblet and the dregs pooled on the floor.
"Surely you don't think you can meet with a chambermaid, or laundry maid, or whatever that little creature is, let alone my castle steward, with out my knowing it. If such a thing happened I would have to poison all my spies like rats and start over." He brayed a laugh. "I am not such a fool as you think me, Southmarch!"
"It was curiosity only." Olin took a deep breath; when he spoke again his voice was even. "She resembled someone, or so I thought, and I asked to meet her. I was wrong. She is nothing."
"Perhaps." Ludis clapped for the servant again, who came in with an ewer of wine and refilled the lord protector's cup. He saw the goblet on the floor and looked accusingly at Olin, but did not move to clean it up. "Tell the guards to bring in the envoy," Ludis ordered the man, then turned back to his captive. "Perhaps all is as you say. Perhaps. In any case, I think you will find this interesting."
The man who came in, accompanied by another half-pentecount of the lord protector's Rams, was hugely fat, his thighs rubbing against each other beneath his sumptuous silk robes so that he swayed when he walked like an overpacked donkey. His head and eyebrows were shaved and he wore on his chest a gold medallion in the shape of a flaming eye. He paused when he reached the foot of the throne and looked at Olin with casual suspicion, like someone who had spent most of his life making quick decisions on court precedent and disliked seeing anyone he could not quickly put into an appropriate list in his head.
"Pay no attention to my… counselor," Ludis Drakava told the fat man. "Read me your letter again."
The envoy bowed his huge, shiny head, and held up a beribboned scroll of vellum, then began to recite its contents in the high tones of a child. "From Sulepis Bishakh am-Xis III, Elect of Nushash, the Golden One, Master of the Great Tent and the Falcon Throne, Lord of All Places and Hap¬penings, may He live forever, to Ludis Drakava, Lord Protector of Hierosol and the Kracian Territories.
"It has come to Our attention that you hold prisoner one Olin Eddon, king of the northern country called Southmarch. We, in our divine wisdom, would like to speak with this man and have him as Our guest. Should you send him to Us, or arrange for him to return with Favored Bazilis, Our mes¬senger, We will reward you handsomely and also look kindly on you in the fu¬ture. It could even be that, should Hierosol someday find itself part of Our living kingdom (as is the manifest wish of the great god Nushash) that you,
Ludis Drakava, will receive a guaranteeof safely and high position for your¬self in Our glorious empire.
"Should you refuse to give him to Us, though, you will incur Our gravest
displeasure."
"And it is signed by His sacred hand, and stamped with the great Seal of the Son of the Sun," the eunuch finished, letting the vellum roll closed with.1 flourish. "Do you have an answer for my immortal master, Lord Protector?"
"I will give you one by morning, never fear," said Ludis. "You may go now."
The huge man looked at him sternly, as at a child who seeks to shirk re¬sponsibility, but allowed himself to be led out again by the soldiers.
Soon the throne room was empty again of all save Olin and Ludis and the bodyguards. "So, will you give him what he wants?" Olin asked.
Ludis Drakava laughed hard again. His cheeks were red, his eyes only a little less so. He had been drinking for much of the afternoon, it seemed. "He is readying his fleet, the Autarch-that poisonous, eunuch-loving child. He will be coming soon. The only question is, why does he want you?"
The northern king shrugged. "How could I know? They say this Sulepis is even more of a madman than his father Parnad was."
"Yes, but why you? In fact, how did it come to his attention that you are my… guest?"
"It's hardly a secret." Olin smiled in an ugly way. "You have made sure that all of Eion knows I am your prisoner."
"Yes. But it is also interesting this should come so soon after you spoke with that Xixian girl. Could your innocent meeting have been an oppor¬tunity for you to… send a message?"
"Are you mad?" Olin took a step toward the Green Chair. The two huge guards unfolded their arms and stared at him. He stopped, fists clenched. "Why would I want to put myself into such a madman's hands? I have fought him and his father for years-I would be fighting them now, if you and cursed Hesper had not conspired to take me prisoner in Jellon." He slapped his hands together in frustration. "Besides, I spoke to that girl only a few days ago-how could any message go back and forth to Xis so swiftly?"
The lord protector inclined his head. "All that you say seems reasonable." He seemed satisfied merely to have angered Olin. "But that does not mean it is true. These are unreasonable times, as you should well know, with your own castle attacked by changelings and goblins." He looked up, fixing Olin
with his reddened eyes. "Let me tell you this-you belong to Ludis. I bought you, and I will keep you. If I sell you, I alone will profit. And if the Autarch of Xix somehow manages to knock down the citadel walls, I will make sure with my last breath that he does not get you. Not alive, anyway." The master of Hierosol waved his hand. "You may go back to your cham¬bers now to read your books and flirt with the chambermaids, Eddon." He clapped his hands and the prisoner's guards appeared from outside the throne room door. "Take him out."
The minutely carved roof of the cavern that shielded Funderling Town was renowned throughout Eion. In better times people actually traveled up from distant countries like Perikal and the Devonisian islands just to see the fantastical forest of stone, the loving work of at least a dozen generations of Funderlings.
The ceiling of the House of the Stonecutters' Guild was not so famous, and certainly nowhere near so large, but was in its own way just as stupe¬fying a piece of art. In a natural concavity on the underside of Southmarch Castle's foundation slab a combination of limestone, cloudy quartz, beams of ancient black ironwood and the Funderlings' own matchless skills had been crafted into something the gods themselves might envy.
Chert had seen it many times, of course-his grandfather had been part of the team which had performed its last major repairs-but even so it never failed to impress him. Staring up at it from his lonely position at the ceremonial Outcrop, the ceiling seemed a window through quartz crystal and limestone clouds to some distant part of heaven, but those clouds were braced with great spars of ironwood far too thick and workmanlike to be merely ornamental. It was only when the viewer's eyes adjusted to the darkness (which grew paradoxically greater as the empty space ascended) that he saw the robed and masked figure surrounded by smaller robed and veiled figures, all seated upside down at the apex, glaring down from the vault, and he realized that the view was not that of someone looking up, but looking down into the depths of the earth-a great tunnel leading downward into the J'ezh'kral Pit, domain of the Lord of the Hot, Wet Stone-Kernios, as the big folk called him.
But of course, the true cleverness of the room was beneath the viewer's feet-something Chert had time to appreciate now as he waited for the
noisy reaction to His last words to die down. The Magisters'semicircle of benches and the four stone chairs they faced sat around the edge of a huge mirror of silvered mica, so that everything above was reflected below. Chert and the others seemed to be sitting around the rim of the great Pit itself, looking down into the very eyes of their god. To approach the Highwar-dens was to seem to walk on nothing above the living depths of Creation.
It was disconcerting at the best of times. Tonight, with the whole Guild joined together to judge Chert's actions, it was downright frightening.
"You did what?" His own brother, Nodule, was predictably leading the charge against him. "You cannot imagine the shame I feel, that one of our family…"
"Please, Magister," said Cinnabar. "No one here has even determined that anything wrong's been done, let alone that Chert has brought shame to the Blue Quartz family."
"To the entire Quartz clan!" cried Bloodstone, Magister of the Smoke Quartz branch. Fat and bulging-eyed, he was an ally of Nodule's and quick to join Chert's brother in most things-including, it seemed, in being hor¬rified by what Chert had done. He was not alone: the Magisters of the Black, Milk, and Rose Quartz families had also been grumbling all through Chert's appearance at the Outcrop.
Nice to see my family hurrying to my aid. Chert could only hope that the silence of the other members of the large Quartz clan augured more open minds.
"Strangers in the Mysteries?" Bloodstone shook his head in apparent amazement. "Big folk hiding from their rightful lords here in Funderling Town? What madness have you brought to us, Chert?"
"Your concern has been noted," said Cinnabar, sounding as though he meant the opposite. As Magister of his own Quicksilver family and one of the most important leaders of all Metal House-most thought he would someday replace old Quicklime Pewter as one of the four Great Highwar-dens, the most exalted of Funderling honors-he was a good ally to have. On top of everything else, he was also fair and sensible. "Perhaps," he said now, "we should see if any of the other Magisters or our noble Highwar-dens have questions before we start shouting about shame and tradition."
Scoria, Magister of the Gneiss family since his father was lifted to the rank of Highwarden, stood up, his thin face full of fretful anger. "I wish to know why you took in this newest upsider, Chert Blue Quartz. The rest is beyond my understanding, but this seems simple enough. He is a
criminal and the king's regent searches for him. If he is found here we will all suffer."
"With respect, Magister," Chert said, "the physician Chaven is a good man, as I said. He was also one of King Olin's most respected advisers. If he swears that the Tollys have murdered people to seize the throne, and will murder him as well to silence him-well, I'm only a foreman, a work¬ing man, but it seems more complicated to me than merely saying he's a criminal."
"But that doesn't change the risk we're in," pointed out Jacinth Mala¬chite, one of the few female Magisters. "Chert, many of us know you, and know you as a good man, but there's a difference between doing a deed of good conscience on your own and dragging all Funderling Town into a quarrel with the castle's rulers…"
A noise like wet sand rubbing on stone interrupted her: Highwarden Sard Smaragdine of Crystal House was clearing his throat. Unlike the Mag¬isters, the Highwardens did not rise to speak; ancient Sard remained shrunken in his chair like a sack of old chips and samples. High on the wall above his head the Great Astion, seal of Funderling Town, gleamed like a star buried in the stone. "Too many questions here to go about it in such a backward way," rasped Sard. "Which questions are the most important? That must be answered first. Then we will move our way down, layer after layer, until we have reached the bedrock of the whole matter." He waved a spindly arm. "What do the Metamorphic Brothers think? Has this… in¬cursion… into the sacred Mysteries angered the Earth Elders?"
Chert looked around, but it seemed nobody at this hastily assembled meeting of the Guild had thought to bring along any of the order. "They knew I went down into the Mysteries in search of my… in search of the boy, and they knew I brought him back up." The Metamorphic Brothers did not know everything that had happened down there, of course, and Chert didn't intend to tell the entire story tp the Guild, either; as Opal liked to remind him, there was such a thing as having too much trust in your fel¬lows. "They knew the little Rooftopper went down part of the way with me. The only thing that they seemed worried about was that somehow this all seemed to match some of old Brother Sulfur's dreams."
"When it comes to the Earth Elders," said Travertine, another of the Highwardens and almost as old as Sard, "Sulphur has forgotten more than the rest of you ever knew…"
"Yes, thank you, Brother Highwarden," Sard rasped. "Let us continue.
Chert Blue Quartz, why did you first bring this upgrounder boy among us? It is… not our custom."
"It was something about the strangeness of where we found him, I sup¬pose. But if truth be told, much of it was because my wife Opal wanted to take him home and I could not argue her out of it." A ripple of laughter passed tlirough the room, but only a small one: the matters at hand were far too daunting. "We have no children, as most of you know."
Sard cleared his throat again. "Is there anything other than the timing that makes you think there is any connection between what this physician claims is happening in the castle above us and the strange child you brought home?"
Chert had to think for a moment. "Well, Flint found the stone that Chaven says was used to murder Prince Kendrick. That may be happen¬stance, but for a child who found his way to the Rooftoppers when no one else has seen them, let alone spoken to them, for generations…"
"I take your meaning," the oldest Highwarden said, nodding. He waved his hand, looking like an upended tortoise struggling to rise. "Do any of my fellows have anything more to ask or to offer?" He squinted his old, near-blind eyes as he looked to the masters of Fire Stone and Water Stone houses, but they shook their heads. Only Quicklime Pewter, the Highwar¬den of Metal House, had anything to say.
"Is the physician here, brothers?" he asked. "We cannot make up our minds on hearsay alone."
One of the younger Magisters opened the chamber door and beck¬oned. Chaven came through with his bandaged hands clasped before him, head lowered and shoulders hunched, although the door to the Magister¬ial Chamber was one of the few in Funderling Town he could walk through upright. He saw the size of the room and stopped, then looked down at the mica floor, startled by what appeared to be an abyss beneath his feet.
"It's a mirror," Chert said from where he stood at the Outcrop. "Don't be afraid."
"I've never seen one even near such a size," said Chaven, half to himself. "Wonderful. Wonderful!"
"You may step down, Chert Blue Quartz," wheezed Sard. "Chaven of Ulos, you may take his place at the Outcrop. We have some questions we wish to ask you."
The physician was so fascinated by the mica mirror beneath his feel tti.it
he almost bumped into the Magister nearest the end, but at last made Ins way to the Outcrop and stood at the edge of the circular floor, the tall stone chairs of the Highwardens on his left, the stone benches of the Magislers at his right.
As Chaven repeated the story that others had already related, Chert felt a flush of guilty gratitude that the physician did not know all of the tale. Because of Chaven's seeming madness on the subject of mirrors, Chert had chosen to keep back the full story of Flint's glass, and likewise had not told the officers of the Guild about his own journey under Brenn's Bay to meet the victorious Twilight People in mainland Southmarch. Chert still had no idea what any of that meant, but feared that if he told Cinnabar and the others that he had actually handed something over to the Quiet Folk, as they were sometimes euphemistically called, something that the boy had brought from behind the Shadowline in the first place, the Guild might de¬cide keeping the boy was a risk that Funderling Town could not afford.
And that would be the end of me, he thought. My wife would never speak to me again. And, he realized, I'd miss the boy something fierce.
"You realize, Chaven Makaros," said the Water Stone Highwarden, Travertine, "that by coming here, you may have embroiled our entire set¬tlement in a struggle with the current lords of Southmarch." He gave the physician a stern look. "We have a saying, 'Few are the good things that come from above, and nothing you have done makes me inclined to think we should change it."
Even with his head bowed Chaven still towered above the Highwardens. "I was wounded, feverish, and desperate, my lords. I did not think of greater matters, but only hoped to find help from my friend, Chert of the Blue Quartz. For that, I apologize."
"Foolishness is no excuse!" called out Chert's brother Nodule. Several of the other Magisters rumbled their approval of the sentiment.
"But desperation may bring true allies together," said Cinnabar, and many other Magisters nodded. During his brief time in power, Hendon Tolly had taken all building around the castle out of the hands of Funderlings, keep¬ing his plans secret and using handpicked men of his own brought in from Summerfield. Many of the Funderling leaders already feared for their liveli¬hood-work on sprawling Southmarch Castle had provided much of their income in recent years. Chert suspected that as much as anything else might make them more willing to take risks than usual.
"Does anybody else wish to speak?" asked Highwarden Sard after a long
pointless speech advocating caution by Magister Puddingstone of the Marl family had dragged to an end. "Or may we get on with our decision?"
"Which decision, Highwarden?" asked Cinnabar. "It seems to me we have three things to ponder. What, if anything, should be done about Chert Blue Quartz taking outsiders into the Mysteries? What, if anything, should be done to punish the boy Flint for visiting the Mysteries without permis¬sion (although he seems to have suffered more than a little for his mischief already, and was sick for many days thereafter)? And what should we do about this gentleman, the physician Chaven, and what he says about the Tollys and the attack on the royal family?"
"Thank you, Magister Quicksilver," said Highwarden Caprock Gneiss. "You have summed things up admirably. And as the best informed of the Magisters, you may stay and help the four of us with our deliberations."
Chert's spirits rose a little. One of the Magisters was always picked to help prevent a deadlock among the four Houses, and he could not have hoped for anyone better than Cinnabar.
The five got up-Sard leaning heavily on Cinnabar's arm-and retreated to the Highwardens' Cabinet, a room off the Council Chamber that Chert had heard was very sumptuously appointed, with its own waterfall and sev¬eral comfortable couches. The informant had been his brother Nodule, who as always was eager to emphasize the difference in his and Chert's status. Nodule had once been the Magister picked to provide the fifth vote and still talked about it several years later as if it were an everyday occurrence.
While the Highwardens were absent the others milled about the Coun¬cil Chamber and talked. Some, anticipating a long deliberation, even stepped out to the tavern around the corner for a cup or two. Chert, who had the distinct feeling he was the subject of almost every conversation, and not in a way he'd like, went and joined Chaven, who was sitting on a bench along the outer wall with a morose expression on his round face.
"I fear I've brought you nothing but trouble, Chert."
"Nonsense." He did his best to smile. "You've brought a bit, there's no question, but if I'd come to you the same way, you'd have done the same for me."
"Would I?" Chaven shook his head, then lowered his chin to his hands. "I don't know, sometimes. Everything seems to be different since that mil ror came to me. I don't even feel like precisely the same person. It's hard tO explain." He sighed. "But I pray that you're right. I hope that no mall' I how it's got its claws into me, I'm still the same man underneath."
"Of course you are," said Chert heartily, patting the physician's arm, but in truth such talk made him a bit nervous. What could a mere looking glass do to unsettle a learned man like Chaven so thoroughly? "Perhaps you are worrying too much. Perhaps we should not even mention your own mir¬ror, the one Brother Okros has stolen."
"Not mention it?" For a moment Chaven looked like someone quite different, someone colder and angrier than Chert would ever have ex¬pected. "It may be a weapon-a terrible weapon-and it is in the hands of Hendon Tolly, a man without kindness or mercy. He must not have it! Your people… we must…" He looked around as though surprised to find that the person speaking so loudly was himself. "I'm sorry, Chert. Perhaps you are right. This has all been… difficult."
Chert patted his arm again. The other Funderlings in the wide chamber were all watching him and the physician now, although some had the cour¬tesy to pretend they weren't.
"We have decided," said Highwarden Sard, "not to decide. At least not about the most dangerous issue, that of the legitimacy of the castle's regent, Lord Tolly, and what if anything we should do about it."
"We know we must come to a decision," amplified Highwarden Traver¬tine. "But it cannot be rushed."
"However, in the meantime, we have decided about the other matters," continued Sard, then paused to catch his breath. "Chert Blue Quartz, stand and hear our words."
Chert stood up, his heart pounding. He tried to catch Cinnabar's eye, to glean something of what was to come, but his view of the Quicksilver Magister was blocked by the dark, robed bulk of Highwarden Caprock.
"We rule that the boy Flint shall be punished for his mischief, as Cinnabar so quaintly put it, by being confined to his house unless he is ac¬companied by Chert or Opal Blue Quartz.
Chert let out his breath. They were not going to exile the boy from Funderling Town. He was so relieved he could barely pay attention to what else the Highwardens were saying.
"Chert Blue Quartz himself has done no wrong," proclaimed Sard.
"Although his judgment could have been better," suggested Highwarden Quicklime Pewter.
"Yes, it could have been," said old Sard with a sour look at his colleague, "but he did his best to remedy a bad situation, and then realized that he
could not go on without the advice of the Guild, To him, no penalty, but he must no longer act without the Guild's approval in any of these matters. Do you understand, Chert Blue Quartz?"
"1 do."
"And do you so swear on the Mysteries that bind us all?"
"I do." But though he was reassured by what had been said so far, Chert found he was not as confident about what would be done in the long run. Also, he had grown used to doing things that others-especially the Mag-isters and Highwardens-might think were beyond his rights or responsi¬bilities. He and his family were dug very deep into a strange, strange vein.
"Last we come to the matter of the physician Chaven," said Sard. "We have much still to discuss about his claims and will not make a decision recklessly, but some choices must be made now." He stopped to cough, and for a moment as his chest heaved it seemed he might not go on. At last he caught his breath. "He will remain with us until we have determined what to do."
"But he cannot remain in your house, Chert," said Cinnabar. "It is al¬ready nearly impossible to keep our people from whispering, and it's likely that only the fact these Tollys have banned us from working in the castle has kept his presence secret from them this long."
"Where will he go…?"
"We will find a place for him here at the guild hall." Cinnabar turned to the Highwardens. Sard and Quicklime nodded, but Travertine and Gneiss looked more than a little disgruntled. Chert guessed that Cinnabar had cast the deciding vote.
"I am sure Opal will want to keep feeding him," Chert said. "Now that she's learned what he eats." He smiled at Chaven, who seemed not entirely to understand what was happening. "Upgrounders don't like mole very much, and you can't get them to eat cave crickets at knifepoint."
A few of the other Magisters laughed. For the moment, things in the Council Chamber were as friendly as they were likely to be-still tense, but no one in open rebellion.
"So, then." Sard raised his hand and all the Magisters stood. "We will meet again in one tennight to make final decisions. Until then, may the Earth Elders see you through all darknesses and in any depths."
"In the name of He who listens in the Great Dark," the others said in ragged chorus.
Chert watched the Magisters file out before turning to Chaven, who
was still staring down at the floor of the Council Chamber like a school-boy caught with his exercises unlearned. "Come, friend. Cinnabar will show us where you'll stay, then I'll go back to my house and pack up some things for you. We've been very lucky-I'm surprised, to tell you the truth. I suspect that having Cinnabar on our side is what saved us, because old Quicklime trusts him. Cinnabar will probably replace him one day."
"And I hope that day is far away," said the Quicksilver Magister, striding up. "Quicklime Pewter has forgotten more about this town and the stone it's built with than I'll ever know."
As they began to walk toward the chamber door, Chaven at last looked up, as if wakening from a dream. "I'm sorry, I…" He blinked. "That veiled figure," he said, pointing at the fabled ceiling. "Who is that? Is it…?"
"That is the Lord of… that is Kernios, of course, god of the earth," Chert told him. "He is our special patron, as you must know."
"And on his shoulder, an owl." The physician was staring down again.
"It is his sacred bird, after all."
"Kernios…" Chaven shook his head. "Of course."
He said no more, but seemed far more troubled than a man should who had just been granted his life and safety by the venerable Stone-Cutter's Guild.