by Tad Williams
Elders protect us both, he thought. The boy from any harm, and me from Opal should anything happen to him.
He missed his wife. Never in his life since the days he was apprenticing under old man Iron Quartz and had traveled with him as far as Settland had he been separated from her so long. It was not that he missed her in the same way he had when they were newly married, when to be apart from her felt like a bodily ache, when he could not be near her without touching her, teasing her, kissing her, and to be denied those things was torment; rather he missed her now as he would have missed a part of himself if it had been taken from him. He was incomplete.
Ah, old girl, I really do ache for you! I'll have to tell you that as soon as I see you, instead of being silly. I can't wait until I can give you the squeezes I've been saving. And I want to hear your voice, even if you're calling me foolish. I'd rather be mocked by you than praised by the Guild.
"She's a good woman, your mother," he said out loud.
Flint cocked his head. "She's not my real mother. But she is a good woman."
"Do you remember your real mother?" Chert asked.
Flint kept walking, but Chert had learned the boy had different kinds of silences. This was the kind that meant he was thinking.
"My mother is dead," he said at last, his voice as flat as a split slate. "She died trying to save me."
But despite this sudden, surprising assertion, when pressed Flint could not remember anything else. After a while, concerned that they were far enough from the temple now that quiet was better than unnecessary talk, Chert let the matter drop.
They searched the dark areas at the sides of the Cascade Stair and up as far as the tunnels on the level below the Salt Pool, then stopped to eat mushrooms and some smoked mole Chert had brought for a treat. They were thirsty when they'd finished so they walked a little way farther up the great stair to a spot where the sloping cavern was pierced by a natural sinkhole, a phenomenon the Funderlings called an "Elders' Well." Unlike the Salt Pool, which seeped in from the bay and whose surface was never any higher or lower than the sea itself, the Elders' Wells were full of fresh, sweet water that soaked down from rainfall on Midlan's Mount. In fact, it was these sinkholes that made life on the great rock possible for both the Funderlings and the Big Folk, who dug their own wells into these aquifers from the surface.
As he watched Flint kneeling at the edge of the pool, filling his hands and drinking with his usual fierce concentration, as though experiencing something he had never done before, Chert wondered at how the simplest things in life could be so complicated. Here, fresh water. Only a few hundred cubits above was the saltwater of Brenn's Bay. Only the limestone of Midlan's Mount kept the two apart, and if that ever changed-say, perhaps because of an earth tremor like the ones that occurred frequently in the southern islands, but never in Chert's memory here-then everything else would change, too: the bay would flood in and drown everything lower than the Salt Pool, killing all the monks and everyone else in the temple. Many of the deeper sweet water springs would become undrinkable.
And yet despite this precarious balance, life had gone on here, hardly changing, for century upon century. Chert, with the help of the Blue Quartz family tablets, could track his own line back nearly ten generations; some of the richer and more powerful families claimed they could name a line of a hundred ancestors.
But would the next generation be able to say the same? Or would they be reciting their Funderling history in some kind of poor scrape or burrow after a Qar victory had destroyed their ancient home? Would the Funderlings of days to come live wild in unshaped caves, as some of their more eccentric philosophers claimed their ancestors once had?
Chert realized with a little start that Flint had finished drinking and was standing just in front of him, staring with those calm, wide eyes. "Did you hear that?" he asked. "I thought I heard someone moaning."
"Could it be Chaven?"
The boy shook his head. "Too big. Too deep."
"Likely just earth sounds, then. Sorry, lad. I was thinking about water and stone-the kind of things an old guildsman like me tends to think about."
"This is shellstone," the boy told him solemnly, holding up a pale, irregular rock. "The kind of limestone with shells in it."
Chert laughed and stood up. "I'm glad to see you've been paying attention. Good lad."
Having found no sign of Chaven or anything else out of the ordinary in the halls around the Cascade Stair, Chert and Flint made their way down past the temple again and through the Five Arches gateway, then into the complicated web of tunnels that led down to the Maze. He was not going to go any closer to the Mysteries, of course-the last thing he wanted to do was run the risk of somehow losing track of the boy in those confusing depths-but if Chaven was lost somewhere in the deeps below the temple, this seemed the most likely place to look. The Maze was even more confusing, of course, but if the physician had made his way that far down Chert would need the help of the Brothers themselves to search it properly: he had not forgotten his own disturbing experiences in that benighted place.
Something like an hour later, Chert was standing at the fork of two tunnels and thinking it was probably time to give up and head back to the temple if they wanted to have a hope of supper when he noticed that Flint was no longer standing behind him.
He ran back down the tunnel, fear swelling inside him. "Flint!" he shouted. "Boy! Where are you? " Chert cursed himself over and over again as he searched every cross-track he had passed: everything Opal had ever said about him, even at her most uncharitable, was clearly true-he was an utter dunderhead. Bringing the boy right back to the place where he had already vanished once, a place where he had suffered through the Elders only knew what kind of terrifying times!
As he was exploring perhaps the sixth or seventh cross-track he found himself in a long corridor that dipped and twisted several times. After he had run for some time Chert began to feel he was wasting too much time down this one rabbit hole. He was just about to turn and make his way back to the main hall when the corridor opened in front of him. This wider space ended in a great crevice as wide as the Funderling's arm and three or four times his height, but he had only a moment to notice that before he saw the pale-haired figure lying crumpled in the shadows a short distance away.
"Elders preserve us all!" he cried and threw himself down on his knees beside Flint. To his immeasurable relief, the boy was breathing, and even began to stir as Chert pulled him a little way off the ground and awkwardly cradled him against his chest.
"Oh, child, what have I done?" Chert said. The boy twitched in his arms, just a little at first, but then harder. A moment later Chert felt something wet and warm against his neck and leaned back, searching desperately for a bleeding wound… but it was not blood that had run from the boy's face and splattered on him but something else. Flint was weeping.
"Boy?" Chert said. "Boy, what is it? Are you well? Can you hear me?"
"Dying…" he said. "Dying."
"You are not! Don't say such things-you will draw the Elders' attention!" He pulled the boy close to him again. "Don't tempt them-they must fill their hods with souls each day."
Flint groaned. "But I feel… Oh, Papa Chert, it hurts so!"
"Don't fear, boy. I'll get you back."
"No, it's not me. That is…" The boy struggled in Chert's arms so that he could barely hold him. "It's there. I felt it. There!" He pointed to the crevice at the end of the passage. "Dying!" he said, and moaned as if caught in the claws of some agonizing disease.
Chert let the boy down gently and crawled closer, letting the fragile beam of his lantern play over the crevice. "What do you mean? Is there something in there?"
"Something… something I do not…" Flint shook his head. He was pale, and in the lantern light Chert could see that beads of sweat covered his face. "It frightens me. It hurts. Oh, please, Papa, I'm dying…!"
"You're not dying." A shiver ran up Chert's back and neck. Long ago, in the Eddon fam
ily tomb, the boy had acted the same way, even before he had disappeared into the Mysteries. "It's a hole, boy, or rather it's a crevice where two big slabs come together. Why does it frighten you?"
Flint could only shake his head, his expression sullen and a little trapped. "Don't know."
Chert moved forward until he could look inside the crevice, but saw nothing by the pale, yellow-green light except more stone. The crevice was no wider than his two hands flattened side by side. "It seems ordinary enough to me…" he began, but then realized something about it did seem familiar. But how could that be? It was nothing but two great pieces of stone and the narrow space between them…
"That smell," he said suddenly. It was faint, but now that he'd noticed it the scent was as clear as the sound of a tap hammer ringing on crystal. "I've smelled it before…"
The memory when it came was as powerful as a blow-the dark, massive cavern of the Mysteries, the lake of gleaming metal and the Shining Man itself…
"By the Hot Lord," he swore, and did not even realize he had voiced such a fierce oath in front of the child. "That's where… that smell…! In the cavern. The quicksilver pool. The Sea in the Depths!" He remembered that he had wondered at the time where the air escaped to, because quicksilver vapors were poisonous, but he and the boy-and, presumably, many monks over the years-had all come away from the Sea in the Depths alive. Also, now that he thought about it, quicksilver itself had no scent.
He leaned back to the crevice, sniffing. He could detect another smell as well-something of the sea, which must be air drifting down from the surface above-but it was the scent he identified with the silvery pool that was most noticeable. He would have to ask Cinnabar what it could be.
"Come on," he said to the boy. "Up now and let's go back to the temple."
Flint did his best, but he was weak and could hardly stand. He was too big to be carried on Chert's back, but Chert found that if he let the boy lean on him they could make slow but steady time. They would be late for supper, though. At another time that would have made him very bitter indeed, but the fright the boy had given him, coupled with the strange smell of the Sea in the Depths, had largely taken away Chert's appetite.
It made him think again about the strangeness of this little world beneath Southmarch-a world not only vaster and more complicated than the Big Folk living on the surface dreamed, but clearly more than even Chert and the other Funderlings realized. If the Sea in the Depths vented to the surface, as it must then the opening should be somewhere within the walls of Southmarch Castle. Nothing strange about that-the limestone of Midlan's Mount was full of holes, and there were many such cracks that kept air moving through Funderling Town and the depths, otherwise so many people could not have made their home there-but for reasons he could not even begin to guess, the knowledge that there was only air between the Shining Man and the surface of the world now troubled Chert's thoughts like an ache.
Getting past Five Arches seemed to do much for Flint's strength: by the time they were making their way up the lower Cascade Stair he was able to walk unsupported, although he was still short of breath and had to stop often to rest.
"I'm sorry, Father," he said during one such pause, "I was… I thought I was dying. But it also felt like someone I loved was leaving me-as if you or Mama Opal were going away."
"Never mind, Son. You'll feel better with some soup in you. No shame in any case-those are strange passages down there, everyone knows it."
As they approached the temple along the path through the ceremonial fungus gardens they saw a bulky shape standing at a point where two paths crossed, looking down at a lacework of white fungal strings that had been induced to grow over a frame in the shape of the sacred mattock. As they drew closer, Chert began to think he recognized who stood there.
"Chaven? Is that you? Chaven!" He hurried forward. "Praise the Elders, you're back!"
The physician turned, his face mild and smiling. "Yes, I am," he said, but with the air of someone who has only been out for a short walk.
"Where did you go?"
Chaven looked past him to the place where Flint had stopped in the middle of the path. The boy seemed in no hurry to come closer. "Hello, lad. Hmm, where did I go?" He nodded as though the question was a wise one, one that required proper thought instead of a rushed answer. "Out to the passages beyond Five Arches. Yes."
"We just came back from there. How did we miss you? Have you been back long?"
Still the mild, surprised look. "I was… you know, I cannot completely recall. I was looking into some ideas… some… thoughts… that I had." He frowned a little, in the way of someone who has just remembered an undone errand. "Yes, I had some thinking to do, and I just… wandered."
Chert was going to question him further, determined to get some better answers than this unsatisfying fare, when one of the monks suddenly appeared at the top of the path, waving both arms and clearly excited.
"Blue Quartz, is that you? Come quickly! We are invaded."
"Invaded?" Chert felt terror rise inside him. Would there never be any peace? Did this mean Vansen had failed?
"Yes," the monk said. "It is dreadful. There are women everywhere!"
"What? Women? What are you talking about?"
"Women from Funderling Town. The magister's wife and all, they just arrived. Dozens of them! The temple isn't meant for all these women!"
Chert laughed in relief. "Yes, you brothers are in for it now, you poor scrapers!" He turned to Flint. "That means our Opal's come back, too. Come on, boy."
As they followed the anxious monk, Chaven fell a few steps behind them as if still pleasantly distracted by his thoughts.
Flint leaned close to Chert. "He's not telling the truth," the boy whispered. He did not sound as if he disapproved, but instead simply reported dry fact. "Not all of it. He's hiding something important from us."
"I had the same feeling," murmured Chert. Up ahead, monks swarmed the colonnade in front of the temple like mice escaping a cat. "The same feeling. And I do not like it at all."
So I'm back in armor again, thought Ferras Vansen with weary amusement as he adjusted the byrnie the Funderlings had given him, a chain-mail shirt made from a surprisingly delicate series of barred links that was so light it scarcely needed any underpadding. Ah, well, at least I didn't have enough time to grow used to freedom.
"I packed some food, as you asked, Captain," said Brother Antimony. "Some bread and cheese and a couple of onions. Oh, and we are lucky-look!" The monk held out an open sack. "Old Man's Ears!"
For a moment Vansen's stomach threatened to crawl up his throat and leap out of his mouth. Then he realized that although the things in Antimony's bag did look like fleshy, shriveled ears, they were in fact some kind of mushroom. Still, they smelled very strange, dark and damp and musty; Vansen found it difficult to muster much enthusiasm. "Yes. Splendid."
"I still don't think this is a good idea, Captain," Cinnabar told him. "Let us at least send a dozen men with you. Jasper is up and around."
"Yes, take me, Captain." Sledge Jasper's bald head was so cut and bruised it looked like it had been carved from marble. "I'll do for some of those meadow-dancers. Yes, I wouldn't mind killing a few more at all."
"Which is why this isn't the mission for you," Vansen said. "I wouldn't waste our best fighter when I don't want a fight. They need you more here."
"But we need you here, Vansen," said Malachite Copper. "That is the most important truth."
"You must trust me, gentlemen-I can do more good this way. Would you rather have me here waiting to defend against another attack, or out making sure there are no more attacks?"
Cinnabar shook his head. "That is chop-logic-those are not the only two possible outcomes. You might be killed without any bargain made. Then we have neither a defender nor a peacemaker."
"Not a very cheerful thought, Magister, but I must chance the odds. I am the only person who can do this, you must believe me. And if I take too many men with me, I will
not only leave your defenses compromised, but increase the chance my mission will be seen as an attack. My only hope is to speak to their leader, face to face." He turned to Antimony. "I admire the rope around the prisoner, Brother-we must certainly keep him tied to us-but I would rather see it around his ankle than his waist. If he tries to get away I want to be able to jerk him off his feet." He looked sternly at the drow, who, although he could not understand Vansen's words, could certainly understand his tone. The bearded little man cringed in fear, baring his snaggy yellow teeth.
They did not linger in the leavetaking: Vansen knew Cinnabar and the others did not agree with him, and he felt bad himself that he had to take Antimony, a very well-liked fellow. It was possible another of the Funderling monks might be able to translate, but he trusted young Antimony to keep his head in a crisis, and despite his own show of confidence he knew he had only a very small chance of achieving his goal without something going wrong.
The drow, who still seemed to fear some kind of treachery by his captors, trudged ahead on his short length of rope, leading them up into the Festival Halls, back to the spot where the Qar had broken through. Cinnabar's men had almost finished filling the space where the Qar had dug their way in, stacking rock so expertly that it was impossible to get past. Vansen was taken aback-he had forgotten that the breach was being repaired. How would they get to the Qar? Not by any surface route, that was certain: if the confused bits of news that had trickled down to Funderling Town and thence to the temple were true, aboveground the siege had turned into a full-bore invasion. He and Antimony would never survive an attempt to reach the Qar that way.
