Shadowmarch

way down to the cavern floor, and no sign of Flint on the great raw stone balcony.

There was nowhere else the boy could be.

Now Chert did weep a little, exhausted and despondent. He got down on his knees and crawled close to the edge, half certain that he would see the boy’s mangled body on the jagged, rocky shore beneath him, illuminated by the weird blue crystals of the cavern’s roof Instead, the reach of broken, piled stone was empty all the way to the silvery Sea in the Depths and the unreachable island at its center where the vast rocky form stood that figured in so many Funderling nightmares and revelations. The man-shaped formation was shrouded in shadow, but the roof- stones shed their light almost everywhere else. There was no sign of Flint, either living or dead.

Chert was plunged back into the misery of uncertainty. Had he and Beetledown walked right past Flint at some other turning, not knowing that the boy lay senseless or even dead nearby? The Mysteries and the tunnels and caves above them were unimaginably complex. How could he even guess where to start a new search if the Rooftopper’s nose was not to be trusted’.

Then, as if it had sensed Chert’s distant presence, the huge and mysterious stone figure known as the Shining Man began to flicker alight on its island at the center of the Sea in the Depths, and Chert’s heart sped until he thought it might burst. He had seen the statue only one other time, at his initiation, in the company of other young Funderlings, under the guidance of the Metamorphic Brothers. This time, he was alone and full of an interloper’s guilt. As the massive crystalline shape suddenly blazed with blue and purple and golden light, it threw strange reflections on the sea itself, which was not water but an immense pool of something like quicksilver, so that all the cavern was full of leaping colors and the Shining Man almost appeared to move, as if awakening from a long slumber Chert flung himself down, his belly against the stone. He begged the Earth Elders’ forgiveness and prayed to be spared.

The gods did not see fit to strike him dead, and after a few moments the light dimmed a little, enough that he dared to raise his head, but when he did so, Chert’s superstitious terror was suddenly made worse. In the new light he could see a small shape on the island—a moving figure that advanced, crawling slowly upward from the edge of the shining metal sea toward the feet of the glowing giant, the Shining Man. Even from this distance, with the figure small as an insect, Chert knew who it was.

“Flint!” he shouted, and his voice echoed out across the quicksilver sea, but the small shadow did not stop or even look back.

30. Awakening

RED LEAVES:

The child in its bed A bear on a hilltop

Two pearls taken from the hand of an old one

—from The Bonefall Oracles

The ceiling of the main trigonate temple was so high that even with the great doors closed it had its own subtle winds— the thousands of candles on altars and in alcoves were all fluttering. At this hour of the morning it was also very cold. Barrick’s arm ached.

The prince regent was surrounded by the men who would accompany him into the west, his unloved cousin Rorick Longarren and more proven warriors like Tyne of Blueshore and Tyne’s old friend, the extravagantly mustached Droy Nikomede of Eastlake, along with many others Barrick knew mostly by reputation. In fact, much of the flower of the March Kingdoms’ nobility had gathered for this blessing—doughty Mayne Calough from far Kertewall, Sivney Fiddicks who some called the Piecemeal Knight because his armor and battle array were all prizes he had won in various tilts, Earl Gowan M’Ardall of Helmingsea, and several dozen other high lords dressed in white robes, plus five or six times that number of humbler stature who yet possessed their own horses and armor and at least a cottage or field somewhere so they could call themselves “landed.”

Like all the others, Barrick Eddon was down on one knee, facing the altar where Sisel told the blessing, the ancient Hierosolme phrases rolling from the hierarch’s tongue like the meaningless babble of a fast-running stream. Barrick knew he would soon be riding to war, perhaps even to death Not only that, the enemy they all faced were the wild creatures from the shadowlands, the old terror, the stuff of nightmares—yet he felt oddly flat, empty and unconcerned.

He raised his eyes to the vast tripartite statue behind the altar, the three gods of theTngon standing atop an artfully carved stone plinth that became clouds around the sky god’s feet, stones and waves respectively for the gods of earth and sea. The three towering deities stared outward, with Perin in the center in his rightful place as the highest of the high, fish-scaled Erivor on his right, glowering Kernios on his left They were half brothers, all children of old Sveros, the night sky, from different mothers. Barrick wondered if any one of the Trigon would be willing to die for his brothers as he would give his life for Briony—as he almost certainly was going to give his life for her. But since they were gods and thus immortal and invulnerable, how would such a thing happen? How could gods be brave?

Hierarch Sisel was still droning. The old man had insisted on leading the ceremony himself because of the importance of the occasion—and because, Barrick suspected, like so many others he wished to do something to help, to feel himself a contributor Word had passed swiftly through castle and city there was not one person in a hundred now who did not know that war was coming, and that it was apparently going to be a strange and frightening sort of war as well.

How Barrick himself felt about it all was even stranger, he had to admit—like reaching for something on a high shelf that was just out of reach no matter how one jumped or strained. He simply couldn’t make himself feel much of anything.

When the hierarch’s part of the ceremony was over, Sisel took Barrick aside as the other nobles were having their robes perfumed with sacred smoke by the blue-clad temple mantises. The hierarch had a half-humble, half- irritated expression that Barrick knew very well it was a look his elders often wore when they wanted to scold him but couldn’t help remembering that one or two of Barrick’s ancestors had imprisoned people—or even killed them, if certain popular rumors were true—for giving unwelcome advice.

“It is a brave thing you are doing, my prince,” Sisel said.

He means to say “stupid,” Barrick decided, but of course that was a word even a hierarch of the Tngonate would not use to an enthroned prince. “I have my reasons, Eminence. Some of them are good ones.”

Sisel raised his hand. It was meant to signify no more needs to be said, but to Barrick it was irritatingly close to Shaso’s raised hand, which throughout his childhood usually meant: Shut up, boy. “Of course, Highness. Of course. And the Three Powerful Ones grant that you and the others come home safely. Tyne is to lead, of course?' His forehead wrinkled as he realized what he had said. “In support of you, of course, Prince Barrick.”

He almost smiled. “Of course. But let us be honest. I’m to be a sort of… what do they have on the front of a ship? A masthead?”

“Figurehead?”

“Yes. I don’t expect the soldiers to listen to me, Hierarch—I have no experience of war yet In fact, I hope to learn something from Tyne and the others If the Three grant I come back safely, that is.”

Sisel gave him a strange look—he had perhaps detected something a little false in Barrick’s pious manner— but he was also relieved and clearly didn’t want to think about it much. “You show great wisdom, my prince. You are unquestionably your father’s son.”

“Yes, I think that’s true.”

Sisel was still puzzled by whatever lurked beneath Barrick’s words. “These are not natural creatures we face, my prince. We should not be troubled at what we do.”

We? “What do you mean?”

“These… things. The Twilight People, as they are superstitiously named, the Old Ones. They are unnatural —the enemies of men. They would take what is ours. They must be destroyed like rats or locusts, without