Shadowmarch

When it came, it was like a sudden flame, an explosion of pale light. Despite his strong, schooled nerves, Chaven let out a quiet grunt of surprise. Feathers rippled and gleamed in the depths of the mirror as it clutched the dead mouse with a taloned foot, then bent to take the offering in its sharp beak. For a moment the tail hung like a thread, then the shadow-mouse was swallowed down and a huge white owl stared out of the glass with eyes like molten copper.

* * *

“I don’t understand,” said the boy Flint, scowling. “I like the tunnels. Why do we have to walk up here?”

Chert looked back to make sure the Funderling work crew were in an orderly line behind him. Dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky and turn the shadows silvery: if they had been big folk and unused to darkness, they would have been carrying torches. Chert’s guildsmen were straggling a little, a few whispering avidly among themselves, but that was within the bounds of suitable respect. He turned back to the boy. “Because when we go to work in the keep, we always come in at the gate. Remember, there are no tunnels that lead into the inner keep from below.” He gave the boy a significant look, praying silently to the Earth Elders that the child would not start prattling about the underground doorway into Chaven’s observatory within the hearing of the other Funderlings.

Flint shook his head. “We could have gone a lot of the way underground. I like the tunnels!”

“I’m glad to hear it, because if you stay with us, you’ll be spending a lot of your days in them. Now, hush— we’re coming to the gate.”

A young Trigon priest awaited them at the guard tower of the Raven’s Gate. He was thick in the waist and looked as though he didn’t deny himself much, but he did not treat Chert as though he were half-witted as well as half-heighted, which made everything much more pleasant.

“I am Andros, Lord Castellan Nynor’s proxy,” announced the priest. “And you are…” he consulted a leatherbound book,”… Hornblende?”

“No, he took ill. I’m Chert and I’ll be chief of this job.” He produced the Stonecutter’s Guild’s astion, a circle of crystal polished very thin (but starthngly durable) that he wore around his neck on a cord. “Here is my token.”

“That is well, sir.” The priest frowned in distraction. “I am here not to contest your authority, but to tell you that your orders have changed. Are you aware of what happened here only one night ago?”

“Of course. All of Funderling Town is in mourning already.” Which was not entirely the truth, but certainly the news had shot from house to house over the last grim day like an echo, and most of the inhabitants of the underground city were shocked and frightened. “We wondered whether it was appropriate to come this morning as had been originally ordered, but since we had not heard otherwise…”

“Quite right. But instead of the work that was planned, we have a sadder and more pressing task for you. The family vault where we will lay Prince Kendrick has no more room. We knew of this, of course, but did not think we should need to enlarge it so soon, never expecting…” He broke off and dabbed at his nose with a sleeve. This man was genuinely mourning, Chert could see. Well, he knew the prince, no doubt — perhaps spoke to him often. Chert himself was feeling quite unsettled, and he had never seen the prince regent closer than a hundred yards. “We are happy to serve,” he told Andros.

The priest smiled sadly. “Yes. Well, I have your instructions here, directly from Lord Nynor. The work must be swift, but remember this is the burial place for an Eddon prince. We will not have time to paint the new tomb properly, but we can at least make sure it is clean and well-measured.”

“It will be the best work we can do.”

The interior of the tomb cast a shadow on Chert’s heart. He looked at little Flint, wide-eyed but unbothered by the heavy carvings, the stylized masks of wolves snarling out of deep shadows, the images of sleeping warriors and queens on top of the ancient stone caskets. The tomb walls were honeycombed with niches, and every niche held a sarcophagus. “Does this frighten you?”

The boy looked at him as though the question made no sense. He shook his head briskly.

I only wish I could say the same, thought Chert. Behind him the work gang was also quiet as they made their way through the mazy tomb. It was not the idea of mortal spirits that disturbed him, of ghosts—although in this dark, quiet place he was not quick to dismiss the thought—but of the ultimate futility of things. Do what you will, you will come to this. Whether you sit lonely in your house and store up money, or sing loud in the guildhall, buying tankards of mossbrew for all your friends and relations, in the end you will find this —or it will find you.

He paused beside one niche. On the coffin lid was carved a man in full armor, his helmet in the crook of his elbow, his sword hilt clasped upon his chest His beard was wound with ribbons, each wrought in careful, almost loving detail.

“Here lies the king’s father,” he told Flint. “The old king, Ustin, He was a fierce man, but a scourge to the country’s enemies and a fair-dealer to our people.”

“He was a hard-hearted bastard,” said one of the work gang quietly. “Who said that?” Chert glared. “You, Pumice?”

“What if I did?” The young Funderling, not three years a guild member, returned his stare. “What did Ustin or any of his kind ever do for us? We build their castles and forge their weapons so they can slaughter each other—and us, every few generations—and what do we get in return?”

“We have our own city…”

Pumice laughed. He was sharp-eyed, dark, and thin. Chert thought the youth had somehow got himself born into the wrong family. He should have been a Blackglass, that one. “Cows have their own fields. Do they get to keep their milk?”

“That’s enough.” Some of the others on the work gang were stirring, but Chert could not tell whether they were restless with Pumice s prating or in agreement with him. “We have work to do.”

“Ah, yes. The poor, sad, dead prince. Did he ever step into Funderling Town, ever in his life?”

“You are speaking nonsense, Pumice. What has got into you?” He glanced at Flint, who was watching the exchange without expression.

“You ask me that? Just because I have never loved the big folk? If someone needs to explain, I think it’s you, Chert. None of the rest of us have adopted one of them into our own household.”

“Go out,” Chert told the boy. “Go and play—there is a garden up above.” A cemetery, in truth, but garden enough. “But… !”

“Do not argue with me, boy. I need to talk to these men and you will only find it boring. Go out. But stay close to the entrance.”

Flint clearly felt he would find the conversation anything but boring, but masked his feelings in that way he had and walked across the tomb and up the stairs. When he was gone, Chert turned back to Pumice and the rest of the work gang.

“Have any of you a complaint with my leadership? Because I will not lead men who grumble and whine, nor will I chief a job where I do not trust my workers. Pumice, you have had much to say. You do not like my feelings about our masters. That is your privilege, I suppose—you are free and a guildsman. Do you have aught else to say about me?”

The younger man seemed about to start again, but it was an older man, one of the Gypsum cousins, who spoke instead. “He doesn’t talk for the rest of us, Chert. In fact, we’ve spent a bit too much time listening to him lately, truth be told.” A few of the other men grunted agreement.

“Cowards, the lot of you,” Pumice sneered. “Slaving away like you were in the Autarch’s mines, working yourselves almost to death, then down on your knees to thank the big folks for the privilege.”

A sour smile twisted Chert’s mouth. “The day I see you working yourself almost to death, Pumice, will be a day when all the world has finally gone wheels-over-ore-cart.” The rest of the men laughed and the moment of danger passed. A few rocks had tumbled free, but there had been no slide. Still, Chert was not happy that there had been such ill-feeling already on the first day.

Maybe old Hornblende just didn’t want to work with Pumice. Reason enough to have a bad back, perhaps… Less than an hour past dawn and already his head hurt. “Right, you lot. Whatever some of you may think, these are sad times and this is an important chore. So let’s get to work.”

* * *