Shadowmarch

mind on his work. That was the problem, of course—Hornblende’s nephews and the rest of the men needed his full supervision. Funderlings always had a difficult time working so close to the royal family’s residence and graves— superstition and resentment were never far away—but this growing proximity to the Funderlings’ own sacred places was even more of a problem. He couldn’t afford to be attending to his work with only half his usual attention.

“That we want to go before the Guild Council,” said Mica’s brother Talc. He was the older and more levelheaded of the two. “We want to be heard.”

“Heard, that’s what you young people always want—to be heard! And what is it you want to be heard about? That you’re feeling mistreated. That you have to work too hard. That what you’re given to do isn’t fair or kind or… or something.” Chert took another long breath. “Do you think your uncle or I ever got to ask so many questions? We took the work we were given to do and were grateful for it.” Because his own apprenticeship had been in the last days of the Gray Companies, Chert remembered but did not say—because the big folk were frightened in those years and there had not been much work even for skilled Funderling craftsmen. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, had left their ancestral home under Southmarch in search of labor and had never returned, settling in spots all over the middle and south of Eion where the big folk had previously had to do their own stonework. But during Chert’s own lifetime things had changed: even small cities now built great temples and underground baths, not to mention countless funeral vaults for rich merchants and clerics, and most of the Southmarch Funderlings found themselves in demand right here at home in the March Kingdoms.

Talc shook his head. He was stubborn, but he was also smart—the worst kind of shirker, Chert thought. Or was he a shirker at all? Chert suddenly felt empty and tired, like a rock face with the seam of valuable stone chiseled out of it.

Maybe they feel some of the same things I do. What did the tiny queen say? “Because we of the high places are frightened, and not just for ourselves. “ I am frightened myself, but it is because of things I have seen, felt…

He did his best to clear his head of all the jibber-jabber. “Very well. I shall ask the Guild to grant you a hearing, if you will get on and finish this day’s work. There is shoring and bracing to do in the new tunnels, if you are not too frightened to work alongside your fellows there.”

Hornblende’s nephews were still grumbling as they walked away, but there was a jauntiness to their step that suggested they secretly felt they had won a victory. It made Chert feel tired all over again.

Thank the Old Ones that Chaven has come back. I will go see him when the men stop to eat Tins time, though, I will go in by the front door.

As he made his way through the twisting byways of the inner keep, ignoring the people who felt that it was acceptable to stare at a Funderling simply because he was a Funderling, Chert was grateful that the boy Flint was spending the day with Opal at the market. She had accepted Chert’s astonishing report of meeting the Rooftoppers with a complacency that was almost more dumbfounding than the Rooftoppers themselves.

“Of course there are more things under the stones and stars than we will ever know,” she had told her husband. “The boy is a burning spark —you can just see it! He’ll do wonderful things in this world. And I always believed there truly were Rooftoppers, anyway.”

He wondered now if it had been some kind of intentional ignorance His wife was a clever woman—surely she couldn’t think this was the ordinary way of life Was she afraid of what these many new things portended— Flint himself, the Shadowline, this news of fabled creatures hiding in the roofs who talked of coming disaster—and so she covered it all in a blanket of the familiar’.

Chert realized he had shared very little of his own fear with Opal. A part of him wanted to continue that way, protecting her, which felt like his rightful duty. Another part realized that such a duty could become very lonely.

It was not the young man Toby who opened the door at the Observatory House but the physician’s old, long-whiskered manservant, Harry. He seemed flustered, even nervous, and for a moment Chert feared that Harry’s master might be ill.

“I’ll tell him you’re here,” the old man said, leaving Chert to wait in the front hall. A shrine to Zona with lit candles was set there, which struck Chert as odd—surely if the court physician were going to have a shrine to the gods of the big people, shouldn’t it be a Tngonate altar? Or perhaps to Kupilas, the god of healing? Then again, he had never been able to make much sense out of the big folk and their baskets full of gods.

Harry came back, his expression still unsettled, and beckoned Chert down the corridor toward the chambers in which Chaven conducted his experiments. Perhaps that explained the manservant’s behavior; his master was doing something that he thought was dangerous.

To his surprise, Chert found when he stepped into the dark room with its long, high table piled with books and unfamiliar equipment—measuring devices, lenses, things for grinding and mixing substances, bottles and jars, and candles on seemingly every one of the very few empty surfaces—that Chaven was not alone. I have seen this young fellow before… he thought for a puzzled moment. The red-haired youth looked up as the door closed behind Chert. “It’s a Funderling!” Chaven turned, and smiled at Chert. “You say that as though it were a surprise, Highness. Yet I imagine you have noticed that everyone in this room is aware that my friend Chert is a Funderling.”

The boy frowned. He was dressed from head to foot in black—shoes, hose, doublet, even his soft hat. Chert knew who he was now, and tried to keep the astonishment off his face as the boy complained, “You are mocking me, Chaven.”

“A little, Highness.” He turned to Chert. “This is one of our regents, Prince Barrick. Prince Barrick, this is my friend Chert of the Blue Quartz family, a very good man. He has recently done your family the helpful deed in a sad time of hurrying the construction of your brother’s tomb.”

Barrick flinched a little, but to his credit, smiled at the new arrival. “That was kindly done.”

Chert did not quite know what to do. He made a bow as best he could. “It was the least we could offer, Highness. Your brother was well-loved among my people.” Most of my people, he amended silently Well, a decent proportion.

“And what brings you to see me today, good Chert?” asked Chaven. He seemed in an expansive mood— strangely so for someone who had been out viewing the sick and the dying.

How can I talk about the things I have seen in front of the prince regent? Chert wondered. He could not help contemplating the urge to hide anything unusual from those with more power. There was also an opposing impulse that was nearly as strong, the desire to pass any strange situation on to someone else. I am more the type who wishes to know what I am doing first, Chert decided. And certainly I am not going to blurt out this mishmash of fears and suspicions and old-tales-come-to- life in front of one of the royal family.

“I wished only to hear of your journeying,” he said out loud, then reallzed he did not want to wait days more before sharing his concerns with the physician. “And perhaps talk a little more of that matter we discussed last time…”

Prince Barrick rose from the stool on which he had been perched off-balance and almost tipping over, Chert realized, like any ordinary young man. “I will not keep you, then,” he told the physician. The prince spoke lightly, but Chert thought he heard disappointment and something else in the boy’s words—anger? Worry? “But I would speak to you again. Tomorrow, perhaps?”

“Of course, Highness, I am at your service always. In the meantime, perhaps a glass of fortified wine before bed would help a bit. And please remember what I said. Things always look different when night is on the world. Let me escort you to the door.”

Barrick rolled his eyes. “My guards are in the kitchen bothering your housekeeper and her daughter. Since Kendrick was killed, I cannot go anywhere without bumping elbows with men in armor. It was all I could do to convince them I did not want them in the room with me here.” He waved his good hand. “I will find my own way out. Perhaps I can sneak past the kitchen and have an hour to myself before they know I’m gone.”

“Don’t do that, Highness!” Chaven’s voice was hearty, even cheerful, but there was an edge to it. “People are frightened. If you disappear, even for a short time, some of those guardsmen will suffer.”

Barrick scowled, then laughed a little. “I suppose you’re right. I’ll go and give them some warning before I run for it.” He nodded in a distracted way toward Chert as he left.

“The Rooftoppers, eh?” Chaven took off the spectacles perched on his nose and wiped them on the cuff of