“Yes.” Luian faced her now, and there were tears in the Favored’s long-lashed eyes. One had made a track down the powder of her cheek. “Yes, you silly little girl, they do.”
25. Mirrors, Missing and Found
THE WEEPING OF ANCIENT WOMEN:
Gray as the egrets of the Hither Shore
Lost as a wind from the old, dark land
Frightened yet fierce
Chert had already sat down on the bench to rest his tired legs when he realized Opal had not followed him in, but was still standing in the doorway, peering out into Wedge Road. “What is it, my dear?”
“Flint. He’s not with you?”
He frowned. “Why -would he be with me? I left him home with you because he’s such a distraction where we’re working right now—won’t stay with me because he doesn’t like it there, but won’t stay where I tell him aboveground either…” He felt a clutch in his chest. “You mean he’s gone?”
“I don’t know! Yes! He went with me to Lower Ore Street.Then, when I came back, he was playing beside the road, piling up stones and making those walls and tunnels and whatnot he likes so much—the dust that comes in on that boy!” Tears filled her eyes. “Oh, and I don’t know—I went out to call him in to eat, hours ago, and he was gone. I’ve been up and down the roads, down to the guildhall—I even went to the Salt Pool and asked little Boulder if he’d been there. Nobody’s seen him at all!”
He got himself up despite his aching legs and hurried to put his arms around her. “There, my old darling, there. I’m sure he’s just up to some pranks—he is a boy, after all, and a very independent lad at that, the Earth Elders know. He’ll be back before our evening meal is over, you’ll see.”
“Evening meal!” she almost shrieked. “You old fool, do you think I’ve had time to prepare an evening meal? I’ve been hurrying all around town the length of the afternoon with my heart aching, trying to find that boy. There is no evening meal!” Sobbing out loud now, she turned and stumbled back toward their bed and wrapped herself in a blanket so all that could be seen was a shuddering lump.
Chert was troubled, too, but he couldn’t help feeling that Opal was getting a bit ahead of things. Flint would not be the first boy in Funderling Town—or the last—to wander off on some childish quest and lose track of time. It had only been a short while ago he had disappeared during the prince regent’s funeral. If he wasn’t back by bedtime, they could start fretting in earnest. In the meantime, though, Chert had put in a long day and his stomach felt shrunken and empty as a dried leather sack.
He halfheartedly examined the larder. “Ah, look, we have greatroots in!” he said loud enough for Opal to hear. “A bit of cooking and those would go down a treat.” She didn’t answer. He picked through the other roots and various tubers. Some were looking a bit whiskery. “Perhaps I’ll just have a bit of bread and some cheese.”
“There isn’t any bread.” The lump under the blanket shifted. It did not sound like a happy lump. “I was going to go back out and get the afternoon’s baking, but… but…”
“Ah, yes, of course,” Chert said hurriedly. “Never fear. Still, it’s a shame about the greatroots. A bit of cooking…” “If you want them cooked, cook them yourself If you know how.”
Chert was sadly chewing a piece of raw greatroot—he had not realized how much more bitter they tasted if they had not been boiled in beet sugar—and beginning to admit to himself that the boy was not coming back for his evening meal. Not that a raw root and a piece of hard cheese was particularly worth coming back for, but Chert couldn’t deny that the pang of disquiet was growing inside him; although his mug of ale had helped to wash down the fibrous root and remove a little of the worst of the throbbing of his legs and back, it had not gone very far toward soothing his mind. He had been out into Wedge Road several times. The dimmer stonehghts were lit for evening and the streets were nearly empty as families finished their suppers and prepared for the night. The children must all be in bed now. The other children.
He decided to take a lamp and go out looking.
Could the boy have gone into one of the unfinished tunnels, he wondered, been caught by a slide in one of the side corridors where the bracing was less than adequate? But what would he be doing in such a place? Chert let his mind run across other possibilities, some happier and others much more frightening. Could he have gone home with another child? Flint was so unworldly in some ways that Chert could easily imagine he would forget to send word of where he was, let alone ask permission, but he had never really made friends with any of the Funderling children, even those in nearby houses who were of his own age. Where else? Down in the excavations where Chert had been working, near the Eddon family tomb? Certainly there were treacherous spots there, but Flint had made it clear he hated the place, and in any case how could Chert have missed him?
The Rooftoppers—the little people. Perhaps the boy had gone to see them and either stayed or not been able to get back before dark. Unbidden, a horrid vision came to him, of the boy fallen from a roof and lying helpless in some shadowy, unvisited courtyard. He put the greatroot down, sickened.
But where else could he be?
“Chert!” Opal shouted from the bedchamber. “Chert, come here!”
He wished she did not sound frightened. Suddenly, he didn’t want to walk through the door and see what she had found. But he did.
Opal had not found anything—in fact, rather the reverse. “It’s gone!” she said, pointing at the boy’s pallet, at the blanket and shirt lying across it in twisted coils like weary ghosts. “His bag. With that… that little mirror in it. It’s gone.” Opal turned to him, eyes big with fear. “He never puts it on anymore, never wears it—it’s always here! Why isn’t it here now?” Her face suddenly grew slack, as though she had aged five years in a matter of moments. “He’s gone away, hasn’t he? He’s gone away for good and so he took it with him.”
Chert could think of nothing to say—or, in any case, nothing that would make either of them feel better.
“By the gods, Toby, are you falling asleep again? You’ve jogged the glass!” The young man stood up quickly, raising his hands in the air to show that he couldn’t possibly have done such a thing, his look ot wounded honor suggested that he was always awake and at his best in the midnight hours and that Chaven was being needlessly cruel to suggest otherwise. “But, Master Chaven.
“Never mind I expect you to be a man of science and I suppose that is asking too much.” “But I want to be! I listen! I do everything you say?'
The physician sighed. It was not really the lad’s fault. Chaven had put too much stock in the recommendation of his friend, Euan Dogsend, who was the most learned man in Blueshore but perhaps not its best judge of character. The young man worked hard for his age but he was distracted and touchy at the best of times, and worst of all, although he was by no means stupid, he seemed to have an unquestioning pattern of mind.
Still, the young man was standing right there with his face screwed up in a look of furious attention, so Chaven tried again. “See, the perspective glass must not move once we have found the spot we seek Leotrodos down in Perikal says that the new star is in Kossope Once we have set the eye of our glass on Kossope, we must tighten the housing so that it does not move—thus, we can make measurements, not just tonight, but other nights. And we most certainly must not lean on the perspective glass while we are making those measurements?'
“But the sky is full of stars,” said Toby “Why is it so important to measure this one?”
Chaven closed his eyes for a moment “Because Leotrodos says he has found a
