“And when does the delegation from the south arrive? The Duke and his unlikely allies?”
“Also tomorrow, I think. It gives us little time to look around.”
I had been somewhat distracted by my own thoughts, but this mention of the Duke reminded me of something, and I asked if Brom had said anything about the location of the crystal mines near Fangel.
“Where are they? How can we get there?”
Peter stood thinking for a moment, turning to look up at the town above us. “Near here, I think. Chance? Brom said the .mines were just below Fangel, didn’t he?”
Chance went on stirring the pot as he tried to remember. “I didn’t pay that much attention, to tell the truth. No. Wait. He said there was an old fella lived there, remember? While we were dressin’ him up. He talked about it.”
“Buttufor,” said Queynt. “Gerabald Buttufor and his wife, Jermiole. Guardian of the mines. Right?”
“Where?” I was cross with myself for being impatient with them, but I was impatient with them, though there seemed to be no reason for it. “Come on, where?”
“Well, while the pot boils, we’ll see if we can find out.” Peter stalked away among the wagons, asking questions, smiling, chatting, playing the good fellow, Queynt off in the opposite direction doing the same.
They returned almost simultaneously with the same story.
“Down that southernmost path. Not far. We can go now, if you like. Food will stay warm on the fire.”
I did like, leading off in the direction they’d indicated with a haste almost frantic. Curiosity, yes, but not only that. Something more than that. Since Queynt’s disastrous accident, it had become very important to me to learn everything I could about the dream crystals.
We came to a small house at the edge of a pit, two old folk sitting on the stoop, he with a pipe of some sweet-smelling stuff, she with a mug of some kind of happiness, chirruping like a tree frog in the evening.
“Well, and well, visitors, travelers, folks bound for Fangel. Come to see the mine? Not much going on here anymore, not since the crystals started comin’ up spoiled, but you’re welcome. You’re welcome.” Nodding like a little doll, smiling at the shadows: I realized with a start she was blind.
“You folks like a tour?” Gerabald Buttufor heaved himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. “Noticed two or three nodules this mornin’, ‘bout ready to bust. Interestin’ to see. Can’t use the crystals. Like Jermiole says, all spoiled now. Can’t say why. Don’t know why. Are, though. All spoiled.”
Queynt passed coins into the old man’s palm. “We’d like to see it. Lucky we got here before dark.”
“Oh, you could’a seen it after, as well. Nodules get all hot and feverish, shine like little moons, they do. Get along down here.” He led us, stumping along with the cane, down a twisting path into the declivity. The sides and bottom of it were pitted with rounded scars, as though from a shower of great stony hail or meteors.
He went along a path, stopping abruptly beside a fistsized dome of stone.
“Here.” He tapped it with his cane. It rang, twangingly, a harsh, ugly sound. “Good crystals don’t even sound like that. Used to like the sound of the good ones. Now you watch.” He struck the stone again, sharply, several times in one place. The cane was shod with iron. The ugly sound repeated, but on the last blow the rock broke.
Fragments flew, disclosing the center. Like an egg, it held a yolk, a yellow crystal swimming in silvery liquid that oozed over the broken edge of the stone and into the ground. Peter leaned forward.
“Don’t touch it!” I cried, seeing what it was.
“That’s right, lassy. Not many know that unless they’ve worked the mines. Can’t touch the crystal milk, boy. That’s what we call it, crystal milk. Burn you right through to the bone.”
I had last seen similar stuff in a great pool deep in the Citadel of the Sevens; I carried a fragment dipped in that pool as one of my most cherished things. It had been approached with great care and considerable reverence when I had seen it, enough so to make me wary of it.
“May I borrow your cane, friend Gerabald?”
I dipped the iron tip in the liquid to hear the same high singing I had heard in the Citadel of the Sevens, far beneath the surface of the earth. I clutched the pouch containing the locket, disbelieving. So! That most marvelous and esoteric stuff was, in fact, well known elsewhere.
“How do you get the crystal out?” I asked.
“Why, that’s no trouble.” He bashed away at the stone once more, breaking it so that all the liquid ran away, raking the crystal out onto the stone. “Soon as it dries, you can pick it up. Don’t taste it, though. It’s one of the death ones.” The others wandered off, but I waited while it dried, while the evening came on, bending at last to pick it up, piss-yellow and deadly as poison. I crouched over the empty shell, rising at last in some puzzlement.
“Peter,” I called, seeing him turn and move toward me with more eagerness than I needed. “Lean down here,” I whispered. “Shift your eyes. I can’t tell, it’s too dark, but isn’t there a kind of channel or duct at the bottom of this hole?” He stretched out on the stone, taking the opportunity to put one arm around me as he stared into the hemispherical hole. Shift eyes, Shift nerves behind eyes, peer deep. Even in the deepening darkness he could see it. “Yes. A twisty little duct, leading down
