"I wish you had not done that, Magister," Vansen quietly told Cinnabar. "He deserted his fellows. He did not even wait to see if his commanding officer had survived . . ."

"These are not true soldiers, Captain," Cinnabar reminded him. "They are brave men, but they have not learned the ways of an army. I don't think they will, either-we just don't have the time. But I will do my best in the future to let you discipline them as you see fit."

Now Vansen felt a little ashamed. He was not a Funderling so he could not understand them-was that what Cinnabar was trying to tell him? Ferras Vansen swallowed his resentment. This was not the time.

As more of Jasper and Dolomite's troops arrived, they told a story much the same as the first frightened warder's, but with an unexpected ending.

"The autarch's men did not follow us or press their advantage as we fell back," the survivors reported. "They did not even follow us down the pa.s.sages toward Ocher Bar and try to keep us from reaching the rest of you here!"

Vansen could make little sense of it. "They had the perfect chance to destroy almost half our force as we retreated. Why not?"

When Dolomite and Sledge Jasper at last returned, limping and b.l.o.o.d.y but more or less whole, they confirmed what the others had been saying. They stood with Vansen and the rest looking over the maps Chert had made, trying to understand the southerners' intention.

"See, they have come under the bay from the mainland on Stormstone's secret road, the Great Delve," Malachite Copper said, making a few quick strokes on the map with a piece of charcoal. "But if they wish to move on Funderling Town and then continue up to the castle, why should they turn down through Iron Reach? That way leads nowhere except into the depths."

Cinnabar frowned. "They will not even be able to circle around behind us without a great effort and much engineering. They would have to go miles through the narrowest of tunnels to come at the temple any other way!"

Vansen's eyes grew wide. "Perin's Hammer!" he swore. "So it's true-the autarch is headed for the Mysteries themselves!"

"Which leaves us little time to make a terrible decision," said Cinnabar. "Leaves me me little time, to be frank, since I carry the Astion here for the Guild." He frowned in dismay. "Another few hours and the autarch's men may have driven down past us here in Ocher Bar. After that we will be unable to accomplish anything more than harrying them from behind." He hung his head and stared hopelessly at the maps. "What other choices do we have? Captain, where are these fairies who claimed they were our allies?" little time, to be frank, since I carry the Astion here for the Guild." He frowned in dismay. "Another few hours and the autarch's men may have driven down past us here in Ocher Bar. After that we will be unable to accomplish anything more than harrying them from behind." He hung his head and stared hopelessly at the maps. "What other choices do we have? Captain, where are these fairies who claimed they were our allies?"

Vansen knew enough of Cinnabar now to know how agonizing this responsibility was to him, and also how few men of any height he would rather have trusted to make the judgment. "The Qar have sent no word yet of what they plan, but I'll send another messenger to them. Then we can only wait," Vansen told them. "But in the meantime, Magister, you must decide what your people will do next. Let the autarch go by, and concede them the Mysteries while we retreat to defend Funderling Town?" He raised his hand as Cinnabar and Jasper both groaned aloud. "I know that cuts you to the heart."

"It is the Funderlings' Mount Xandos," said Chaven suddenly and loudly. "Their holiest place."

"I know," Vansen told him. "Let me finish, Chaven Makaros. We can let them go and save our small force to protect Funderling Town, or we can make a stand below Five Arches and try to keep them out of the Mysteries. We would at least have the advantage of knowing the terrain."

"But with the numbers and weapons they have, they will overwhelm us at last," said Malachite Copper. "No matter how well we fight, they will push us back-that is inevitable."

"Yes, and when they push us, we will give way," Vansen said, "-but slowly, and we will kill as many as we can. If we cannot win," and suddenly he thought of his family, nearly all lost now, and the princess who had been lost to him from the moment of his humble birth, "well, then, I would just as soon die here with you lot as with any others."

"You honor us, Captain Vansen," Cinnabar told him with a sad smile, "but are those truly our only choices? Give up our most sacred place or resist and be ma.s.sacred? That is grim." He reached into his pocket and withdrew a shining circle of black stone, reverently touching it to his chest before setting it down on the table. "You see that I have taken out the Astion-the seal of the Guild is now on all our talk. Let us hear more about each choice . . . and do not hold back your opinions! I won't sleep well no matter which I choose, but like anything painful that can't be avoided, I say the sooner broken the sooner mended. By the Elders! I wish Chert Blue Quart was here, since we also have that mad proposal of his to consider." Cinnabar sighed. "Ah, well, nothing to do but make cement with the sand we have. Tell me all so I can decide how we should die."

Ash Nitre was the younger brother of Sulphur, the temple's most ancient monk, but that certainly didn't make him young: Chert thought he looked a bit like one of those dessicated frogs sometimes found in a pocket of metamorphic stone. Brother Ash's mind seemed lively, though, and his movements were, if not graceful, at least purposeful. This was important because he was in charge of an operation that would kill scores of Funderlings if it went wrong.

"I don't understand you, boy," Nitre said-the first time Chert had been called that in as long as he could remember. The monk wore eye shields of thick mica crystal-his eyes seemed big as silver coins. "What do you want with more blasting powder?" He gestured to the open area behind him where at least a dozen temple brothers were busily engaged. "I've already got my workers making as much as they can for bombards. . . ."

"But we need more."

"How much?" Nitre asked.

Chert had made calculations, but he did not trust them very far. The problem was, blasting powder had never quite been used this way, so it was very hard to guess how much was necessary. Chert would have liked Chaven's help-the physician knew a lot about many different things-but he was hard to find these days: Chert a.s.sumed he was busy helping Captain Vansen.

"Well, Blue Quartz? I do have work to do, you know." Nitre and the temple brothers he employed were in charge of the dangerous task of crafting the blasting powder in careful allotments, because it was dangerous to store-too dry and any spark might set it off, too damp and all the labor of mining the materials and making the deadly black powder had been ruined. Already, with the need to store large quant.i.ties to make into weapons, the Funderlings had moved into unknown territory. They were about to move farther in that direction.

"Perhaps . . . two hundred barrels?"

Nitre's eyes went so wide behind the eye shields that his lids and lashes disappeared. "Two hundred hundred? Did you say 'two hundred'? Are you mad? I am laboring to produce half that much-you cannot simply shovel these powders together, you know! Have you ever seen a rocket like the ones the upgrounders shoot into the sky during the Zosimia festivals? Imagine something hundreds of times that strong, in our confined s.p.a.ces down here. . . ."

"Yes, yes, I know." Chert took a deep breath and produced Cinnabar's letter with the imprint of the Astion prominently displayed. "Nevertheless, I need as much as you can make for me, as quickly as you can make it."

"Ridiculous. Sorry, Blue Quartz, but it simply can't be done. You tell the Guild they would have to send me another two dozen workers just to sift powders. And I know, because of my own requests that they cannot do that-they do not have even a man to spare."

Chert sat for a long moment in silence. It had been a very strange idea in the first place, a last-ditch sort of thing. He could not expect to pull workers away from making powder for the fighting, especially when the situation seemed to be growing more desperate by the hour. As the monk had said, there simply weren't enough workers.

"I have a question, Brother Nitre," Chert suddenly said. "Is there any reason blasting powder has to be made by men . . . ?"

"I fear this decision," said Cinnabar Quicksilver. "No matter what we do, something will be broken beyond mending."

Brother Nickel made an unhappy noise, a cross between a sniff and a grunt. He had been summoned from the temple, which had not pleased him, but the discovery of what was being decided pleased him even less. "Seems to me," he said now, "that we Metamorphic Brothers have already seen our lives and peace broken beyond mending, and we have not complained."

"By the Elders, Nickel, you have done nothing but but complain," said Malachite Copper. "And now that the decision is on us you want to complain again before you have even heard it!" complain," said Malachite Copper. "And now that the decision is on us you want to complain again before you have even heard it!"

"Peace, you two," said Cinnabar. "You are not making this any easier. Chaven, you have said almost nothing the whole time we have discussed this. Have you nothing to offer?"

The physician blew out air. "I wish I did, Magister Quicksilver. Either way, we will all do what we must."

Cinnabar clapped his hands. "Then as the bearer of the Astion, speaking on behalf of our sovereign Stonecutter's Guild, I feel we have no choice-we have to fight them and fight them now. We must try to keep them from the Mysteries.

"I know that the odds are terrible-if I were a wagering man, I would feel a fool to put a single copper chip on our chances. But everything we have heard says that the autarch has a fascination with our sacred depths, and priests and wizards with him who have filled his head with ideas about G.o.ds and black magic. We cannot take the chance there is truth to their ideas. And, more than anything else, we cannot give up our holiest places without a fight. The Elders in their stony beds would curse and condemn us, and who could blame them?

"No, we must resist them as best we can. We are only a thousand, perhaps two with the men still coming, but we will have the Qar beside us-I think you have all seen their mettle." He lowered his head for a moment, picked up the Astion and stared at it, then tucked it back into his shirt. "We defend the Mysteries. That is my decision."

"So the temple is to be abandoned . . . ?" said Brother Nickel, but he sounded more resigned than angry.

"We will leave some token force," Cinnabar told him. "But if the autarch behaves as the Qar say he will, he'll show little interest in the temple or even in Funderling Town."

"This underground invasion is not meant to deliver the castle," said Vansen. "We can see now that it's the thing Sulepis came here to do. He broke great Hierosol in a matter of weeks. I find it hard to believe he could not do the same with Southmarch itself, at which point everything beneath it would be his as well, and he could starve us all out. So there is clearly some hurry to what he does, as Yasammez and the Qar suggested, something which drives him swiftly forward when there might be easier ways to reach his goal."

Copper turned to Vansen. "Why aren't the Qar here at this council, Captain?"

"I can't tell you." Vansen stood. "The Qar-as always, I suspect-will come in their own time. What is important is that we now have Magister Cinnabar's decision. If you'll pardon me, I have much to do and time is short-the southerners will be moving again soon." He turned to the others. "We will meet here after the hour of the evening meal. May the G.o.ds protect us and protect Southmarch. And Funderling Town," he added quickly.

"We will certainly need help from somewhere," said Chaven.

"The Qar must come," Vansen said quietly, almost to himself. "We will fail without them."

18.

Exiles and Firstborn "Old Aristas was soon celebrated in Tessideme for his wisdom and little Adis for his piety. They lived together in a hut beneath a vast, leafless oak tree, and the village folk often came to them and asked them to speak of the G.o.ds' ways."

-from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"

THE BOAT LIFTED AND SAGGED on the waves of Brenn's Bay, and the silhouette of the castle grew ever larger against the moon.

Barrick's vision seemed much sharper than he remembered, even from the previous night. The very stones of the castle's seawalls seemed to glow; not with light but with intensity of color and detail he could see even in the evening dark from hundreds of ells away. And as his eyes moved across every crack in every stone he could feel the history of the place breathing out at him from the depths, amazing true tales of the G.o.ds and their servants that sprang from his deepest memory as if they had grown there in the dark like mushrooms.

Ancient stories told that Hiliometes himself had entered here once, tasked by Mesiya the moon G.o.ddess to steal the golden hawk that watched over her and kept her a virtual prisoner of her husband Kernios. And in an earlier day, before mortals had even come to the land, Erivor had fought the monstrous serpent-bull Androphagas here and stabbed it to the heart with his barbed spear. Some claimed that the body of Androphagas had become Midlan's Mount, but the Elementals declared that the Mount had been here always.

The Last Hour of the Ancestor, as the Qar called Southmarch, was a place that only a few of the Twilight folk had visited in recent centuries, but it was old and strong in their lore. Their knowledge of it-as well as their fear of it, and their fierce, painful longing for it-enfolded everything Barrick saw like a heavy mist, but with Ynnir's largely silent help, he was learning ways to live with it. Back in Qul-na-Qar he had stopped thinking almost entirely so that he could cope with the strangeness of these new memories; now Barrick Eddon was beginning to take his first cautious steps toward letting the Fireflower become a true part of him.

As he stared at the shadowy walls and the jumbled granite boulders of the sh.o.r.eline, wondering how they would enter a castle under siege, Barrick suddenly realized where they were going-it all but bloomed in his head. "The Sea Postern," he said out loud.

Saqri turned to look at him and then returned her serene gaze to the water. The moonlight behind her made her look as still as a painted wooden figurehead.

The walls now loomed high above them. Rafe carefully began to bring the pitching boat in close to the boulders of the breakfront, which were stacked in haphazard piles like the telling-stones of giants. As the side of the boat sc.r.a.ped on granite, Rafe reached out one long arm and found something beneath the water, then tied his boat to it. A moment later he had clambered up onto the piled rocks, a dim, tall shape that began to turn into stories of the entire Skimmer race if Barrick stared too long and too incautiously. Rafe climbed a short distance and then grabbed a wide, irregular chunk of stone that looked a little like a juggler's tenpin, bigger near the water than at the top, bottom hidden in the splashing waves. The young Skimmer reached around behind it and popped something loose-a hidden latch that protected it against being moved by tides and storms.

"Hold tight, all you," Rafe said. " 'Be a splash."

He swung his weight against it, and the stone began to tip downward. Barrick knew what was going to happen but it was still astonishing to see. The stone toppled slowly toward the water, but with the slow precision of one of the bronze Funderlings on the great Market Square clock swinging his bronze hammer. The stone itself was only the visible half; a stone counterweight of almost exactly the same weight lay underneath the water on the other end of the ancient lever, so that a single strong man or woman could open the Sea Postern if they only knew where the latch was hidden.

The stone tipped down into the bay heavily enough to make the boat bob like a curl of bark. Rafe made his way back to his craft, untied it, and steered it through the opening. Before they had drifted more than a few yards past the opening the young Skimmer tied the boat up again, then caught a rope that hung down from the darkness above and swung easily onto a stone in the middle of the narrow watercourse. His weight on it pushed it beneath the water, which brought the other stone back up to cover the entrance, and suddenly all light was gone but for a tiny gleam trickling down from above. Other than the black watercourse beneath them, they were entirely surrounded by stone.

Rafe got back into the boat and lit and hung a lantern in the bow, then used one of his oars as a pole to move them through the narrow crevice. Barrick felt completely encased, as though the stone that surrounded him were the body of a living thing, a sleeping ogre or dragon.

But Southmarch was was a living thing, he realized for the first time. It was not the Qar voices that told him so, because to Fireflower phantoms everything in the world was as alive or dead as everything else-being "dead" or "alive" was, they seemed to feel, a largely meaningless distinction. Barrick didn't know why he suddenly knew it, too, or why it seemed so significant, but Southmarch was indeed alive, and in a way that almost nothing else was. It was alive because it was full of doorways, and it was full of doorways because it was curiously, even uniquely alive. The G.o.ds, the Qar, even the late-coming humans, had not a living thing, he realized for the first time. It was not the Qar voices that told him so, because to Fireflower phantoms everything in the world was as alive or dead as everything else-being "dead" or "alive" was, they seemed to feel, a largely meaningless distinction. Barrick didn't know why he suddenly knew it, too, or why it seemed so significant, but Southmarch was indeed alive, and in a way that almost nothing else was. It was alive because it was full of doorways, and it was full of doorways because it was curiously, even uniquely alive. The G.o.ds, the Qar, even the late-coming humans, had not made made this place the heart of so many happenings. They had all come here because the place itself was as vital as a beating heart. this place the heart of so many happenings. They had all come here because the place itself was as vital as a beating heart.

How had he lived here all his life and never known that? How had his own ancestors lived here for so many centuries and not recognized it? Because they could see only the colors they had been given to see. But now that had changed, at least for him.

Barrick could see it now, at least a little, but could he make sense of it? And would it make any difference if he could?

The short trip along the watercourse was a dreamlike inversion of their trip from M'Helan's Rock, but the waves that rose above them this time were not made of water but of dark granite sprinkled with white limestone foam. They followed their own lantern light through a tunnel of naked rock until they found themselves at last prevented from going forward by a heavy iron grille set in a wall of dressed stones. On all sides, stone-and-clay water pipes opened out of the walls, although in this season they all seemed dry.

Rafe gestured toward the heavy grille, thick with rust and mud. "Beyond lie the backwaters of the castle, under the Lagoonside houses and suchnot. Then comes the lagoon. But you'll not be going there. Far too dangerous for such as you, Your Majesty." He looked at Barrick and frowned in confusion. "Your Majesties, I should say, Egye-Var's pardon on me."

"And so . . . ?" Barrick asked him.

"We wait." Rafe seemed pleased to be able to announce this. He sat back in the bow with his long, thin arms crossed. The Rooftoppers in their box murmured in anxious voices to each other, so that Barrick felt as though he sat beside a hive of sighing bees. "Some are coming to lead us the rest of the way."

They did not wait long. Barrick heard their approach even before Rafe did, and saw them as they approached the end of the pipe, their little torches glowing; none brighter than an Orphan's Day taper. It was another crowd of Rooftoppers-hundreds, as far as he could tell, crowding up against the lip of the pipe.

Rafe stood up abruptly, which made the small boat rock, then lifted out the box and its surprised pa.s.sengers. He put it down carefully on the brick ledge beside the ca.n.a.l and opened the door along its bottom. The first Rooftopper guards filed out, looking around warily, followed shortly by the impressive if slightly rumpled figure of Duke Kettlehouse.

A squadron of Rooftopper engineers, as if prepared, dropped a ramp into place to bridge the difference of height between the end of the pipe and the brick ledge, then the rest of the Rooftoppers made their way down it, most on foot, but a few dozen seated on hopping birds. The last one to hop forward was the most decorated, and its pa.s.senger wore a tremendous headdress on top of her curly red hair. A tiny man stepped out in front of her and held up an equally tiny speaking-trumpet. "Greetings, Saqri of the Fireflower, great Queen. Her Uproarious Highness Queen Upsteeplebat of Rooftop, Wainscoting, and Rooftop-Over-Sea bids you welcome back to your home, Saqri of the Ancient Song."

Welcome back back? wondered Barrick, but then a moment later he saw it as if he had been there himself-which something that was now part of him had, he realized-the young Saqri, slim as a birch tree, hair dark as the s.p.a.ce between stars, walking along an ancient pa.s.sage that wound down into the depths beneath Southmarch . . . Beyond this image, like a succession of mirrors looking on the reflections of other mirrors, the daughters of Crooked's blood, all the queens of Qul-na-Qar, stretched back along those same stairs, each one individual, but also part of a single, many-legged thing that spread forward and backward through time . . . or at least backward.

Because there may never be another, said a voice in his head, a clear, familiar voice. It ends with her . . . It ends with her . . .

Ynnir? he asked, if one could truly ask anything of another part of one's own heart and thoughts. But the blind king's presence was gone again.

"You are kind, sister," Saqri said in her calm, quiet voice. Far below her, Upsteeplebat smiled as Saqri continued: "It has been too long since our two peoples met in concord."

The gathered Rooftoppers, even Kettlehouse's people, made little murmurs of approval and contentment. Barrick could only guess how important it was to such small creatures to be treated as equals.

The little queen took the speaking-trumpet from her herald. "We have much to speak about," Upsteeplebat said to Saqri. "But first we have other business, if you will forgive us."

"Of course." Saqri nodded.

"Duke Kettlehouse-my dear uncle, you are most welcome back!" said the Rooftopper's queen.

Kettlehouse stepped toward her as her grooms helped her down from her beautiful gray dove. She waited for him as he approached, then watched as he at last knelt before her. "I thank the Lord of the Peak heartily for this happy day."

The little queen bent and threw her arms around the bearded man's neck, encouraging him to stand, then kept her grip on him for a long moment. "Too long have the tides splashed between us," she said. "Now our family is whole again."

A great cheer went up from the a.s.sembled Rooftoppers-Old Duke Kettlehouse even seemed to be weeping, but he waved his arms and shouted, "So be it! Huzzah for the Wainscoting! Huzzah for the Great Green Drapery! We are one again!"

"Come, then," said Queen Upsteeplebat when the shouting had died down, remounting her dove. "We have prepared a place for all of you in the tunnels beneath the castle. We will settle you and feed you, then we shall talk of how we can aid you, great Queen of the People." She turned to smile at Barrick as well. "You and the other n.o.ble guardian of the Fireflower." She waved and the entire contingent of Rooftoppers, mounted and afoot, men at arms, women, children, and old people mounted back up their ramp and into the circle of the great clay pipe. The engineers stayed behind to dismantle their ramp, but even they finished and left in what felt like a very short time.

"Where did they go?" Barrick said.

"We will see Upsteeplebat again, and soon," Saqri told him.

"But why didn't they . . . why aren't we . . . ?"

"Didn't say we were waiting for them them, did I?" said Rafe, who had hung back during the meeting. "Just said we were waiting."

"So who are we waiting for, then?" Barrick asked, but Saqri did not answer.

Rafe spoke in her place. "Somebody else," he said, grinning. "Oh, aye, somebody well well else." else."

The farmer's wife was reluctant to let Qinnitan go. "Are you certain, child? If you stay, you can eat with us again tonight."

Qinnitan wished she spoke the language better. "No. But thanking. And for the carrying, thanking, too." She clambered down out of the wagon. She had encountered this Bluesh.o.r.e farming family on the road and had bartered the dead priest's donkey to them for lodging, food, and clothes during the time it had taken them all to reach this town on the eastern edge of Brenn's Bay. The farmer, who was asking a port reeve where in Onir Beccan's fish market the wagon could be set up, nodded to her. Three of the family's four children were asleep after the long day's ride, but the oldest shyly waved farewell.

She walked through the center of the town but pa.s.sed by the market, continuing instead until she reached the town walls and could look down at the port, which stretched away north for a little distance along the intricate coast of the wide bay. Surely somewhere in this muddle of ships, she could hire someone with the money she'd stolen from Daikonas Vo who would take her away from here without asking questions. If Vo had been carrying her to the autarch's camp at Southmarch then she would be happy to get on almost anything going in the opposite direction. But what after that? She could never set foot in Xis again-to do so would almost certainly mean death. But Hierosol, the only other city she knew, was also in the autarch's power. Where else could she go?

Qinnitan stared across the bay toward the sunset skies over Southmarch Castle. Every now and then a dim thump flew to her on the wind-it had only just occurred to her that she was hearing cannons firing. Those must be the autarch's guns, the same ones Sulepis had used to level the walls of Hierosol. And here she stood, separated from him only by the width of the water! She flinched a little and took a step back, as though he might suddenly reach out all the way from the farther sh.o.r.e.

Anywhere but here, she told herself. she told herself. Anywhere but this close. Anywhere but this close.