(Shadowmarch #2) Shadowplay (54 page)

Chert had never felt the presence of the Lord of the Hot Wet Stone to be particularly restful, even in statue form. He looked up to the image of Kernios sunk deep in the ceiling, then down to the mirror-version below their feet. Being suspended, as it were, between
two
versions of the black-eyed, somber-faced earth god seemed even less soothing, especially when the mirroring rendered Chaven and himself as blobs with feet in the middle and heads at each end, suspended halfway between Heaven and the Pit. “I heard you wanted me.”

Chaven dragged his attention away from the representation of the god. “Oh, yes. I just felt I should talk to you again about what you should say.”

“Fracture and fissure, man,” Chert cursed, “we’ve been over this a dozen times already! What more can there be to say?”

“I am sorry, but this is very important.”

Chert sighed. “It would be different if I were actually going to pretend to know something I don’t, but if he asks me something I don’t know an answer for I’ll just make important-sounding humming noises, then tell him I need to confer with my Funderling colleagues.” He gave Chaven an annoyed look. “And then, yes, I’ll come right to you and tell you, and find out what to say.”

“Good, good. And what will you look for to know if it’s my mirror?”

“A dark frame of cypress wood, with wings that open out. It is carved with pictures of eyes and hands.”

“Yes, but if there’s no frame, or if he’s put a new one on it?”

Chert took a deep breath.
Patience,
he told himself.
He’s been through a great deal.
But it was more than a little like dealing with a drunkard, someone forever trying to shake the last dribbles of mossbrew out of an empty jar. “The glass itself has a slight outward curve to it.”

“Yes. Good!”

“May I go now? Before Okros decides to ask someone else to do it instead?”

“Will you write down anything you are unsure about? It will help me understand what Okros is trying to do. Do you promise?”

Chert said nothing, but tapped the slate hanging on a string around his neck. “Really, I must go now.”

Worriedly repeating all that they had just discussed, Chaven followed him to the door but, to Chert’s relief, went no farther, as if he did not want to travel far from the reassuring presence of the earth lord and the haven of the guildhall’s great room.

Chert hadn’t been out of Funderling Town for many, many days—was it almost a month?—and he was surprised by the obvious differences since the last time he’d been upground. The spirit of ragged camaraderie he’d seen everywhere in the castle had now just as obviously expired, overcome by weariness and fear of the unchanging siege conditions, the strange, suspended watchfulness that in some ways was worse than even a real and imminent danger of attack.

The faces bundled up in scarves and hoods were red with cold and very grim, even as he reached the Raven Gate and the vicinity of the royal residence itself, where at least the people did not yet have to worry about starving. Still, these comparatively well-fed courtiers had a wolfish look about them, too, as though even the most kindly and cheerful of them were spending a large part of their thoughts considering what they were going to do and to whom they were going to do it when things became really bad, when they would have to struggle to survive.

The castle itself looked different, too. The walls around the Inner Keep were built over with wooden hoardings and crawling with guards, the greens were full of animals (mostly pigs and sheep) the wells were guarded by soldiers, and there seemed to be twice as many folk as usual milling in the narrow roads and public squares. Still, when he showed the letter from Okros he received only cursory attention before being allowed through Raven’s Gate, although he thought he heard a few of the guards mutter uncomplimentary things about Funderlings. That was certainly not the first time in Chert’s life such a thing had ever happened, but he was a little surprised by the vehemence in their voices.

Well, bad times make bad neighbors,
he reminded himself.
And there were always rumors that the king fed us—as though we were animals in a menagerie, instead of us earning our own way, which we always have. Just the kind of thing to make the big folk resentful when times are hard.

It was disturbing to find that Okros had openly usurped Chaven’s residence in the Observatory, but Chert supposed it made sense. In any case, he was not even supposed to know Chaven, so he certainly wasn’t going to say anything about it.

A young, jug-eared acolyte in an Eastmarch robe opened the door and silently led him to the observatory itself, a high-ceilinged room with a sliding panel in the roof, permeated with the smell of damp. Okros rose from a table piled with books, brushing off his dark red smock. He was a slender man with a fringe of white hair and a pleasant, intelligent expression. It was hard to believe he was the villain Chaven believed him, even though Chert himself had heard Brother Okros talking to Hendon Tolly about Chaven’s glass.

In any case, he would let discretion rule. He bowed. “I am Chert of the Blue Quartz. The Guild of Stone-Cutters sent me.”

“Yes, you are expected. And you know much of mirrors?”

Chert spoke carefully. “I am of the Blue Quartz. We are part of the Crystal clan and a mirror is merely an object made from crystal or glass, so all Funderling mirror-work is overseen by us. And yes, I do know some few things. Whether that will be enough for your needs, my lord, we shall see.”

Okros gave him an appraising look. “Very well. I will take you to it.”

The scholar took a lantern from the tabletop and led Chert out of the high-ceilinged observatory and down a succession of corridors and stairways. Chert had been in Chaven’s house before, of course, but not often, and he had little idea where they were now except that they were traveling downward. For a moment he became fearfully certain that the man was taking him to the secret door Chert himself had employed when Chaven lived here, that he knew exactly who Chert was and what had brought him here, but instead, when they had gone down several floors, the little physician opened a door off the hallway with a key and beckoned him inside. An object covered with a cloth stood in the middle of an otherwise empty table, like an oddly shaped corpse waiting burial—or resurrection.

Okros removed the cloth with careful fingers. The mirror was just as Chaven had described it, but Chert did his best to look at it as though he had never seen it or heard of it before. Carved hands, the fingers spread in different arrangements, alternated with crude but compelling eyes around the dark wood of the frame. The curve was there, too, just enough of a convexity to make the reflection slightly unstable to a moving observer: in fact, it was disturbing to look at it for more than a few moments.

“And what exactly did you wish to know, my lord?” Chert asked carefully. “It looks like an ordinary…that is, it looks as though it is…unbroken.”

“Yes, I know!” For the first time, Chert could detect a hint of something strange under the physician’s words. “It is…it does nothing.”

“Nothing? I’m sorry, what…?”

“Don’t pretend you are ignorant, Funderling.” Okros shook his head angrily, then calmed himself. “This is a scrying glass. Surely you and your people did not think I would send for help to deal with an ordinary mirror? It is an authentic scrying glass—a ‘Tile,’ as they are sometimes called—but it remains dead to me. Do you still pretend ignorance?”

Chert kept his eyes on the glass. The man was not just angry, he was frightened somehow. What could that mean? “I pretend nothing, Lord, and I am not ignorant. I just wished to hear what it was you wanted. Now, what more can you tell me?” He tried to remember Chaven’s words. “Is it a problem of reflection or refraction?”

“Both.” The physician seemed mollified. “The substance seems intact, as you see, but as an object it is inert. As a scrying glass, it is useless. I can make nothing of it.”

“Can you tell me anything of where it comes from?”

Okros looked at him sharply. “No, I cannot. Why do you ask?”

“Because the literature of scrying glasses, and the unwritten lore as well, must be applied to that which is known, to help discover that which is unknown.” He hoped he didn’t sound too much like he was making things up (which he was): Chaven had told him a few facts and a name or two to drop when the occasion seemed to warrant, but there was no way of knowing ahead of time precisely what Okros would want to know. “Perhaps I could take it back to the Funderling Guild…”

“Are you mad?” Okros actually put his arms around the thing as if guarding a small, helpless child from a ravening wolf. “You will take nothing! This object is worth more than Funderling Town itself!” He stared at Chert, eyes narrowed to slits.

“Sorry, my lord. I only thought…”

“You will remember that it is an honor even being called to consult. I am the prince-regent’s physician—the royal physician!—and I will not be trifled with.”

Chert suddenly and for the first time felt frightened, not just of Okros himself—although the man could call the guards and have Chert locked in a dungeon in moments if he wished—but of his strange feverishness. It reminded him more than a little of the odd behavior he had seen from Chaven. What was it about this mirror that turned men into beasts?

“If anything,” Okros said, “I should come and examine the library in Funderling Town. The Guild would make it available to me, of course.”

Chert knew this would be a bad idea in many ways. “Of course, my lord. They would be honored. But most of the knowledge about subjects like these glasses cannot be found in books. Most of it is in the minds of our oldest men and women. Do you speak Funderling?”

Okros stared at him as though he were joking. “What do you mean, speak Funderling? Surely no one down there speaks anything but the common tongue of the March Kingdoms?”

“Oh, no, Brother Okros, sir. Many of our older folk have not left Funderling Town in years and years and they speak only the old tongue of our forefathers.” Which was not entirely a lie, although the numbers who could only speak Old Funderling were tiny. “Why don’t you let me go back to the Guild with your questions—and my observations too, of course—and see what answers I can bring back in a day or two. Surely for someone as busy as yourself, with all your responsibilities, that would be the best solution.”

“Well, perhaps…”

“Let me just make a few notes.” He rapidly sketched the mirror and its frame and made notations in the margin just as he would have while planning a particularly intricate scaffolding installation. When he had stalled as long as he could, he remembered something else Chaven had told him, which had made no sense but which he wanted Chert to discover. There had been some artful way he had wanted Chert to pose the question, but he couldn’t remember, so he just asked bluntly. “Have you seen anything unusual in the mirror? Birds or animals?”

Okros looked at Chert as though he had suddenly sprouted wings or a tail himself. “No,” he said at last, still staring. “No, I told you it was lifeless.”

“Ah. Of course.” Chert bowed, hung his slate around his neck, and backed toward the door. He no longer thought Okros quite as friendly and harmless as he first had. “Thank you for the honor of asking for us, my lord. I shall consult with my fellows in the Guild and return soon.”

“Yes. Well, just do not wait too long.”

Chert had his hood up against the cold, so even though she was twice his height he nearly walked into her when she stepped out of the shadows near the Raven’s Gate. Startled, he stopped and looked up, but it took him a moment to recognize her—he had only seen her once, of course, and that had been well over a month ago.

“You’re the one who came to my house,” he said. She still had the same distracted look, like a sleepwalker. “You never told me your name.”

“Willow,” said the young woman. “But it does not matter. That was someone’s name who is gone now, or has changed.” She did not move on. Clearly, she wanted something, but Chert began to feel if he did not ask her she might never disclose it, that they would both remain standing here until night fell and then dawn came again.

“Do you need something?”

She shook her head. “Nothing you can give me.”

Chert’s patience, never his best feature, had been tested beyond belief this year, and it seemed the tests were far from over. “Then perhaps you will excuse me—my wife will be holding supper.”

“I wish to speak to you about the one called Gil,” she said.

Chert suddenly remembered. “Ah, of course. You were very attached to him, weren’t you?” She didn’t speak, but only watched him attentively. “I’m very sorry, but we were both captured by the fairy-soldiers. They let me go, but their queen, or their general, or whatever she was, sentenced Gil to death. He’s dead. I’m sorry I could not do more for him.”

She shook her head. “No. He is not dead.”

He saw the look in her eyes. “Of course. His spirit lives on, no doubt. Now I must go. Again, I’m sorry for how things happened.”

The young woman smiled, an almost ordinary thing, but it still had a quality of ineffable strangeness. “No, he is not dead. I hear his voice. He speaks to Lady Porcupine every day. She hates what he has to say, because he speaks with the king’s voice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It does not matter. I only wished to tell you that I heard Gil speak of you just yesterday, or perhaps it was today.” She shook her head, as though Chert must know how hard it was to remember when one last heard from dead people. “He said he wished he could tell you and your people that they are not safe beneath the castle. That soon the world will change, and that the door will open under Funderling Town and dead time will escape.” She nodded as though she had performed some small trick with an acceptable level of skill. “I am going now.”

She turned and walked away.

Chert stood in the lengthening shadows, feeling a chill crawl across his body that was out of all proportions even to the cold day.