Why could Okros not have met me in the Observatory as he did last time? Chert thought bitterly to himself. That is only a few hundred steps from the gate to Funderling Town. I would have been there already and not had to stand and be mocked by the gate guards. But the summons had said Chert must come to the castellan’s chambers, where Chert supposed Okros must be involved in other business. Does that mean he has carried the mirror all the way across the castle?
Chaven Makaros had been delighted to see the summons from his treacherous onetime friend. “Praise all the gods,” he had cried, “that means Okros still has not solved it yet!” The physician had actually trembled with relief as he read.
“Of course you must go to him again, Chert. I will give you various paths to offer him that will lead him astray for weeks!”
Remembering, Chert made a noise of disgust. So he must tramp all the way across Southmarch and bear several kinds of indignity because two half-mad physicians were determined to play tug-of-war over a mirror! Of course, he reminded himself, it was not a good idea to turn down a summons bearing the royal crest of Southmarch, either.
Chert Blue Quartz had not entered the exalted premises of the royal residence since he had worked on a large crew under the older Hornblende some ten years earlier, excavating a cellar to make a new buttery under the great kitchens. It had been a hard job, and now that he thought of it, a queer one: the king had set out very precise limitations on where they could dig, and as a result the new buttery had been a thing of strange angles, crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Still, he remembered the job fondly—it had been one of his first as a foreman in his own right—and still remembered the pride he had felt to be working in the king’s residence.
Today, though, he was cursedly late, and Chert’s heart sank even further when he saw a group of soldiers lounging in front of the residence gatehouse. Chert knew as well as he knew how to spot a shear in a basalt facing that dealing with this number of guards would hold him up even longer. His experiences going in and out of Southmarch in the old days so he could explore the hills near the Shadowline had taught him that one guard had little to prove, and two would have generally made accommodation between themselves not to work too hard, but soldiers in larger groups often decided to prove themselves to their fellows, or to show off —either way, disastrous for a man Chert’s size who was also in a hurry.
He ducked behind a hedge as tall as he was and hurried out into the garden on the residence’s western side, bypassing the front gate in search of an easier entrance. He found it along the wall behind a row of tangled, skeletal bushes, a window leading into one of the ground floor rooms. It was too small for an ordinary man, and a tight fit even for Chert, which might have explained why it had been left unlatched. He wriggled through it and hung wincing from the frame until his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he could see how far it was to the floor. The room seemed to be an annex to the pantry, full of barrels and jars but blessedly empty of people. He dropped down, then hurried across it and out into the passage.
Now came the difficult part, trying to find his way across the residence to the castellan’s chambers without anyone noticing him (or at least without anyone realizing he had bypassed the gatehouse). He sighed as he reached the end of the first long hall. Half the hour must be gone now. Okros would be very angry.
After several false turnings, one of which led him into a parlor where a surprised group of young women sat sewing —he bowed repeatedly as he backed out—Chert found the inner gardens and made his way across the nearest one to the center of the residence, then back down the main corridor to the offices and official chambers near the front entrance. I would have been better off to let the guards abuse me, he thought in disgust. I have wasted twice as much time this way. Still, he had finally reached the section of the residence to which he had been summoned, so he no longer needed to hide himself whenever he heard footsteps. With the help of a slightly suspicious page he discovered the hallway to the castellan’s chambers, and was about to rap on the beautifully carved and polished oak door when something stung his hand.
Chert cursed and swatted, but his attacker was no hornet or horsefly: instead, something like a long, slender thorn hung from the flesh of his hand. He brushed at it in irritation but it did not come out, and when he at last plucked it painfully from his skin, he discovered to his astonishment that it was a tiny arrow only half the length of his finger, fletched with tiny strips of butterfly wing.
For a moment he could only stare at it, completely befuddled, but when he looked up and saw a little manlike shape clinging to a tapestry just across the hall, Chert finally realized what had happened. But why should the Rooftoppers want to hurt him? Wasn’t he their ally—hadn’t he and Beetledown been something like friends?
The minuscule assassin did not try to escape, but waited as Chert strode toward him. For a moment he was tempted to reach up and, like some terrible giant, simply pluck the little creature from the hanging and throw him down on the floor, perhaps even step on him. But even at the end of a bad morning, late to an appointment and with his hand throbbing, Chert was not the kind of man to hurt another without good cause, and he did not understand yet what had happened.
He leaned his face close. It was a young Rooftopper male, but not one he recognized. At least his attacker looked suitably frightened. “What are you after?” Chert growled.
The little man was hanging from a thread like a mountaineer on a rope. He waved one of his hands and piped, “Quiet, now! Be tha Chert, Beetledown’s companion?”
“Yes, I be bloody Chert. Why did you arrow me?”
“Beetledown—un sent me to say tha beest in danger! Go not inside!” The little man looked terrified now, and Chert considered how he must look to the fellow, a mountain with a frowning face. He leaned a little ways back. “What do you mean?”
“No time—hide ’ee!” The Rooftopper, as though seeing something Chert could not see, scuttled up the thread to the top of the tapestry and disappeared behind it.
Before Chert could do more than blink, the door of the castellan’s chamber across the hall rattled as the bolt was pulled back. Hide? Why? He had been summoned, hadn’t he? He had every right to be here!
But why would Beetledown send someone to shoot an arrow at me just to get my attention if I wasn’t truly in danger?
Suddenly his hackles were up and his skin was tingling. It must be some misunderstanding—but if it wasn’t...?
There was no room to slip behind the tapestry, but a marble statue of Erivor stood in a little alcove shrine only a few steps down the passage on the same side as the door. Chert bolted for it. The statue rocked as he pushed his way behind it, and he barely had time to steady it before the door creaked open.
“He knows, curse him,” said a voice that he recognized— Okros. “I should have simply had your men take him, Havemore.”
“It would have been better not to alarm the little diggers, and if he had come of his own accord they would have been none the wiser,” said the other man. “But now the soldiers will have to search for him.”