If the room full of plaster models at the bottom of the tower had seemed cluttered, this was something else again. Books had been stacked everywhere across the floor in unsteady-looking towers, and across every surface, many of them open, covering the two long tables in heedless piles. More than a few of the volumes lay bent-backed, perched like clumsy nesting birds on tabletop or pile, in positions that likely had not changed since the king’s disappearance. Many had lost pages: a mulch of creased parchments covered the floor like drifts of leaves. For Zoria, tutored in the thrifty ways of the Zorian sisterhood, where books were a precious, expensive resource and could be read only with the permission of the adelfa, the mistress of the shrine’s sisterhood, this careless plenitude was both exhilarating and shocking.
“What a dreadful clutter!” said Merolanna. “And it’s frightfully cold in here, too. I’m shivering, Utta. Would you see if there’s any wood, and light a fire?”
“Light not any fires, great ladies!” a tiny voice piped. “I beg ’ee, or tha will scorch my own sweet mistress most cracklingly!”
Utta jumped and dropped the torch, which with great good fortune landed in one of the few places on the floor not covered with sheets of book paper. She snatched it up again, breathing thanks she had not set the entire tower aflame. “What was...?”
Merolanna had given a little screech at the mysterious words, and now reached out and clutched Utta’s shoulder so fiercely that the Zorian sister could barely restrain a cry of her own. “It was here! In this very room!” the duchess whispered. She made the sign of the Three. “Who speaks?” she demanded aloud, her voice cracked and quavering. “Are you a ghost? A demon spirit?”
“No, great ladies, no ghost. I will show myself presently.” The faint, shrill voice might almost have come from the phantom of the dead mouse downstairs. A moment later, Utta saw something stirring on the tabletop. A minuscule, four-limbed shape crawled out from between two closeleaning piles of books. When it stood up, and was revealed to be a man no taller than Utta’s finger, she nearly dropped the torch again.
“Oh, merciful daughter of Perin,” Utta said. “It is a little man.”
“No mere man,” the stranger chirped, “but a Gutter-Scout of the Rooftoppers.” He bowed. “Beetledown the Bowman, I hight. Beg pardon for affrighting thee.”
“You see this too,” Merolanna said, tightening her grip on Utta again until the other woman squirmed. “Sister Utta, you see it. I am not mad, am I?”
“I see it,” was all she could say. At this moment Utta was not entirely certain of her own sanity. “Who are you?” she asked the tiny man. “I mean, what are you?”
“He said he was a Rooftopper,” Merolanna said. “That’s plain enough.”
“A...Rooftopper?”
“Don’t you know the stories? Ah, but you’re from the Vuttish islands, aren’t you?” Merolanna stared at Utta for a moment, then suddenly remembered what they were talking about and turned back to the astonishing little apparition on the table. “What do you want? Are you the one who...did you put that letter in my chamber?”
Beetledown bowed. It was hard to tell, he was so small, but he might have been a little shame-faced. “That were my folk, yes, and Beetledown played some part, ’tis also true. We took the letter and we brought it back. Any more, though, be not mine to tell. You must wait.”
“Wait?” Merolanna’s laugh was more than a little shaky. Utta half feared that the duchess would faint or run screaming, but Merolanna seemed determined to prove she was made of bolder stuff. “Wait for what? The goblins to come and play us a tune? The fairy-king to lead us to his hoard of gold? By the Holy Trigon, are all the stories coming to life?”
“Again, this one cannot say, great lady. But un comes who can.” He cocked his head. “Ah. I hear her.”
He pointed to the great, long-unused fireplace. A line of figures had begun to file out from behind a pile of books beside the hearth—tiny men like Beetledown, dressed in fantastical armor made of nut husks and rodent skeletons, carrying equally tiny swords and spears. The miniature troop marched silently across the floor (although not without a few nervous glances upward at Utta and Merolanna) and lined up before the fireplace. A platform descended slowly out of the flue and into the opening of the fireplace, winched down on threads with a feathery squeak like the cry of baby birds. When it was a half-foot above the ash-covered andiron, it stopped, swaying slightly. At the center of the platform, on a beautiful throne constructed in part from what appeared to be a gilded pinecone, sat a finger-sized woman with red hair and a little crown of gold wire. She regarded her two large guests with calm interest, then smiled.
“Her Sublime and Inextricable Majesty, Queen Upsteeplebat,” announced Beetledown with considerable fervor.
“We owe you an explanation, Duchess Merolanna and Sister Utta,” said the little queen. The stones of the fireplace, like the shape of a theater or temple, made her high voice easier to hear than the little man’s had been. “We have information that we think you will find valuable, and in turn, we ask you to aid us in the great matters that are upon us all.”
“Aid you?” Merolanna shook her head. The duchess was looking her age now, confused and even a little weary. “By the gods, I swear I understand none of this. Tiny people out of an old tale. What could we do to help you? And what information could you give us?”
“For one thing, Duchess,” said the queen gently, as if to a restless child instead of to a woman many, many times her size, “we believe we can tell you what happened to your son.”
“Are you sure?” Opal asked. “Perhaps you’re still too tired.” His wife, Chert noted, seemed to be having second thoughts.
“No, Mistress,” Chaven protested, “I am much recovered. In fact, I am ashamed at having let myself go so far last night.” He did indeed look rather embarrassed. “I count you even better friends for your kindness, indulging me at a bad time.”
“But, are you truly...?” Opal looked at the physician, then at her husband, as though she wanted him to intervene. Chert was quite happy to sit with a sour smile on his face. This messing about with mirrors had been her idea, after all. “Will you really do it here? In our home?”
Chaven smiled. “Mistress Opal, this is not some great, dangerous experiment I will perform, only the mildest bit of captromancy. Nothing will damage your son or your house.”
Son. Chert still wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but kept his thoughts to himself. Just in the months since Flint had come to them, the boy had grown another handspan, and now he towered over Chert. How could you consider someone your son who first of all didn’t belong to you, whose mother and father might be alive and living nearby, and who in a few years would be twice your own size?
Ah, I suppose it isn’t the height but the heart, he thought. He looked at the boy, sitting sleepy-eyed and faintly distrustful, curled in his blanket in the corner he had made his own. At least he’s out of his bed. These days Flint was like some ancient relative—asleep most of the day, barely speaking. The boy had never been talkative, of course, but until the moment he had woken up from his weird adventure in the Mysteries the vigor had practically sprayed off him like a dog shaking a wet coat.
“What do you need, Doctor?” Chert couldn’t help being a little curious. “Special herbs? Opal could go to the market.”
“You could go to the market, you old hedgehog,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it.
“No, no.” The physician waved his hand. He looked a bit better for a night’s sleep, but Chert knew him well enough to see the hollowness behind the façade of the ordinary. Chaven Makaros was not a happy man, not remotely, which made Chert even more anxious. “No, I need only Mistress Opal’s mirror and a candle, and...” Chaven frowned. “Can you make this place dark?”