It was fortunate, in a terrible way, that the Stone-Cutter’s Guild had recently allowed the judicious use of black powder in some particularly difficult diggings: if folk had needed to shift the stone by hand, Chert’s father had said, there would have been no saving the lower depths at all. The trapped men must have heard a single loud thump like the very hammer of the Lord of Endless Skies as the black powder brought down the roof of the chamber next to the bank diggings. After that they would have heard nothing but their own terrified voices and the water rising to cover them.
The thought of their dying moments had given Chert nightmares throughout his young life, and even today Funderling children talked in hushed whispers about the haunted, hidden depths of Quarrymen’s Bank.
“No–no, there is no hole here,” Chert told his family, shaking his head at childhood memories that still made his heart flutter in his chest. He summoned a smile. “And a good thing, since we are well beneath the water and I prefer not to get damp.”
“Still, that is a sea imperial the boy’s found, without doubt.” Opal handed it back to Flint and tousled the boy’s hair. Opal knew her shells. She had always enjoyed going up to the surface during the cold season with the other Funderling women to gather mussels in the tidepools along the edge of Brenn’s Bay, then bringing them home and boiling them with a hot rock. Chert loved them—they were even sweeter than the many-legged korabi, the crevice-crawlers that scuttled over the damp rocks along the Salt Pool—and Opal loved them too, but she hadn’t gone out to gather any for a long time. Not since they’d had Flint to care for.
“Imperial… ?” the boy said, squinting at the disk.
“That’s right—because it looks like a coin, see? But it’s a shell, the skeleton of a little sea beast.” Chert tugged gently at the boy’s elbow. “Come along and I’ll tell you something about this place.”
“I hope you’re going to tell us that we’re almost done walking,” said Opal. “Who would make such a track so deep and so long? Mad folk is my guess.”
Chert laughed. “Yes, we’re almost done, my old darling—almost.” He reached around and patted the bundle on his back. “And remember, I’m carrying the pack.”
Opal scowled. “I hope you’re not saying that this sack I’m carrying is light. Because it isn’t.”
“Of course not.” He had told her not to bring half of what she’d put in it, of course, but that was like telling a cat to leave its tail and whiskers behind. How could Opal go anywhere without at least a few pots? And her good spoons, a wedding present from her mother? “Never mind,” he said, as much to himself as to his family. “Just walk and I’ll tell you about this track—why it’s here and who made it.
“Now, back in the days of the second King Kellick, if my grandfather told me the tale rightly, there was a great Funderling named Azurite of the Copper clan, but in those days the more common name for azurite crystals was ‘Stormstone,’ and that’s what everyone called him. Now, as I said, Stormstone Copper was a great man—a rare man—and that was good, because he was born into difficult times.”
“How long ago?” Flint asked.
Chert frowned. “Well before my grandfather’s day—over a century. The first King Kellick had been good to the Funderlings, honoring them in all his dealings with them, treating them no worse than any other member of his kingdom, and sometimes better, because he valued their craftiness.”
“You mean craftsmanship,” said Opal, puffing a little.
“I mean craftiness, which means more than just the laying of chisel to stone. It has to do with knowing. The first Kellick had been one of the few kings that valued what our folk knew. He was the only king that fought against the fairy folk but didn’t treat our people like goblins escaped from behind the Shadowline.” Chert shook his head. “But you’re getting me distracted, woman. I’m trying to explain about these passages we’re in.”
“Oh! The cheek of me for interrupting you, Master Blue Quartz! Speak on.” But he heard a hint of a smile in her voice. They had been walking a good part of the morning and they were all tired: the distraction was very welcome.
“So after the first Kellick died everyone thought that things would go well under his son, Barin, who seemed much like his father. And so he was, except in one way—he hated fairies and he didn’t much like Funderlings, either. During his reign most of the Eight Gates of Funderling Town were sealed, leaving us only one way to go up to the surface and back—the same one we use today. And there were king’s guards who stood there at that gate, day after day, searching our people’s wagons and troubling them for no reason except to remind them that they were not as important as the Big Folk. It was a great shock to all the Funderlings, especially after the long and happy partnership we’d enjoyed with Barin’s father.
“Well, as it turned out, Barin reigned even longer than the first Kellick, almost forty years, and although we were still given work in Southmarch, they were not happy years. Many of our people left and spread out to other cities and countries, especially here in the north where the Qar armies had burned and broken so much.
“When Barin finally died and his son came to the throne—the second Kellick, named after his grandfather—wise old Stormstone Copper met with the other leading Guildsmen and asked them, ‘Do you know how the Big Folk kill rabbits? They stop up all their burrow entrances but one, then they put ferrets down the one entrance left and let them run every member of the warren to ground—does and kittens and all.’
“When the other Funderlings asked him why he was taxing them with questions about rabbits when there was a new king being crowned and much to be discussed, Stormstone laughed a scornful laugh. ‘Why do you think King Barin stopped up the entrances to all our burrows?’ he said. ‘Because that way, if they ever want to rid themselves of us they have only to send down soldiers with spears and torches, just like they send ferrets down the rabbit holes, and that will be the end of Funderling Town. We were fools to let them do it and we are fools if we do not do something about it as soon as we can.’
“Needless to say, there was a great deal of argument—many of the others in the Guild could not believe that the Big Folk would ever harm them. But Stormstone said, ‘This Kellick is not like the first Kellick, just as his father Barin was not, either. Have you not seen the way the Big Folk look at us now, the way they whisper about us? They think us little different from the fairies who are besieging the city. If they grow any more frightened, who knows what the Big Folk may do in their fright and anger?’
“ ‘But what can we do?’ one of the guildsfolk asked. ‘Do we beg the new king to change the law and allow us to reopen the other seven gates?’
“Stormstone laughed again. ‘What, does the fox ask the hound for permission to run away? No. We will do what we need to do and tell no one.’ And so they did what he suggested.”
Chert cleared his throat. “See, we are starting to climb up again. That means we will be there soon. I admit it was a roundabout way to go, but a safe one.” He put his arm on Flint’s shoulder, felt his heart go a little cold when the boy quickly pulled away. “If you like, I will tell you the rest. Do you want to hear the rest?”