“The foolish hen could not sleep for trying to imagine a way to get the man’s attention. Her lovely voice had not moved him. Perhaps he needed to see that she valued him more than the others did, but how could she do that? She resolved to eat more of the corn he dropped than anyone else, and so she followed him from the first moment he arrived until he went away again, pecking at the other hens to drive them away and eating as much corn as she could,, manage. The other hens despised her as she grew fatter and sleeker, but still the ‘* * * * *man did not speak to her, did not single her out in any way. She decided she would fly to him and show him that she alone was worthy of his attention. It was not easy, because by now she was quite plump, but by practicing every day she at last managed to stay aloft long enough to flutter a good distance.
“One day, after the man finished spreading the corn and began to walk back to the house, the hen flew after him. It was harder than she thought it would be and she did not catch up to him until he had already gone through the door. She hurried after and flew inside, but it was dark and she could not see, so she began to call out —’Ga-gaw! Ga-gaw!’ —to let him know she had arrived.
“The man came to her and picked her up. Her heart was full of joy.
“ ‘I have tried to ignore you, you fat thing,’ he said, ‘because I was going to save you for the Feast of the Rising at the end of the rainy season, but here you are in my kitchen, shouting at the top of your lungs. Clearly it is the great god’s will that I eat you now! And so speaking, he wrung her neck and set a fire in the oven…”
Qinnitan stood suddenly and the old man Hasuris fell silent. He looked a little shamefaced, as if he had somehow guessed the story might upset her, which didn’t seem possible. “I… I don’t feel very well,” she said. She was dizzy and sick to her stomach.
Arimone looked at her with wide eyes. “My poor little sister? Can I get you something?”
“No, I… I think I had better go home I’m v—very s—s—sorry.” She put her hand over her mouth—she had a sudden, powerful urge to vomit all over the first wife’s beautiful striped cushions.
“Oh, no, must you really? Perhaps it would be better for you to have a little more mint tea. Surely that would settle your stomach.” Arimone picked up Qinnitan’s cup and held it out to her, gaze doe-innocent. “Go ahead, little sister. Drink some more. It is made to my special recipe and it cures nearly all ills.”
Filled with horror, Qinnitan shook her head and stumbled out without even bowing. She heard the slaves laughing and whispering behind her.
29. The Shining Man
FIVE WHITE WALLS:
Here is the shape with its tail
In its mouth
Here is the inside turned outside, the outside in
“Listen carefully,” Chert said when he had put some distance between himself and the temple of the Metamoric Brothers. He raised his hand to his shoulder to let Beetledown climb onto his palm, then held him so that he could see the man’s tiny face. “If your nose is telling you the truth and this is the way Flint went, I think I know where he’s going.”
“If my nose?” The Rooftopper’s features screwed up in indignation. “Wasn’t bred for it like the Grand and Worthy, me, but leaving un out, there be not a better sniffiter in all of the Southmarch heights.
“I believe you.” Chert took a deep, shaky breath. “It’s just that where he’s headed.” His knees felt weak and he had to sit down, which he did carefully the Rooftopper was still standing on his hand. For the first time that Chert Blue Quartz could remember, he wished he were outside, under the sky, instead of beneath the unimaginable weight of stone that had been the top of his world almost all his life, and had always held that place in his thoughts. “Where he’s headed is a very strange place. A sacred place. Sometimes it can be a dangerous place.”
“Cats? Snakes?” The Rooftopper’s eyes were wide. Despite his growing fear, Chert almost smiled. “No, nothing like that. Well, there might be animals down there, but that’s the least of my worries.” “Because th’art a giant.”
Now Chert did smile: being called a giant was something that would probably never happen to him again. “Fair enough. But what I need to tell you is that I have a decision to make. It’s not an easy one.”
The little man looked at him now with keen interest, just like Cinnabar or one of the other Guild leaders being presented with a tricky but possibly lucrative bargain. The Rooftoppers were not just like people, they were people, Chert knew that now; they were just as complicated and lively as the Funderlings or anyone else. So why were they so small? Where did they come from? Had they been punished by the gods, or was there something even stranger in their origins?
Thoughts of the gods and their fabled propensity for vengeance were, at this moment, more compelling than usual.
“Here is my problem,” he told Beetledown. “I told you before that places like the temple… that some of my people might frown on you being there. We are uncomfortable with outsiders seeing the things that are most important to us.”
“Understood,” said the little man.
“Well, I think Flint has gone deeper still into… into what we call the Mysteries. And I know that many of my people will be upset if I bring an outsider there. It was one reason I haven’t even taken Flint anywhere near the place, even though he is my foundling son.”
“Then time has come for me to go back to my own home.” Beetledown sounded quite cheerful about it, and Chert wasn’t surprised: the little man had become less comfortable the longer and deeper their journey became. In fact, he seemed positively to glow with satisfaction at the thought that his travels below ground were about to end, which made Chert’s already wretched position even more so.
“But I’m afraid to lose so much time—if the boy’s down there, it’s been hours already. It’s a dangerous place, Beetledown. Strange, too. I… I’m very frightened for him.”
“So?” The Rooftopper frowned in puzzlement, then gradually his tiny brows unkinked, although the understanding obviously brought him no happiness. “Tha wants to take me down with.”
“I can’t think of anything else to do, any other way to track him—there are many paths, many ways. I’m sorry. But I won’t take you against your will.”
“Th’art much the bigger of us twain.”
“That doesn’t matter. I won’t take you against your will.”
Beetledown’s frown returned. “Tha said ‘twas a sacred place—banned to outliers.”
“That’s why I said I had a difficult decision. But I’ve decided I’d rather break the law and take you into the Mysteries than leave my boy alone down there any longer than I have to—if you’ll go. Besides, the boy himself is no Funderling, so the law’s already fair cracked and riven, as we say.”
The little man sighed, a minuscule noise like the squeak of a worried mouse. “My queen bade me give ‘ee help with nose and otherwise. Can Beetledown the Bowman do less than un’s mistress bids un?”
“The Earth Elders bring you and all your people good luck,” said Chert, relieved. “You are as brave as you keep saying you are.”
“That be the solemn truth.”