Chert looked around, but it seemed nobody at this hastily assembled meeting of the Guild had thought to bring along any of the order. “They knew I went down into the Mysteries in search of my...in search of the boy, and they knew I brought him back up.” The Metamorphic Brothers did not know everything that had happened down there, of course, and Chert didn’t intend to tell the entire story to the Guild, either; as Opal liked to remind him, there was such a thing as having too much trust in your fellows. “They knew the little Rooftopper went down part of the way with me. The only thing that they seemed worried about was that somehow this all seemed to match some of old Brother Sulfur’s dreams.”
“When it comes to the Earth Elders,” said Travertine, another of the Highwardens and almost as old as Sard, “Sulphur has forgotten more than the rest of you ever knew...”
“Yes, thank you, Brother Highwarden,” Sard rasped. “Let us continue. Chert Blue Quartz, why did you first bring this upgrounder boy among us? It is...not our custom.”
“It was something about the strangeness of where we found him, I suppose. But if truth be told, much of it was because my wife Opal wanted to take him home and I could not argue her out of it.” A ripple of laughter passed through the room, but only a small one: the matters at hand were far too daunting. “We have no children, as most of you know.”
Sard cleared his throat again. “Is there anything other than the timing that makes you think there is any connection between what this physician claims is happening in the castle above us and the strange child you brought home?”
Chert had to think for a moment. “Well, Flint found the stone that Chaven says was used to murder Prince Kendrick. That may be happenstance, but for a child who found his way to the Rooftoppers when no one else has seen them, let alone spoken to them, for generations...”
“I take your meaning,” the oldest Highwarden said, nodding. He waved his hand, looking like an upended tortoise struggling to rise. “Do any of my fellows have anything more to ask or to offer?” He squinted his old, near-blind eyes as he looked to the masters of Fire Stone and Water Stone houses, but they shook their heads. Only Quicklime Pewter, the Highwarden of Metal House, had anything to say.
“Is the physician here, brothers?” he asked. “We cannot make up our minds on hearsay alone.”
One of the younger Magisters opened the chamber door and beckoned. Chaven came through with his bandaged hands clasped before him, head lowered and shoulders hunched, although the door to the Magisterial Chamber was one of the few in Funderling Town he could walk through upright. He saw the size of the room and stopped, then looked down at the mica floor, startled by what appeared to be an abyss beneath his feet.
“It’s a mirror,” Chert said from where he stood at the Outcrop. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’ve never seen one even near such a size,” said Chaven, half to himself. “Wonderful. Wonderful!”
“You may step down, Chert Blue Quartz,” wheezed Sard. “Chaven of Ulos, you may take his place at the Outcrop. We have some questions we wish to ask you.”
The physician was so fascinated by the mica mirror beneath his feet that he almost bumped into the Magister nearest the end, but at last made his way to the Outcrop and stood at the edge of the circular floor, the tall stone chairs of the Highwardens on his left, the stone benches of the Magisters at his right.
As Chaven repeated the story that others had already related, Chert felt a flush of guilty gratitude that the physician did not know all of the tale. Because of Chaven’s seeming madness on the subject of mirrors, Chert had chosen to keep back the full story of Flint’s glass, and likewise had not told the officers of the Guild about his own journey under Brenn’s Bay to meet the victorious Twilight People in mainland Southmarch. Chert still had no idea what any of that meant, but feared that if he told Cinnabar and the others that he had actually handed something over to the Quiet Folk, as they were sometimes euphemistically called, something that the boy had brought from behind the Shadowline in the first place, the Guild might decide keeping the boy was a risk that Funderling Town could not afford.
And that would be the end of me, he thought. My wife would never speak to me again. And, he realized, I’d miss the boy something fierce.
“You realize, Chaven Makaros,” said the Water Stone Highwarden, Travertine, “that by coming here, you may have embroiled our entire settlement in a struggle with the current lords of Southmarch.” He gave the physician a stern look. “We have a saying, ‘Few are the good things that come from above,’ and nothing you have done makes me inclined to think we should change it.”
Even with his head bowed Chaven still towered above the Highwardens. “I was wounded, feverish, and desperate, my lords. I did not think of greater matters, but only hoped to find help from my friend, Chert of the Blue Quartz. For that, I apologize.”
“Foolishness is no excuse!” called out Chert’s brother Nodule. Several of the other Magisters rumbled their approval of the sentiment.
“But desperation may bring true allies together,” said Cinnabar, and many other Magisters nodded. During his brief time in power, Hendon Tolly had taken all building around the castle out of the hands of Funderlings, keeping his plans secret and using handpicked men of his own brought in from Summerfield. Many of the Funderling leaders already feared for their livelihood—work on sprawling Southmarch Castle had provided much of their income in recent years. Chert suspected that as much as anything else might make them more willing to take risks than usual.
“Does anybody else wish to speak?” asked Highwarden Sard after a long pointless speech advocating caution by Magister Puddingstone of the Marl family had dragged to an end. “Or may we get on with our decision?”
“Which decision, Highwarden?” asked Cinnabar. “It seems to me we have three things to ponder. What, if anything, should be done about Chert Blue Quartz taking outsiders into the Mysteries? What, if anything, should be done to punish the boy Flint for visiting the Mysteries without permission (although he seems to have suffered more than a little for his mischief already, and was sick for many days thereafter)? And what should we do about this gentleman, the physician Chaven, and what he says about the Tollys and the attack on the royal family?”
“Thank you, Magister Quicksilver,” said Highwarden Caprock Gneiss. “You have summed things up admirably. And as the best informed of the Magisters, you may stay and help the four of us with our deliberations.”
Chert’s spirits rose a little. One of the Magisters was always picked to help prevent a deadlock among the four Houses, and he could not have hoped for anyone better than Cinnabar.
The five got up—Sard leaning heavily on Cinnabar’s arm— and retreated to the Highwardens’ Cabinet, a room off the Council Chamber that Chert had heard was very sumptuously appointed, with its own waterfall and several comfortable couches. The informant had been his brother Nodule, who as always was eager to emphasize the difference in his and Chert’s status. Nodule had once been the Magister picked to provide the fifth vote and still talked about it several years later as if it were an everyday occurrence.