"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 close-leaning 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 cer¬tain 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 re¬membered 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 de¬termined to prove she was made of bolder stuff. "Wait for what? The gob¬lins 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 re¬garded her two large guests with calm interest, then smiled.
"Her Sublime and Inextricable Majesty, Queen Upsteeplebat," an-. nounced 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 hus¬band, 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 exper¬iment 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 prac¬tically 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 be¬hind the facade of the ordinary. Chaven Makaros was not a happy man, not
remotely, which made Chert even more anxious."No, 1 need only Mistress ()pal's mirror and a candle, and…" Chaven frowned. "Can you make this place dark?"
Chert laughed. "Can we? You forget, you are a guest in Funderling Town now. Even what we usually walk about in would seem like deep dark to you, and what you think is ordinary light makes my head ache."
Chaven looked stricken. "Is that true? Have you been suffering because of me?"
He shook his head. "I exaggerate. But yes, of course, we can make it dark."
As Chert stood on a stool to douse the lantern burning high in the al¬cove above the fire, Opal left the room and returned with a single candle in a dish which she set on the table next to Chaven. Already the exchange of the lantern for this single small light had turned the morning into some¬thing else, into eerie, timeless twilight, and Chert could not help remem¬bering the murk of Southmarch city across the bay, the ceaseless dripping of water, those armored… things stepping out of the shadows. He had dis¬missed Opal's worries about doing this in the house, thinking that she was concerned only about a mess on her immaculate floors, but realized now that something deeper troubled her: by this one act, the lighting of a candle, and the knowledge that more was to come, the day and their house itself had been transformed into something quite different, almost frightening.