"Now," said Chaven, "I will need something to prop this mirror-ah, the cup should do nicely. And I want to put the candle here, where it will re¬flect without being directly in front of him. Flint, that is the boy's name, yes? Flint, come and sit here at the table. On this bench, yes."
The straw-haired boy rose and came forward, looking not so much ap¬prehensive now as confused-and why not, Chert thought: it was an odd thing for parents of any kind to do, foster-folk or not, handing their child over to a strange, bespectacled fellow like this one, a man who might be small among his own kind but here was too big for any of the furniture, then letting him do the Elders knew what to the boy.
"It's all right, son," Chert said abruptly. Flint looked at him, then seated himself.
"Now, child, I want you to move a little so you can see nothing but the candle." The boy tilted a bit to the side, then moved the rest of his body at the physician's gentle direction. Chaven stood behind him.
"Perhaps you two should move to — where he cannot see you," the physi¬cian said to Chert and Opal. "Just stand behind me."
"Will this hurt him?" Opal asked suddenly. The boy flinched.
"No, no, and again, no. No pain, nothing dangerous, only a lew ques-tions, a little… conversation."
When Opal had taken her place, gripping Chert's hand tighter than he could remember her doing for some time, Chaven began quietly to speak, "Now, look in the mirror, lady' It was strange to think this same fellow, so soothing now, had been shrieking like a man caught under a rockslide only a few hours earlier. "Do you see the candle flame? You do. It is there be¬fore you, the only bright thing. Look at it. Do not watch anything else, only the flame. See how it moves? See how it glows? The darkness on either side of it is spreading, but the light only grows brighter…"
Chert couldn't see Flint's face, of course-the angle of the mirror didn't permit it-but he could see the boy's posture beginning to ease. The bony shoulders, which had been hunched as though against a cold wind, now drooped, and the head tilted forward toward the mirror-candle that Flint could see but Chert could not.
Chaven continued to talk in this soft, serious way, speaking of the can¬dle and the darkness around it until Chert felt that he was falling into some kind of spell himself, until the pool of light on the tabletop, the candle and Flint and the mirror, all seemed to float in a shadowy void. The physician let his voice trail off into silence.
"Now," Chaven said after a pause, "we are going to take a journey together, you and I. Fear nothing that you see because I will be with you. Nothing that you see can see you, or harm you in any way. Do not be afraid."
Opal squeezed Chert's hand so hard he had to wriggle his fingers free. He put his own hand on her arm to let her know he was still there, and also to try to stave off any sudden urges on her part to crush his fingers again.
"You are a boy again, just a very small boy-a baby, perhaps still in swaddling, and you can barely walk," Chaven said. "Where are you? What do you see?"
A long pause was followed by a strange sound-Flint's voice, but a new one Chert hadn't yet heard, not the preternatural maturity of the nearly wild boy they had brought home, or the anxious sullenness that had come on him since his journey through the mysteries. This Flint sounded almost exactly like what Chaven had described-a very small child, only just up on his legs.
"See trees. See my mam."
Opal got hold of his hand despite Chert's best efforts and this time he didn't have the heart to pull away, despite her desperate grip.
"And your father? Is he there?"
"Han't got un."
"Ah. And what is your name?"
He waited another long moment before answering. "Boy. Mam calls me boy."
"And do you know her name?"
"Mam. Ma-ma."
There was another spell of silence while Chaven considered. "Very well. You are a little older now. Where do you live?"
"In my house. Near the wood."
"Do you know its name, this wood?"
"No. Only know I mustn't go there."
"And when other people speak to your mother, what do they call her?"
"Don't. Don't none come. Except the city-man. He comes with the money. Four silver seashells each time. She likes it when he comes."
Chaven turned and gave Chert and Opal a look that Chert could not identify. "And what does he call her?"
"Mistress, or goodwife. Once he called her Dame Nursewife."
Chaven sighed. "Enough, then. You are now…"
"She's not well," Flint said abruptly, his voice tremulous. "She said, don't go out, and I don't. But she's sleeping and the clouds are coming along the ground."
"He's frightened!" said Opal. Chert had to hold her back, wondering even as he did so whether it was the right thing to do. "Let go of me, old man-can't you hear him? Flint! Flint, I'm here!"
"I assure you, good Mistress Opal, he cannot hear you." Something odd and hard had entered Chaven's voice-a tone Chert hadn't heard from him before. "My master Kaspar Dyelos taught this working to me and I learned it well. I assure you, he hears no voice but mine."
"But he's frightened!"
"Then you must be quiet and let me speak to him," Chaven said. "Boy, listen to me."
"The trees!" Flint said, his voice rising. "The trees are… moving. They have fingers. They're all around the house, and the clouds are all around too!"
"You are safe," the physician said."You are safe, boy. Nothing youcan see can hurt you."
"I don't want to go out. Ma said not to! But the door's open and the clouds are in the house…!"
"Boy…" /
Flint's desperate words came out in little bursts, as though he were run ning hard. "Not… the… don't want…" He was swaying on the bench now, boneless as a doll, his head rolling on his neck as though someone were shaking him by the shoulders. "The eyes are all staring! Where's my ma? Where's the sky?" He was weeping now. "Where's my house?"
"Stop this!" Opal shrieked. "You're hurting him with your horrible spell!"
"I assure you," Chaven said, a little breathless himself, "that while he may be remembering things that frightened him, he's in no danger…"
Flint suddenly went rigid on the bench. "He's not in the stone any¬more," he said in a harsh whisper, throat as tight as if someone squeezed it in strong hands. "He's not just in the stone-he's… in… me!" The child fell silent, still stiff as a post.
"We are done now, boy," Chaven said after a long moment of stunned silence. "Come back to your home. Come back here, to the candle, and the mirror, come back to Opal and Chert…"
Flint stood up so suddenly that he tipped the heavy bench over. It crashed onto Chaven's foot and the physician hopped back on one leg, cursing unintelligibly, then fell over.
"No!" Flint shouted, and his voice filled the small room, rattled from the stone walls. "The queen's heart! The queen's heart! It's a hole, and he's crawling through it…!"
And then he went limp and fell to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
"He only sleeps." Chaven spoke gently, an unspoken apology behind the words, but Opal was having nothing of it; the look on her face could have crumbled limestone. She angrily waved Chaven and her husband from the sleeping room so she could continue dabbing the boy's forehead with a wet cloth, as if the mere fact of their presence would compromise her healing abilities-or, as Chert thought more likely, as though the very sight of two such useless men made her feel ill.
"I do not know what happened," Chaven said to Chert as they turned the bench right-side-up and sat on it. Chert poured them both a mug of