The old, old woman shook her head. "I fear for the breed," was all she said, then began laying new faggots on the fire. "Sit down, child. I can see you're ill-I'll have to do something about that. Are you hungry, too?"
"Who… who are you? I mean, yes-Oh, gods, yes, I'm starving."
"Good. We'll make you work for your supper, but I suppose you should rest and recover a bit first." The old woman gave her a sharp look. It was like being stared at by a wild beast. Briony's heart tripped again. The woman's eyes were not blue or green or even brown, but black and shiny as volcano glass."One thing we won't ask you to do is sing. We've had unite enough of that tuneless caterwauling."
Even in the midst of all these unexpected happenings, Briony was stung. "I was just trying to keep myself going." She slumped to the ground and tucked the knife back into its sheath, still finding it hard to get her breath. The old woman was scarcely as high as Briony's own shoulder and looked to weigh no more than a roast Orphanstide duck.
"Maybe it was the song, then, daughter," said the old woman as she bent to rummage in a sack that hung from the front of the wagon. "I've never cared much for that Gregor. Too full of himself, and a dreadful man for a stretched rhyme. I told him so, too."
Briony, recovering her strength a little, shook her head. Perhaps this an¬cient was a little mad-surely she'd have to be, to live in the forest this way, by herself. "He's been dead for two centuries."
"Yes, he has, bless him, and not a moment too soon." She straightened up. "Hmmm. If I'd known yesterday I would have company, I would have gathered more marsh marigold, and maybe some chestnuts. But I didn't know until this morning."
"This morning what?"
"That you'd be coming. It took you long enough." She shrugged her thin shoulders, two bony points beneath the cloak. "It's not just Gregor, though, it's that song of his-more of it wrong than right, you know. Zosim the Helper-there's a laugh. That snake-eyed trickster helped him¬self to a few things, but that's all the helping he ever did. And the snow. Pure nonsense. Khors' castle wasn't made of ice or anything like that, it shone that way because of the elfglass it was covered with-fairy-shimmer, they used to call the stuff. And 'Everfrost! " She smacked her lips in dis¬gust, as if she'd eaten something that tasted foul. "He just took the real story and mixed it up with that Caylor story about the Prince of Birds- and that was a mumbled-up porridge of the story of the Godswar in the first place!"
Briony blinked. She wished that the woman would stop talking and get cooking. Only the griping pain in her stomach was allowing her to remain
upright."You… sound like you know… a great deal about… about the War of the Clods."
The old woman snickered, then the snicker became a full throated laugh. She laughed until she was wheezing and had to sit down beside Briony. "Yes, daughter, I do know a great deal about it." She chuckled again and wiped her eyes. "I ought to, child. I was there."
..
20
A Piece of the Moon's House
As the battle began, innocent Zoria escaped the fortress and on her pale,
bare feet went in search of her family, but although Zosim found her and
tried to help her, they were separated by a great storm, and so Perin's
virgin daughter wandered far from the battlefield.
Before the walls of Khors' mighty fortress, Kernios the Earthlord was
killed by the treachery of Zmeos, but the tears of his brother Erivor raised
him again and he was thereafter undefeatable by any man or god.
— from The Beginnings of Things The Book of the Trigon
I
T TOOK SISTER UTTA LONGER than she would have liked to clear away the books and rolls of parchment on the least cluttered chair, but when she had finished Merolanna sank into it gladly. Once she saw that the duchess was only light-headed-and no surprise; Utta was feeling a bit dizzy herself-she cleared herself a place to sit, too. This task was not made any easier by the fact that a pentecount of miniature soldiers stand¬ing at attention on the floor had been joined by at least that number of tiny courtiers, so that there was almost nowhere Sister Utta could put her foot or anything else down without first having to wait for finger-high people to clear the way. King Olin's study now looked like the grandest and most elaborate game of dolls a little girl could ever imagine. At the center of it all, as poised and graceful as if she were the ordinary-sized one and Utta
and the duchess were the inexplicable atomies, sat Queen Upsteeplebat on her hanging platform in the fireplace.
Merolanna fanned herself with a sheaf of parchments. "What did you mean, you can tell me about my son? What do you know about my son?"
Utta could make no sense of this: she had lived more than twenty years in the castle, and to the best of her knowledge Merolanna was childless. "Are you all right, Your Grace?"
Merolanna waved a hand at her. "Losing my mind, there is no doubt about that, but otherwise I am well enough. I am more grateful than I can say that you are here with me. You are seeing and hearing the same things I am, aren't you?"
"Tiny people? Yes, I'm afraid I am."
Upsteeplebat raised her arms in a gesture of support, or perhaps apology. "I am sorry if I shocked you, Duchess Merolanna. I cannot explain how we know about your son, but I can promise you it was not by deliberately in¬truding on your privacy." The queen showed them a smile tinier than a baby's fingernail. "Although I must confess we have been guilty of that in other circumstances with other folk. But I can tell you no more about any of it, because we are offering you a bargain."
"What sort?" asked Utta.
"Don't be ridiculous," said Merolanna. "You don't have to bargain with me. Tell me what you want and I'll get it for you-food? You must live a dreadful, poor life hiding in the shadows if all the old stories now turn out to be true. Surely you can't want money…"
The Rooftopper queen smiled again. "We eat better than you would suppose, Duchess. In fact, we could triple our numbers and still barely dent what is thrown away or ignored in this great household. But what we want is something a bit less obvious. And we do not want it for ourselves."
"Please," said Merolanna with an edge of anger in her voice,"do not play at games with me, madam. You tease me with the prospect of learning something about my son, which if you know of his existence at all, you must know I would do anything to achieve. Just tell me what you want."
"I cannot. We do not know."
"What?" Merolanna began to stand and then fell back in the chair, fan¬ning vigorously. "What madness-what cruel prank…?"
"Please, Your Grace, hear us out." Upsteeplebat spoke kindly, but there was a note of authority in her own voice that Utta could not help re¬marking. "We do not play at games. Our Lord of the Peak, to whom we
owe our very existence, has spoken, and told us what to do, and what to say to you."
"Is that your Rooftopper king?" Utta rose from her own chair and went to stand by Merolanna's. She set her hand on the duchess' shoulder and could not help noticing how the woman was trembling.
Upsteeplebat shook her head. "Not in the sense you mean. No, I rule the Rooftoppers here among the living. But the Master of the Heights rules all living things and we are his servants."
"Your god?"
She nodded her head. "You may call him thus. To us, he is simply the Lord."
Merolanna took a long breath; Utta could feel her shudder. "What do you want? Just tell me, please."
"You must come with us. You must hear what the Lord of the Peak has to say."
"You would take us… to your god?" Utta wondered that a few mo¬ments ago she had thought things as strange as they could get.