Tad Williams: Shadowrise

“Imperial… ?” the boy said, squinting at the disk.

“That’s right—because it looks like a coin, see? But it’s a shell, the skeleton of a little sea beast.” Chert tugged gently at the boy’s elbow. “Come along and I’ll tell you something about this place.”

“I hope you’re going to tell us that we’re almost done walking,” said Opal. “Who would make such a track so deep and so long? Mad folk is my guess.”

Chert laughed. “Yes, we’re almost done, my old darling—almost.” He reached around and patted the bundle on his back. “And remember, I’m carrying the pack.”

Opal scowled. “I hope you’re not saying that this sack I’m carrying is light. Because it isn’t.”

“Of course not.” He had told her not to bring half of what she’d put in it, of course, but that was like telling a cat to leave its tail and whiskers behind. How could Opal go anywhere without at least a few pots? And her good spoons, a wedding present from her mother? “Never mind,” he said, as much to himself as to his family. “Just walk and I’ll tell you about this track—why it’s here and who made it.

“Now, back in the days of the second King Kellick, if my grandfather told me the tale rightly, there was a great Funderling named Azurite of the Copper clan, but in those days the more common name for azurite crystals was ‘Stormstone,’ and that’s what everyone called him. Now, as I said, Stormstone Copper was a great man—a rare man—and that was good, because he was born into difficult times.”

“How long ago?” Flint asked.

Chert frowned. “Well before my grandfather’s day—over a century. The first King Kellick had been good to the Funderlings, honoring them in all his dealings with them, treating them no worse than any other member of his kingdom, and sometimes better, because he valued their craftiness.”

“You mean craftsmanship,” said Opal, puffing a little.

“I mean craftiness, which means more than just the laying of chisel to stone. It has to do with knowing . The first Kellick had been one of the few kings that valued what our folk knew. He was the only king that fought against the fairy folk but didn’t treat our people like goblins escaped from behind the Shadowline.” Chert shook his head. “But you’re getting me distracted, woman. I’m trying to explain about these passages we’re in.”

“Oh! The cheek of me for interrupting you, Master Blue Quartz! Speak on.” But he heard a hint of a smile in her voice. They had been walking a good part of the morning and they were all tired: the distraction was very welcome.

“So after the first Kellick died everyone thought that things would go well under his son, Barin, who seemed much like his father. And so he was, except in one way—he hated fairies and he didn’t much like Funderlings, either. During his reign most of the Eight Gates of Funderling Town were sealed, leaving us only one way to go up to the surface and back—the same one we use today. And there were king’s guards who stood there at that gate, day after day, searching our people’s wagons and troubling them for no reason except to remind them that they were not as important as the Big Folk. It was a great shock to all the Funderlings, especially after the long and happy partnership we’d enjoyed with Barin’s father.

“Well, as it turned out, Barin reigned even longer than the first Kellick, almost forty years, and although we were still given work in Southmarch, they were not happy years. Many of our people left and spread out to other cities and countries, especially here in the north where the Qar armies had burned and broken so much.

“When Barin finally died and his son came to the throne—the second Kellick, named after his grandfather—wise old Stormstone Copper met with the other leading Guildsmen and asked them, ‘Do you know how the Big Folk kill rabbits? They stop up all their burrow entrances but one, then they put ferrets down the one entrance left and let them run every member of the warren to ground—does and kittens and all.’

“When the other Funderlings asked him why he was taxing them with questions about rabbits when there was a new king being crowned and much to be discussed, Stormstone laughed a scornful laugh. ‘Why do you think King Barin stopped up the entrances to all our burrows?’ he said. ‘Because that way, if they ever want to rid themselves of us they have only to send down soldiers with spears and torches, just like they send ferrets down the rabbit holes, and that will be the end of Funderling Town. We were fools to let them do it and we are fools if we do not do something about it as soon as we can.’

“Needless to say, there was a great deal of argument—many of the others in the Guild could not believe that the Big Folk would ever harm them. But Stormstone said, ‘This Kellick is not like the first Kellick, just as his father Barin was not, either. Have you not seen the way the Big Folk look at us now, the way they whisper about us? They think us little different from the fairies who are besieging the city. If they grow any more frightened, who knows what the Big Folk may do in their fright and anger?’

“ ‘But what can we do?’ one of the guildsfolk asked. ‘Do we beg the new king to change the law and allow us to reopen the other seven gates?’

“Stormstone laughed again. ‘What, does the fox ask the hound for permission to run away? No. We will do what we need to do and tell no one.’ And so they did what he suggested.”

Chert cleared his throat. “See, we are starting to climb up again. That means we will be there soon. I admit it was a roundabout way to go, but a safe one.” He put his arm on Flint’s shoulder, felt his heart go a little cold when the boy quickly pulled away. “If you like, I will tell you the rest. Do you want to hear the rest?”

At first he thought the boy was ignoring him again, but then he saw a just perceptible nod.

“The Stone-Cutter’s Guild did as wise Stormstone told them. They took money from the treasury and over the next dozen years found a few of the Big Folk who liked gold more than questions, and so secretly bought a number of houses in the poorest neighborhoods on the edges of Southmarch. Then they began to dig tunnels down from just beneath these properties and connect them to passages on the outer reaches of Funderling Town, out at the far ends of certain nameless roads which the Big Folk knew nothing about, and that they could not have found if they did, even with a map. At last the roads were ready. A group of our people who had permission from King Kellick the Second to be aboveground after sunset because they were working in a royal granary that was in use during the day brought an extra-large crew to work, mainly by confusing the uplander guards with much coming and going. After nightfall half of them left the granary and made their way by back alleys to the houses the Guild had secretly bought and there broke through the last cubits of earth and stone to the tunnels below. When they were finished they covered the holes in the earth with flagstone floors, each with a stone that could be lifted to reveal a doorway to distant Funderling Town.

“Not all these new passages ended in the outer keep, although that is where many were located. Some even led directly under the water to houses and other places on the mainland.” He could have mentioned that he himself had traveled such a road to the Qar camp when he had taken Flint’s mirror to the Twilight folk, but didn’t for fear of upsetting Opal. “In fact,” he went on, “it is said Stormstone even had one tunnel built that came up somewhere in the inner keep—on the grounds of the Throne hall itself!

“By the end of a few months, when our folk were finished with rebuilding the granary, they had also finished all the entrances to these New Gates, as the Guild elders called them in whispers. And ever since there have always been secret ways in and out of Funderling Town. The fairy folk stayed quiet for a hundred years or more after that, so many of the hidden passages fell into disrepair, but I’m told we have kept the houses and other places aboveground that hide them.”