Tad Williams: Shadowrise

“You had better not be telling us this because you plan to make us walk all the way upground from here,” Opal warned him.

“No. We’re almost there, my love. The reason I’m telling you all this is that we’re in one of those passages right now.”

“Almost where?” asked Flint.

“The place we’re going—the Metamorphic Brothers’ temple.”

“But why did we walk so far? ” Flint didn’t sound like he minded much: he was just curious.

“Because soldiers from upground are waiting at the regular gate and on some of the main roads of Funderling Town itself,” Chert explained. “And they’re all looking for a fellow called Chert and his wife Opal, as well as a big boy named Flint who stays with them.”

“Those are our names,” said Flint seriously.

Chert wasn’t sure if he was joining in on the joke or not. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It’s us they’re looking for, son—and they don’t mean us anything good.”

Brother Antimony was waiting for them in the middle of the path across the wide expanse of the temple’s fungus gardens, his young, broad face creased with unfamiliar worry. Behind him other worried faces peered out of the shadows of the pillared facade of the Temple of the Metamorphic Brothers.

“The brothers aren’t happy,” Antimony told Chert. “Just to let you know. Grandfather Sulphur’s been up all night bellowing that the Days of Inundation are coming soon.” He nodded to Opal. “Greetings, Mistress, and the Elders’ blessings on you. It’s good to see you again.”

Chert looked around for Flint, who had wandered off, following a cave cricket’s erratic path across the garden. “Is it the boy they’re worrying about? ”

Antimony shrugged. “I would guess it’s the other two Big Folk causing them the most fret, wouldn’t you?” He laughed, but not too loud: faces were still peering out at them from the facade. “Not to mention what’s happening upground, the war with the fairies and the idea we might be drawn into it. Still, some of us don’t mind things being stirred up a little.” He nodded vigorously. “It might surprise you, Master Blue Quartz, but the temple is not always the most exciting place to live. Not complaining, mind you, but you have certainly brought us a few welcome distractions over the last season or two.”

“Thank you… I suppose.”

Opal had finally recaptured the boy. Chert beckoned them both toward the temple’s front door. His wife’s eyes were wide as she looked up at the columned facade. “I’d forgotten how big it is!” Her pace slowed as she neared it, as if she fought a strong wind. In a sense, she did, Chert thought: the centuries of unspoken tradition that insisted the temple was only for the Metamorphic Brothers themselves and a few important outsiders.

Although Chert had been here twice before, he had not yet seen the inside, and as Antimony led them through the portico and into the pronaos hall he had to admit he was impressed by the size and craftsmanship of the temple’s fixtures. The ceiling of pronaos was almost as far above their heads as the famous carved ceiling of Funderling Town itself, although not half so intricate. The temple’s creators had instead taken austerity as their watchword, striving to make every line as clean and simple as possible, as had been the custom during their long-ago era. So the groined vault was decorated not with leaves or flowers or animals, but with broad lines and beautifully rounded edges. It made the hall look like something liquid that had been suddenly frozen, as if the Lord himself had poured the temple from a vast bucket of molten stone that had cooled in an instant.

“It’s… beautiful,” Opal whispered.

Antimony grinned. “Some like it, Mistress. Me, I find it a bit… stern. Day in, day out, it’s nice to have something to look at that holds your gaze, but I find my eyes sort of slipping and sliding…”

“Antimony,” someone said sharply, “have you nothing better to do than prattle?” It was the sour-faced Brother Nickel Chert remembered from his first visit, not looking any sweeter than before.

The young monk jumped. “Sorry, Brother. Of course, yes. Better things to do…”

“Then go and do them. We will call you if we need you.”

Antimony, looking sad now—not so much at having been caught having a pointless conversation, Chert guessed, as at having that conversation curtailed—gave a little bow and lumbered off.

“He’s a good lad,” Chert said.

“He’s a noisy one.” Nickel frowned. He nodded briefly toward Opal and ignored Flint completely. “I suppose he told you the sort of uproar the place is in.” He led them to a door in one wall of the great hall and through into a side corridor lined with alcoves. The shelves were empty but the smudged dust suggested something had rested in each and been recently moved. “We had more peaceful times before we met you, Chert Blue Quartz.”

“The blame is not all mine, surely.”

Nickel scowled. “I suppose not. Unpleasant things are happening all over, that is certain. These are the worst days since Highwarden Stormstone.”

“Yes, I was just telling my family about him…”

“It is a pity that the Big Folk cannot simply leave us alone. We do them no harm,” Nickel said angrily. “We wish only to follow our old ways, to serve the Earth Elders.”

“Perhaps the Big Folk are part of the Earth Elders’ greater plan,” Chert said mildly. “Perhaps they are only doing what the Elders wish of them.”

Nickel looked at him for a long moment. “You shame me, Chert Blue Quartz.” He didn’t sound happy about it. A moment later Nickel stopped and pushed open a door. The walls of the room behind it were covered with little baskets filled with glowing coral, so that by comparison to the dark hallway it seemed positively to blaze with light. “Come in and join your friends. They are here, in the library office.”

It was certainly a modest room compared to the great main chamber, and that made the two men in it—Big Folk, not Funderlings—seem all the more grotesquely oversized. The physician Chaven smiled but did not get up, perhaps because he was worried about banging his head on the ceiling. Ferras Vansen, who was half a head taller than Chaven, rose into an awkward crouch and took Opal’s hand. “Mistress, it is good to see you and your family again. I will never forget the meal you made for me on the night I returned—the single best thing I have ever eaten.”

Opal’s laugh threatened to become a girlish giggle. “I can’t take much credit for that. Cooking for a starving man, well, that’s like… like…”

“Catching a sun-dazzled salamander?” suggested Chert, then wished he hadn’t: Opal looked hurt. “You do yourself too little credit, woman. Everyone knows your table is one of the best.”

“Yes, she certainly has fed me grandly,” said Chaven. “I never thought I could grow to admire a well-cooked mole so much.” He smiled at Flint, who was watching the physician with his usual serious stare. “And hello to you too, boy. You’re getting tall.” Chaven turned back to Chert. “We wait only on the arrival of our last guest…”

The door creaked open. A worried-looking acolyte stuck his head in. “Brother Nickel?” the newcomer said. “One of the magisters from the town is here and he wants to use your study in the charterhouse for his council room!”

“My study?” squawked Nickel, then hurried out to defend his territory.

“… And that would be him,” Chaven finished. “Ah, well. Magister Cinnabar and Brother Nickel will never be friends, I fear.”

Chert pulled his old, blunt carving knife out of his pocket and gave it to Flint along with a chunk of soapstone to keep the boy occupied. “Let’s see what you make of this,” he said. “Take good care and think a little before you cut—that’s a nice clean piece.”