"Strangers in the Mysteries?" Bloodstone shook his head in apparent amazement. "Big folk hiding from their rightful lords here in Funderling Town? What madness have you brought to us, Chert?"

"Your concern has been noted," said Cinnabar, sounding as though he meant the opposite. As Magister of his own Quicksilver family and one of the most important leaders of all Metal House-most thought he would someday replace old Quicklime Pewter as one of the four Great Highwar-dens, the most exalted of Funderling honors-he was a good ally to have. On top of everything else, he was also fair and sensible. "Perhaps," he said now, "we should see if any of the other Magisters or our noble Highwar-dens have questions before we start shouting about shame and tradition."

Scoria, Magister of the Gneiss family since his father was lifted to the rank of Highwarden, stood up, his thin face full of fretful anger. "I wish to know why you took in this newest upsider, Chert Blue Quartz. The rest is beyond my understanding, but this seems simple enough. He is a

criminal and the king's regent searches for him. If he is found here we will all suffer."

"With respect, Magister," Chert said, "the physician Chaven is a good man, as I said. He was also one of King Olin's most respected advisers. If he swears that the Tollys have murdered people to seize the throne, and will murder him as well to silence him-well, I'm only a foreman, a work¬ing man, but it seems more complicated to me than merely saying he's a criminal."

"But that doesn't change the risk we're in," pointed out Jacinth Mala¬chite, one of the few female Magisters. "Chert, many of us know you, and know you as a good man, but there's a difference between doing a deed of good conscience on your own and dragging all Funderling Town into a quarrel with the castle's rulers…"

A noise like wet sand rubbing on stone interrupted her: Highwarden Sard Smaragdine of Crystal House was clearing his throat. Unlike the Mag¬isters, the Highwardens did not rise to speak; ancient Sard remained shrunken in his chair like a sack of old chips and samples. High on the wall above his head the Great Astion, seal of Funderling Town, gleamed like a star buried in the stone. "Too many questions here to go about it in such a backward way," rasped Sard. "Which questions are the most important? That must be answered first. Then we will move our way down, layer after layer, until we have reached the bedrock of the whole matter." He waved a spindly arm. "What do the Metamorphic Brothers think? Has this… in¬cursion… into the sacred Mysteries angered the Earth Elders?"

Chert looked around, but it seemed nobody at this hastily assembled meeting of the Guild had thought to bring along any of the order. "They knew I went down into the Mysteries in search of my… in search of the boy, and they knew I brought him back up." The Metamorphic Brothers did not know everything that had happened down there, of course, and Chert didn't intend to tell the entire story tp the Guild, either; as Opal liked to remind him, there was such a thing as having too much trust in your fel¬lows. "They knew the little Rooftopper went down part of the way with me. The only thing that they seemed worried about was that somehow this all seemed to match some of old Brother Sulfur's dreams."

"When it comes to the Earth Elders," said Travertine, another of the Highwardens and almost as old as Sard, "Sulphur has forgotten more than the rest of you ever knew…"

"Yes, thank you, Brother Highwarden," Sard rasped. "Let us continue.

Chert Blue Quartz, why did you first bring this upgrounder boy among us? It is… not our custom."

"It was something about the strangeness of where we found him, I sup¬pose. But if truth be told, much of it was because my wife Opal wanted to take him home and I could not argue her out of it." A ripple of laughter passed tlirough the room, but only a small one: the matters at hand were far too daunting. "We have no children, as most of you know."

Sard cleared his throat again. "Is there anything other than the timing that makes you think there is any connection between what this physician claims is happening in the castle above us and the strange child you brought home?"

Chert had to think for a moment. "Well, Flint found the stone that Chaven says was used to murder Prince Kendrick. That may be happen¬stance, but for a child who found his way to the Rooftoppers when no one else has seen them, let alone spoken to them, for generations…"

"I take your meaning," the oldest Highwarden said, nodding. He waved his hand, looking like an upended tortoise struggling to rise. "Do any of my fellows have anything more to ask or to offer?" He squinted his old, near-blind eyes as he looked to the masters of Fire Stone and Water Stone houses, but they shook their heads. Only Quicklime Pewter, the Highwar¬den of Metal House, had anything to say.

"Is the physician here, brothers?" he asked. "We cannot make up our minds on hearsay alone."

One of the younger Magisters opened the chamber door and beck¬oned. Chaven came through with his bandaged hands clasped before him, head lowered and shoulders hunched, although the door to the Magister¬ial Chamber was one of the few in Funderling Town he could walk through upright. He saw the size of the room and stopped, then looked down at the mica floor, startled by what appeared to be an abyss beneath his feet.

"It's a mirror," Chert said from where he stood at the Outcrop. "Don't be afraid."

"I've never seen one even near such a size," said Chaven, half to himself. "Wonderful. Wonderful!"

"You may step down, Chert Blue Quartz," wheezed Sard. "Chaven of Ulos, you may take his place at the Outcrop. We have some questions we wish to ask you."

The physician was so fascinated by the mica mirror beneath his feel tti.it

he almost bumped into the Magister nearest the end, but at last made Ins way to the Outcrop and stood at the edge of the circular floor, the tall stone chairs of the Highwardens on his left, the stone benches of the Magislers at his right.

As Chaven repeated the story that others had already related, Chert felt a flush of guilty gratitude that the physician did not know all of the tale. Because of Chaven's seeming madness on the subject of mirrors, Chert had chosen to keep back the full story of Flint's glass, and likewise had not told the officers of the Guild about his own journey under Brenn's Bay to meet the victorious Twilight People in mainland Southmarch. Chert still had no idea what any of that meant, but feared that if he told Cinnabar and the others that he had actually handed something over to the Quiet Folk, as they were sometimes euphemistically called, something that the boy had brought from behind the Shadowline in the first place, the Guild might de¬cide keeping the boy was a risk that Funderling Town could not afford.

And that would be the end of me, he thought. My wife would never speak to me again. And, he realized, I'd miss the boy something fierce.

"You realize, Chaven Makaros," said the Water Stone Highwarden, Travertine, "that by coming here, you may have embroiled our entire set¬tlement in a struggle with the current lords of Southmarch." He gave the physician a stern look. "We have a saying, 'Few are the good things that come from above, and nothing you have done makes me inclined to think we should change it."

Even with his head bowed Chaven still towered above the Highwardens. "I was wounded, feverish, and desperate, my lords. I did not think of greater matters, but only hoped to find help from my friend, Chert of the Blue Quartz. For that, I apologize."

"Foolishness is no excuse!" called out Chert's brother Nodule. Several of the other Magisters rumbled their approval of the sentiment.

"But desperation may bring true allies together," said Cinnabar, and many other Magisters nodded. During his brief time in power, Hendon Tolly had taken all building around the castle out of the hands of Funderlings, keep¬ing his plans secret and using handpicked men of his own brought in from Summerfield. Many of the Funderling leaders already feared for their liveli¬hood-work on sprawling Southmarch Castle had provided much of their income in recent years. Chert suspected that as much as anything else might make them more willing to take risks than usual.