Free (Shadowmarch #1) Shadowmarch by Tad Williams Page B

sparkling through the gaps in the stone. Each twig, each leaf had been carved with exquisite care, centuries of painstaking work in all, one of the chief marvels of the northern world. Birds feathered in mother-of-pearl and crystal seemed as though they might burst into song at any moment. Vines of green malachite twined up the pillar-trunks, and on some low branches there were even gem-glazed fruits hanging from stems of improbably slender stone.
    The boy whispered something that Chert could not quite hear. “It is wonderful, yes,” the little man said. “But you can look all you want tomorrow. Let us catch up with Opal, otherwise she will teach you how a tongue can be sharper than any chisel.”
    They followed his wife down the narrow but graceful streets, each house carved back into the stone, the plain facades giving little indication of the splendid interiors that lay behind them, the careful, loving labor of generations. At each turning or crossing oil lamps glowed on the walls inside bubbles of stone thin as blisters on overworked hands. None of the lights were bright, but they were so numerous that all night long the ways of Funderling Town seemed to tremble on the cusp of dawn.
    Although Chert himself was a man of some influence, their house at the end of Wedge Road was modest, only four rooms all told, its walls but shallowly decorated. Chert had a moment of shame remembering the Blue Quartz family manor and its wonderful great room covered with deeply incised scenes of Funderling history. Opal, for all her occasional spikiness of tongue, had never made him feel bad that the two of them should live in such a modest dwelling while her sisters-in-law were queening it in a fine house. He wished he could give her what she deserved, but Chert could no more have stayed in the place, subservient to his brother Nodule—or “Magister Blue Quartz,” as he now styled himself—than he could have jumped to the moon. And since his brother had three strong sons, there was no longer even a question of Chert inheriting it should his brother die first.
    “I am happy here, you old fool,” Opal said quietly as they stepped through the door. She had seen him staring at the house and had guessed his thoughts. “At least I will be if you go and clear your tools off the table so we may eat like decent people.”
    “Come, boy, and help me with the job,” he told the little stranger, making his voice loud and jovial to cover the fierce, sudden love he felt for his wife. “Opal is like a rockfall—if you disregard her first quiet rumblings, you will regret it later on.”
    He watched the boy wipe dust from the pitted table with a damp cloth, moving it around more than actually cleaning it. “Do you remember your name yet?” he asked.
    The boy shook his head.
    “Well, we must call you something—Pebble?” He shouted to Opal, who was stirring a pot of soup over the fire, “Shall we call him Pebble?” It was a common name for fourth or fifth boys, when dynastic claims were not so important and parental interest was waning.
    “Don’t be foolish. He shall have a proper Blue Quartz family name,” she called back. “We will call him Flint. That will be one in the eye for your brother.”
    Chert could not help smiling, although he was not entirely happy about the idea of naming the child as though they were adopting him as their heir. But the thought of how his self-important brother would feel on learning that Chert and Opal had brought in one of the big folk’s children and given him miserly old Uncle Flint’s name was indeed more than a little pleasing.
    “Flint, then,” he said, ruffling the boy’s fair hair. “For as long as you stay with us, anyway.”

    Waves lapped at the pilings. A few seabirds bickered sleepily. A plaintive, twisting melody floated up from one of the sleeping-barges, a chorus of high voices singing an old song of moonlight on open sea, but otherwise Skimmer’s Lagoon was quiet.
    Far away, the