The physician didn’t look up even after Chert coughed politely. “Chaven?” he said at last. “You wanted to speak to me?”

Startled, Chaven turned. “Oh, it’s you! Sorry, so sorry, it’s just…this place. I find it strangely…restful is not the right word, not quite. But it is one of the few places where my cares, they just…slip away…”

Chert had never felt the presence of the Lord of the Hot Wet Stone to be particularly restful, even in statue form. He looked up to the image of Kernios sunk deep in the ceiling, then down to the mirror-version below their feet. Being suspended, as it were, between two versions of the black-eyed, somber-faced earth god seemed even less soothing, especially when the mirroring rendered Chaven and himself as blobs with feet in the middle and heads at each end, suspended halfway between Heaven and the Pit. “I heard you wanted me.”

Chaven dragged his attention away from the representation of the god. “Oh, yes. I just felt I should talk to you again about what you should say.”

“Fracture and fissure, man,” Chert cursed, “we’ve been over this a dozen times already! What more can there be to say?”

“I am sorry, but this is very important.”

Chert sighed. “It would be different if I were actually going to pretend to know something I don’t, but if he asks me something I don’t know an answer for I’ll just make important-sounding humming noises, then tell him I need to confer with my Funderling colleagues.” He gave Chaven an annoyed look. “And then, yes, I’ll come right to you and tell you, and find out what to say.”

“Good, good. And what will you look for to know if it’s my mirror?”

“A dark frame of cypress wood, with wings that open out. It is carved with pictures of eyes and hands.”

“Yes, but if there’s no frame, or if he’s put a new one on it?”

Chert took a deep breath. Patience, he told himself. He’s been through a great deal. But it was more than a little like dealing with a drunkard, someone forever trying to shake the last dribbles of mossbrew out of an empty jar. “The glass itself has a slight outward curve to it.”

“Yes. Good!”

“May I go now? Before Okros decides to ask someone else to do it instead?”

“Will you write down anything you are unsure about? It will help me understand what Okros is trying to do. Do you promise?”

Chert said nothing, but tapped the slate hanging on a string around his neck. “Really, I must go now.”

Worriedly repeating all that they had just discussed, Chaven followed him to the door but, to Chert’s relief, went no farther, as if he did not want to travel far from the reassuring presence of the earth lord and the haven of the guildhall’s great room.

Chert hadn’t been out of Funderling Town for many, many days—was it almost a month?—and he was surprised by the obvious differences since the last time he’d been upground. The spirit of ragged camaraderie he’d seen everywhere in the castle had now just as obviously expired, overcome by weariness and fear of the unchanging siege conditions, the strange, suspended watchfulness that in some ways was worse than even a real and imminent danger of attack.