“I know you, sir,” he said as the big man and his child-sized army approached. “You are…gods save me, you are Chaven, the royal family’s physician.”

“So you say,” the man said. He did not look the type to be leading any armed band, even one this size. “But I do not admit it. You are trespassing here, you know. What are you doing in the Funderling’s guildhall?”

“Funderlings? Guildhall?” Vansen could only stare at the man. “What madness is this? Where am I?”

“By all the gods,” Chaven said, and stopped. He put out his arms to hold back the nearest Funderlings, or perhaps to support himself—he looked as though he had been struck a blow. “I know this man, but he was lost in the battle against the Twilight People. Are you not Captain Vansen, sir? Are you not the captain of the royal guard?”

“I am. But where am I?”

“Don’t you know?” The physician shook his head slowly. “You are in Funderling Town, of course, underneath Southmarch Castle.”

“Southmarch…?” Ferras Vansen looked around the chamber again in stunned amazement, then took a staggering step toward Chaven and the Funderlings, causing some of the little men to raise their weapons in alarm. Vansen fell to his knees, raising his arms in the air to praise all the gods, then the crowd of Funderlings watched with worried faces him as he threw himself down on the floor, laughing and weeping, and pressed his face against the blessed solidity of the stone.

Appendix

PEOPLE

Aduan—former king of March Kingdoms, husband of Ealga, and builder of M’Helan’s Rock lodge

Aesi’uah—Yasammez’ chief eremite, of Dreamless blood

Aislin—a Skimmer tanglewife

Alessandros—Anissa’s father, grand viscount of Devonis

Ananka—baroness, former mistress of King Hespter, now Enander’s.

Angelos—an envoy from Jellon to Southmarch

Anglin—Connordic chieftain, awarded March Kingdom after Coldgray Moor

Anglin III—king of Southmarch, great-grandfather of Briony and Barrick

Anissa—queen of Southmarch, Olin’s second wife

Annon—a demigod, son of Kernios, killed by Jikuyin

Argal—Xandian name for Perin

Argal the Dark One—Xixian god, enemy of Nushash

Arimone—the autarch’s paramount wife

Arjamele—one of Qinnitan’s neighbors at her childhood home

Ashretan—Qinnitan’s sister

Autarch—Sulepis Bishakh am-Xis III, monarch of Xis, most powerful nation on the southern continent of Xand

Avin Brone—count of Landsend, the castle’s lord constable

Axamis Dorza—a Xixian ship’s captain

Ayona, Countess—wife of Perivos Akuanis

Azinor of the Onyenai—a god, one of Zmeos’ sons by Zuriyal

Baddara—an innkeeper in Lander’s Port

Barrick Eddon—a prince of Southmarch

Barrow—a royal guard

Barumbanogatir—a demigod, child of Sveros

Baz’u Jev—a Zandian poet

Bazilis, Favored—envoy for autarch

Beetledown—a Rooftopper

Berkan Hood—the Tollys’ lord constable

Birin, Lord of the Evening Mist—a god, one of Perin’s sons, killed in the God War

Bloodstone Smoke Quartz—magister of Smoke Quartz family

Brabinayos Boots-of-Stone—Hierosoline name for Barumbanogatir

Brigid—a serving woman at the Quiller’s Mint

Briony Eddon—a princess of Southmarch

Brother Lysas—Pelaya’s and Teloni’s tutor

Caprock Gneiss, Highwarden—important Funderling of the Fire Stone House

Captrosophist Order—school of mirror-lore, founded in Tessis

Caradon Tolly, Duke of Summerfield—second oldest Tolly brother