Shadowplay

I

T TOOK SISTER UTTA LONGER than she would have liked to clear away the books and rolls of parchment on the least cluttered chair, but when she had finished Merola

and the duchess were the inexplicable atomies, sat Queen Upsteeplebat on her hanging platform in the fireplace.

Merola

Utta could make no sense of this: she had lived more than twenty years in the castle, and to the best of her knowledge Merola

Merola

"Tiny people? Yes, I'm afraid I am."

Upsteeplebat raised her arms in a gesture of support, or perhaps apology. "I am sorry if I shocked you, Duchess Merola

"What sort?" asked Utta.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Merola

The Rooftopper queen smiled again. "We eat better than you would suppose, Duchess. In fact, we could triple our numbers and still barely dent what is thrown away or ignored in this great household. But what we want is something a bit less obvious. And we do not want it for ourselves."

"Please," said Merola

"I ca

"What?" Merola

"Please, Your Grace, hear us out." Upsteeplebat spoke kindly, but there was a note of authority in her own voice that Utta could not help re¬marking. "We do not play at games. Our Lord of the Peak, to whom we

owe our very existence, has spoken, and told us what to do, and what to say to you."

"Is that your Rooftopper king?" Utta rose from her own chair and went to stand by Merola

Upsteeplebat shook her head. "Not in the sense you mean. No, I rule the Rooftoppers here among the living. But the Master of the Heights rules all living things and we are his servants."

"Your god?"

She nodded her head. "You may call him thus. To us, he is simply the Lord."

Merola

"You must come with us. You must hear what the Lord of the Peak has to say."

"You would take us… to your god?" Utta wondered that a few mo¬ments ago she had thought things as strange as they could get.

"In a way. No harm will come to you."

Merola

The tiny queen gestured toward a door in the wall at the back of the li¬brary, half-obscured by bookshelves and piles of loose books. "Please know that this is a rare honor. It has been centuries since we invited any of your kind into our sacred place."

"Through that door? But it's locked," said Merola

"Nor would it," said Upsteeplebat with a tone of satisfaction. "It has been wedged on the far side in a thousand places and the key is indeed lost-at least to your folk. But now the Lord of the Peak has called for you, so my people have labored for two days to remove the wedges and other impediments." She waved her hands and three of her tiny soldiers stepped out from their line along the base of the fireplace bricks. They lifted trumpets made of what looked like seashells and blew a long, shrill, tootling call. As if in reply, Utta heard a thin scraping noise, and

then a metallic plink, as of a small hammer striking an equally small anvil.

"All praise to the Lord of Heights," Upsteeplebat said, "the oil was suf¬ficient to loosen the lock's workings. It was the matter about which my council argued and argued. Now pull the door, please-but gently. My sub¬jects will take some while to climb out of the way."

"You do it," Merola

Utta cleared the books piled on the floor, then did her best to move the book cabinets without tipping them-no easy task. The door resisted her pull for a moment-she wondered if the Rooftoppers had remembered to oil the hinges as well at the latch-but then, with a shriek that made her wince, it swung toward her.

"Carefully!" came Upsteeplebat's piping cry, but there was no need. Utta had already taken a step back in dismay from what she took to be half a dozen huge spiders dangling in the doorway before she realized they were Rooftoppers hanging from ropes like steeplejacks, slowly climbing back up to the top of the doorframe.

Most of them looked at her with anxiety or even fear-and small won¬der, since she was dozens of times their size, as tall in their eyes as the spire of a great temple-but one tiny climber who seemed barely more than a boy kicked his legs and gave her a sort of salute before he disappeared into the darkness above the door.

"Fare you well," Utta whispered as the rest of the climbers also reached the safety of the doorframe. She turned to the queen, who still stood on her platform in the fireplace like an image of Zoria in a shrine. Utta could not help wondering if that was coincidence or more of the Rooftopper s pla

"We fight the cat, the rat, the jay, the gull," said the Rooftopper queen. "Our walls are full of spiders and centipedes. We must be brave to survive. You may enter now."

Utta leaned forward into the doorway.

"What… what do you see?" Merola

"It's dark-I'll need the torch."

"A candle only, if you please, Sister Utta," said the queen. "And if you'll