Vansen had been told the story of the prince and princess of the Qar (or so he thought of them, though those were not Qar words) and how their pilgrimage during King Kellick's day had resulted in disaster, but what Yasammez was saying now was new to him. "Does it matter, Lady? It is two hundred years in the past…"

"Fool!" she said. "There is no past. It is alive this moment, in this rocky chamber. How did the Eddon know that Sanasu and Janniya were coming? Because the treacherous delvers told him."

Now the uproar was complete, with several of the diminutive Funderlings actually climbing onto the table to shake their fists and declare the innocence of their people. The ruckus became so great that Hammerfoot of Firstdeeps thumped a broad fist down on the table with a noise like a wall falling; his deep, rumbling growl of warning quickly silenced the Funderlings. In the sudden stillness, the only voice was Malachite Copper's.

"Stop!" the Funderling said. "Enough shouting! She is right. May the Earth Elders forgive us, she is right."

"What are you talking about, man?" Cinnabar asked, frowning. "Right about what?"

Copper looked around. "You Funderlings know me. All our people know me and my family. My many-times-great-uncle was Stormstone Copper, the draughtsman and chief mover of the Stormstone Roads. It was the great work of his life, meant to make his people safe and secure, to give us ways to come and go from Funderling Town that were not dependent on the moods of the Big Folk in the castle above. But he could not create an entirely new network of tunnels. Some of the most important passages already existed and had for centuries." Copper paused for a moment. "This is hard to tell. He brought such honor to our family name-there is not a single child of the Copper clan who has not thought, 'I am of Stormstone's blood,' and walked taller."