The rest of the Funderlings were clearly confused again. Vansen had learned enough in his time underground to know that they revered the famous Stormstone as his own people did the gods' holy oracles.

"All this is known, friend Malachite," said Cinnabar, his voice gentle, as though he spoke to someone who had fallen ill. "Tell us what we do not know."

"He… he feared that as long as the Qar came to Southmarch, one day the upgrounders-the Big Folk, and I beg your pardon for the crudeness, Captain Vansen-would discover the network of tunnels he had created. It was a terrible decision for him… but we are still shamed by what happened. I am sure he meant only for the Southmarch soldiers to frighten the Qar away…"

"You seek to put a kind face on murder," said Yasammez. "Because that is what happened. The delvers whispered to Kellick the Eddon that the Qar were coming. The Eddon went himself with his soldiers to stop them. He stole Sanasu and killed her brother Janniya and so doomed my people…"

"It was a fight," Vansen said to her. "You make it sound like murder!"

Yasammez's look was stony. "Janniya and Sanasu were accompanied only by two warriors and one eremite-a priest, you might call him. The Eddon met them with over two score of armed men, and afterward Sanasu was a prisoner and the rest of the Qar were dead. Call that what you will."

Vansen looked back at her. Yasammez was the child of a god they said, but she was also a living woman, however strange. She was angry-a bitterness that he recognized, one that was hard to let go; his father had felt that way toward the other farmers in Little Stell, that because he was of Vuttish blood they treated him as a stranger even after he had lived twenty years with them. He had died with that bitterness still on him, refusing on his deathbed to see any visitors not of his own family.

It was odd, Vansen thought, here in the midst of all these other earth-shaking events, that he suddenly felt no anger toward the man who had sired him, no sorrow, as if they had finally reconciled, despite Pedar Vansen being years dead. What had changed?