by
Marc H. Wyman & Chris Bogues
Maidoyú
had taken the shape of a flitter. Now she was hovering over a blossom in a
tree, casually flicking out her tongue now and then to drink some of the
nectar, but the better part of her attention was turned to the ground. The
dwarves had spent the night in the small clearing, then they had resumed
their trek to a new home.
She
had listened intently to them. There were so many flitters in the air,
beating their tiny, multi-colored wings endlessly, darting through the
foliage. Neither of the dwarves had paid her any attention. Should she
have revealed herself to them?
Perhaps
that would have been wiser. Yet Maidoyú was intrigued by the
self-sufficience that the dwarves were showing, in an environment alien to
them. And hostile, she had to add. They didn’t like the sunlight, as
little as filtered through the thick layers of leaves above them. The
moisture troubled them. The tallest – the one called Cai – kept
pausing every hour, breathing hard and wiping sweat from his brow. His
woman, Fenice, always held his hand. The other dwarves kept hewing off the
nearest branches with their stone axes.
Then
there were the beasts of the forest. An arydog had attacked the dwarves
early in the morning. Cuchúan – compactly built – had met the fierce
predator with his axe. Maidoyú had nearly interfered when the arydog’s
fangs closed around the dwarf’s right shoulder, ready to tear the arm
from the socket. But Cuchúan had kept beating his axe against the dog’s
long head, tearing a gash into the brown skull. The creature had screamed,
let go of the arm, then the other dwarves had rushed to drive the beast
off.
The
arydog had been as tall as the dwarves and twice as long, yet it had fled
after the brief battle. Bladdneit had taken care of her man Cuchúan,
winding a bandage of cloth around his bleeding shoulder. The dwarf
didn’t wince or show any sign of discomfort. Once his arm had been set,
he picked up his axe with his left hand and continued trekking along his
fellows.
Each
of them was strong, in his or her own way. Maidoyú was proud of them, as
if she had taken part in creating them. They faced the challenges, they
didn’t complain but journeyed on to a destination that they didn’t
know yet. They spoke of a cool cave, one that they would hew into a
mountain, yet there were none worth mentioning in the vicinity. The fact
didn’t concern them much; the dwarves were bound to keep on walking in
one direction until they would find a mountain.
The
women had trouble walking, their bellies as swollen as they were. They
wore axes slung around their backs, and whenever the path ahead proved too
troublesome for their mates, they joined in the hacking away of branches.
So
brave these dwarves were, every one of them! Maidoyú had kept watch over
them for only a day, and she was already convinced that these would raise
strong young ones. They would protect their brood from the dangers of the
world around them.
On
the other hand, as proud as she was, she could lend them a hand,
couldn’t she? What else were gods good for?
For
a brief moment she wished that she could smile in her flitter shape.
Instead, she had to settle for a quick dip of her tongue into the
blossom’s nectar.
Below
her, the dwarves reached the spot she had prepared for them. Cai was
first, having rested a few minutes earlier, and now he cried, “Halt!
This is new!”
Oh,
yes, it is! Maidoyú cheered. She flapped her wings eagerly for a
better position to view the events.
Cai
was pointing ahead, his gray face astonished. “What is this?
Myrddin, do ye know?”
Myrddin,
Maidoyú recalled, was the wisest of the dwarves. At least, that was what
they had decided. Though Uttar, the eldest, made the decisions, he always
relied on Myrddin’s advice. It had been that way in the cave in the
midrealm as well, that much she had learned from the terse words spoken in
their gruff voices.
The
wise dwarf was a hand’s width taller than Cuchúan, his face a tad less
furrowed than those of his brethren. He stepped forward, raised his
eyebrows and said, “No, Cai, this is beyond my ken. Walls of rock ought
to be in a cave, they should not be in a tree-gathering.”
Before
him, a tunnel opened through the jungle, its walls made of solid, dark
stone. Lichen grew in a few places, as far as ordinary sight could tell.
After a few yards, the tunnel was dark, allowing none of the bright light
from above to penetrate. A soft, cold breeze blew from within, carrying
the promise of long, pleasant darkness.
The
tunnel was only a little higher than the tallest dwarf. On its thin
ceiling, the jungle continued much as if there were no rocks cutting
through it, the forest ground along with the roots of the trees
transplanted five feet higher.
“These
are the rocks you told us about?” Bladdneit said, her eyes wide. “They
look so…”
“Home,”
Marrigan, Uttar’s companion, decided with a broad smile. Slowly she
walked past Cai and Myrddin, reached out her hands to let her fingers
touch the rock. She hesitated for a moment, then firmly pressed her hand
against the cold stone. “Home,” she repeated.
Uttar
stepped brashly forward and pulled her hand from the rock. “There is no
home,” he said. “That tunnel is a deceit which will lead us back to
the trap.”
“It’s
better than this tree-gathering!” Marrigan retorted as she snatched her
hand from Uttar’s grasp and returned it to the stone. The other women
quickly gathered around her, their hands reaching fondly for the cold
comfort of the rock.
Anger
suffused Uttar’s face, and he raised his stone axe. “Take your hands
from that thing!” he bellowed.
“Or
what?” Marrigan said. She turned around, molded her back to the
tunnel’s outer wall, her belly jutting outward. “This is yer child
within me, Uttar. It should not be born in a tree-gathering, but in a dark
and good place! Ye’ve been tellin’ us women about yer cave, about all
its beauty. But ye can only offer us a ceiling of leaves and a bounty of
berries! This is rock, this is where yer child should live!”
“And
yers, too,” Fenice added, fixing her glance on Cai.
The
tall dwarf lowered his jaw, nervously fingering his beard. “Uttar…”
Above,
Maidoyú nearly forgot to flap her wings. What was happening here? Why
didn’t the male dwarves cheer at the tunnel she had made for them? It
was just like their cave in the midrealm, the place where they had lived
before! It was safe, she had taken care of that, and at the end of the
tunnel, they would find a mountain just like they had wanted!
But
Uttar slammed his axe into the ground, embedding the stone tip several
inches into the soft ground. “Ye keep yer mouths shut, women!” he
yelled. “Ye don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about! The cave was
perfect – but that isn’t what a dwarf must have. Marrigan,” he
forced his voice more even, as he gently reached out his hand and put it
on her belly, “do ye want our child to grow up without hope? For that is
what the god’s cave gave to us. No hope to better ourselves. There was
all ye can wish for, and we four have done it. There was nothing left. Nothing,
Marrigan.”
“The
cave,” she said slowly, not about to concede any point, “is the best
place for a child to be.”
The
other women nodded, squaring their jaws as they faced off the fathers of
their babes.
Uttar
frowned. His face grew darker still, he was about to yell again, but
stopped himself and cast a quick glance to Myrddin.
The
wise dwarf sighed and shook his head, uncomfortably weathering the stare
of Talisana, his own companion. “Ye have the right of one thing,
Marrigan,” he said after a moment. “There is no place more perfect
than the cave of the gods. Yet Uttar has the right, as well, for there is
more to life than perfection. Ye need a goal to strive for. At one time in
the past, it was enough for us to carve the walls of our home, to decorate
it as perfectly as only we could. If this tunnel were to lead us back to
the cave, then our children would continue that work. We would break open
new caverns, and we would fill them with statues and friezes. That is what
ye want?”
“What
more is there to want?” Marrigan asked.
More
gently, Talisana added, “Why should a child have a worse existence than
its parents? Ye speak about hope, yet what hope does this tree-gathering
give? The cave was made for dwarves, this place was made for dogs and
other creatures.”
“We
will make it our place,” Cuchúan interjected drily and walked to
the branch nearest the tunnel, raising the axe in his left hand to hew it
off. Only then did he notice that the conversation had stopped. The other
dwarves stared at him curiously, and Cuchúan frowned. “That’s what I
wanted, Uttar,” he muttered to the elder dwarf. “A good challenge. I
thought we’d agreed on that.”
“Yes,”
Uttar nodded, his glance shifting back to the women. “That is what I
want our children to have. A challenge every day. Take the alien world and
make it a dwarven world. Marrigan, Talisana, Bladdneit, Fenice, that is
the better inheritance. Don’t take what the gods give ye. Take what the
gods don’t give ye! Challenge them!” His voice raised to a
pitch, while above Maidoyú found it ever more difficult to keep her wings
beating. “We are dwarves!” Uttar said. “We rely on ourselves, not on
gifts from the gods. As we do, our children will. Now decide on that, ye
four, whether ye will join us in a world to make our own, or to be
pampered and spoiled by the gods.”
Marrigan
leaned forward. “What of ye three,” she asked the other males. “Do
ye also see it like he does?”
Slowly
Myrddin nodded. “Bequeathe hope to our children.”
“Bequeathe
hope,” Cai echoed.
Cuchúan
snorted angrily and hacked off the branch before him. “Ye’re wastin’
words,” he growled. “There’s got to be a mountain outside of this
tree-gathering, and I’ll find it for ye.”
The
three other males kept their glances locked with the women for a while,
then they took their axes and joined Cuchúan in his work. By the tunnel
the women looked at each other. Her face uncertain, Bladdneit pushed
herself away from the comforting rock. “My child needs a father,” she
whispered, sharing a glance with each of the other women as if asking
forgiveness before she joined her companion.
Fenice
balled a fist and slammed it into the rock. “The gods be damned,” she
muttered. “I’d rather take a good dwarf than an empty promise.”
“So
do I,” Talisana agreed. She reached out to touch Marrigan’s arm. The
latter’s face was still angry. “What do ye say?”
Marrigan
was watching the male dwarves clearing the path, helped by the first two
of the women who carried the hacked-off branches out of the way. “I see
hardship ahead for our children. Little comfort and much work.”
“So?”
Marrigan
stroked her belly. “Ye shall have yer challenge, little one,” she told
her belly, then took Talisana’s hand and headed towards the beginning of
the path. “Let’s see what we can do in this alien place.”
They
joined the other dwarves. Together they cleaved their path through the
jungle, leading away from the tunnel of rock.
Maidoyú
waited until they were out of sight, then she turned back to her ordinary
form, landing hard on the jungle ground. The fall wasn’t as hard as the
words of the dwarves had hit her. They were rejecting the gods? They were
rejecting Maidoyú’s gift?
“Why?”
she wondered emptily. A swarm of flitters rushed over her head, descending
on the blossoms of which she had drunk a few moments earlier. Maidoyú
shook her head. “I should be angry,” she said. That didn’t feel
right, though.
For
some reason she was still proud of the dwarves.
That
thought frightened her more than their rejection.
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