by Cate Martin
There was a whole pile of rocks there, each with its own craggy face hiding within the thick and thin pencil lines that defined its surface.
And yet there was no such pile of rocks before us.
"I have no idea," I said. "It's not even there. What was I drawing?"
"What you were meant to," he said. "May I?" I let him take the sketchbook from me, then got to my feet to stretch my legs and warm up my body while he examined the picture.
"I know this place," he said. There was wonder in his voice.
"Do you? I don't think I do," I said.
"No, I don't think you do," he agreed. "It's... well, I was going to say it was west of here, but in these parts such things get tricky fast. And the more west you try to go, the trickier they get."
"Do you know what it means? The faces in the rocks?" I asked.
"I think they're dwarves," he said, handing me back the sketchbook.
I looked at my drawing again. "Maybe? But I've drawn dwarves before, lots of times. I've never drawn them like this. Like... wizened old carvings of stone."
"The rune you were drawing before you started," he said.
"Ur," I said, although I knew he knew the name.
"I think you drew ur-dwarves," he said. "The oldest of the dwarves. The ones who emerged in the earliest stages of the creation of the world."
"You've met them?" I asked.
"No, but I know where the entrance to their mountain lies," he said. "Or rather, where one of them is. My oldest brother Thorulv showed it to me once."
"But you didn't go inside?" I asked.
"No. They are not social creatures, the ur-dwarves. It is said that if you are not an invited guest, you will never find your way to their hall under the mountain. You will wander for the rest of your life through dark caves and cold caverns, never finding your way to the hall, never finding your way back to the surface."
"Oh," I said. "That doesn't sound good."
"Don't be silly," he said, and a sudden grin spread across his face. "You just drew the entrance to their home without ever once seeing it or even knowing it existed. What is that if not an invitation?"
"A coincidence?" I said.
"You drew their particular rune over and over again before you even started drawing," he said. "That was as good as calling out to them for someone with your power."
"But I wasn't glowing," I said. "I've contained that."
"Are you sure? Were you paying attention to that while you were in your drawing state?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but then closed it again.
"I'm not sure," I admitted.
And I couldn't tell him why that admission filled me with so much shame.
"You wanted to draw this scene to find a clue to where to go next, right?" he said. "You wanted to use your magic to find a way forward, right? So, here it is. Now, what do you want to do?"
"I guess we go find the ur-dwarves," I said, putting my sketchbook away and hoisting my bag back up onto my shoulder.
But I hoped it wouldn't be a very long walk. I was all too aware of how quickly the sun was crossing the southern sky.
15
We hiked for nearly an hour through a forest that looked just like the forest around the lodge. Then the snow cover grew sparser, and the ground rockier. The trees were further and further apart, and the hills were ever steeper.
By the end of the second hour we had left the forest behind and were navigating through a rocky landscape that was all jutting prominences thrust up from the earth like enormous, fearsome sundials.
We definitely weren't in Minnesota anymore.
The wind was stronger here and hide an icy bite to it, but there was very little snow to be seen on the ground.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"We're nearly there," he said. "Beyond those rocks on the horizon there is the start of a canyon that will take us to the very foot of that mountain. But if this place has a name, I've never heard it spoken."
I looked up ahead, past the rock outcroppings he had pointed to. "That's a mountain? I thought those were dark clouds," I said. "It's so blurry." I rubbed at my eyes and looked again, but I couldn't bring it into a sharper focus.
"It looks further away than it is," he agreed. "The rules are different here."
"Which rules?" I asked.
"Distance. Time. That sort of thing," he said.
"Time? Are we in danger of being caught out here after dark?" I asked.
"No," he said, but he didn't sound as confident as I would've liked.
We reached the canyon, although at first I thought there should be another name for it. The walls of said canyon were so low I could see over them, and the little trickle of a stream that ran beside us seemed inadequate to carve out anything greater.
But as we walked, the walls grew steeper and taller. The stream and the bank of it we were following stayed the same size, but compared to the towering rock faces on either side of us, it felt smaller.
I felt smaller.
By the end of that third hour of walking, I was getting nervous. "I hope we find these ur-dwarves right away," I said. "It would be tight getting back to the lodge before sunset, even if we turned around and headed back right now."
"It will be all right," Thorbjorn assured me. "See there? That's the mouth of the cave."
At first I didn't see what he was pointing at. Then I realized the stream was coming out of the rock face in front of us, the very side of the mountain itself. I hadn't been looking up since the canyon had grown too tall to see over, but now that I did the mountain was so close it seemed to go up and up forever, never reaching a summit.
"We're not going up," Thorbjorn said, taking my hand and guiding me into the stream itself. Luckily my hunting boots were waterproof, because that water looked icy cold. We splashed our way in a zigzag through protruding rocks.
Then Thorbjorn was ducking his head, stepping inside a cave that had formed over the stream. He disappeared into the darkness.
I took a moment to summon a ball of light. I felt better holding that on the palm of my mittened hand.
I crouched down and followed Thorbjorn into the mountain.
The cave was narrow and low-ceilinged for several meters, but then to my relief it opened up into a larger cavern. I could only imagine how cramped Thorbjorn, who was easily twice my size, felt.
I added more power to the fireball on my hand, then tossed it up as high as it could go. It grew even as it left my hands, and by the time it reached the cavern ceiling it was like a small sun, lighting up everything below.
Where Thorbjorn and I stood looked like a natural cavern formed around the channel where the little stream ran.
But the far side of the cavern was all carved rock, squared off into buildings. But this wasn't like a human village. These buildings were stacked on top of each other, some tall and narrow and others long and low. Natural rock had been left in places as if a reminder, and I knew the shapes of those buildings were dictated by the nature of the stone here.
"How big is this place?" I asked. "It's like a city."
"I don't see the ends of it," Thorbjorn said. "But the stream seems to run through the center of everything, doesn't it? As long as we can see the stream, we won't get lost."
"But where are we going?" I asked.
"To find the ur-dwarves," he said with an adventurous grin. He started walking alongside the stream, through a stone gate formed out of the corners of the two nearest buildings.
"But where?" I persisted. "This city looks abandoned. Are they even here?"
"They'll find us," he said back over his shoulder.
I ran to catch up with him. It was an eerie place that swallowed up every sound we made walking through it. The squared off buildings had windows and doorways, but no shutters, doors or curtains. We could look inside any of them, but it didn't matter. They were all empty. No furniture, no sign of habitation.
The stream took a turn between toweringly high building facade
s to the right and an outcropping of natural rock to the left. The bank of the stream got so narrow we had to step into the water again, splashing our way around that turn.
The light from my floating fireball didn't reach around this corner. I stopped midstream to summon another one, even as Thorbjorn kept splashing his way forward in the dark. I tossed the globe of magic light high into the air, then watched as it grew and lit up everything around us in this part of the city.
We had reached what looked like a city center. The buildings were all set far back around a large central square of smooth pavement. At the very center of the square was a fountain, the point where the waters of the stream gurgled up from some deeper well below us.
I could imagine a marketplace being set up here, or musicians and a carnival, or children playing. It was a very inviting space.
And yet it, like the rest of the city, was completely empty.
"Are we sure the ur-dwarves still exist?" I asked after once more running to catch up with Thorbjorn.
"Why wouldn't they?" he asked.
"They don't seem to," I said, raising my hands to indicate the world around us.
"But they invited you here," he said with unwavering confidence.
"Then why aren't they coming out to greet us?" I asked.
We had reached the edge of the fountain and Thorbjorn finally stopped walking. He scanned the buildings ahead of us, then turned and did the same in the other three directions.
"I can't tell which would be their main hall," he said. "Nothing looks more likely than anything else."
"And no sign of anyone," I said.
"Maybe you should call them," he said.
"You mean like yell out, 'hey, ur-dwarves?'" I asked.
"I meant like magic," he said. "You caught their attention when you were drawing. Perhaps you should try drawing again."
I looked around at the buildings clustered around us. The way they stacked on top of each other, interspersed with the native rock, so many little details to their structure and the natural stone, I just knew if I started drawing any of it, we'd be here the rest of the day.
It was just the kind of intricate detail I loved in a drawing.
"I'll try something," I said to Thorbjorn. He gave me a puzzled look when I thrust my art bag into his arms without taking anything out of it, but he asked me no questions.
I threw my shoulders back and half-closed my eyes, tuning out the world around us. Then I extended my hand out in front of me. I held it out like that for a moment, really concentrating on the power in my own fingertips. Then I drew my outstretched hand up in a straight line. I curved it down towards my left, then straightened out that curve to once more be drawing a line before the motion ended with my hand at my side.
It was like I could see what I had drawn glowing in the air before me, a dark red glow like hot embers. The Ur rune.
Then it faded, and we were still alone, and I felt more than a little silly.
"Maybe I'll try sketching, then," I said, reaching for my art bag.
But Thorbjorn hugged it tight to his chest. "Wait," he said. His eyes were staring off into the distance, and his head was tipped to one side like he was listening intently. I tried listening too, but I heard nothing.
I was about to speak to Thorbjorn again when another voice spoke just at my elbow. I jumped and nearly shrieked, but caught myself just in time.
"Welcome, volva of Villmark," said the voice.
16
The dwarf's voice was deep, old but still strong, and in no hurry to get the words out.
I turned to see a face much like I had drawn earlier, like weather-shaped stone. His hair was gray, and so were his eyes, and so was even his skin. His beard fell down past his barrel-chest and hard stomach to pool at the toes of his booted feet. His hair was sparse on top and stood out at crazy angles, as if he had just been doing experiments with static electricity before coming to speak to me.
"Hello," I said, not sure how exactly to address this man.
"We have food and drink prepared, if you will kindly follow me," he said with a little bow. He was speaking Villmarker Norse, but with an accent I had never heard before. The consonants were softer and the vowels more whispery than I was accustomed to hearing.
"Am I also invited, lord dwarf?" Thorbjorn asked.
The dwarf, who was already leading the way across the square, turned back to look at him. "You are the guardian of the volva. How can you be left behind?" Then he turned away again and resumed walking. He had a halting gait, as if his joints pained him.
Thorbjorn took my hand, and we walked together, following the dwarf across the square and then up an alley that was all one steep staircase. It took a turn but kept climbing.
The second time it turned, I looked up and saw that the top of the staircase was where the alley ended. But it wasn't a dead end, it just flowed naturally into one of the larger buildings. It certainly had the largest doorway I had seen yet, tall enough for two Thorbjorns stacked to pass through, and wide enough for him and all his brothers to go through at once, shoulder to shoulder.
Warm firelight filled that building and spilled out of that doorway, so bright I couldn't see what lay on the other side. But I could smell roasting meat and fried potatoes and beer.
The dwarf stopped at the doorway and stood to one side, bowing and sweeping his hands to tell us to go in before him. I squeezed Thorbjorn's hand even tighter as we once again stepped into a space we couldn't quite see.
At last we had found a place that was inhabited and lushly furnished at that. The light came from two fireplaces, one at each end of the room, both burning with what looked like bonfires on their hearths. The walls were hung with colorful if somewhat faded tapestries depicting elaborate stories interspersed with embroidered bits of text. Runes. I longed to get a closer look at them.
But what beckoned first was the long table that dominated the center of the room. It had space enough to sit four dozen easily, but currently held only four dwarves as old, gray and wizened as our host. They all sat together near one of the fireplaces, and the food was all set around them.
Those bowls and platters and pitchers looked puny compared to the size of the table, but more than enough for the seven of us as Thorbjorn and I sat down at two of the empty chairs, and our original host joined his fellows on the other side of the table.
"Do you know why we're here?" I asked. Thorbjorn gave me a little shake of his head, but I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me.
"Food first," one of the dwarves said. But none of them made a single move.
"This looks excellent," Thorbjorn said, standing up to pick up an immense platter of some sort of roast with a serving-fork sticking out of it. He set it beside his plate and took up a knife. He scarcely needed it; the meat fell away before the blade, slow-cooked to a butter softness. He transferred the first bits to my plate and then sliced twice as much for his own plate.
The dwarves just watched without speaking or moving.
But Thorbjorn didn't seem bothered or even remotely self-conscious. He reached for bowl after bowl of various cooked vegetables and dark rolls of bread and pickled things. He always served me first, and he didn't stop until we had a bit of everything on our plates.
I looked down at the immense amount of food before me. He had only given me the tiniest amounts of each thing, but all together it still looked like more than I could ever fit in my stomach.
But I had thought the same on many a Thanksgiving. I picked up my fork and dug in.
I was still chewing when Thorbjorn poked me with his elbow. I quickly swallowed and then smiled at our dour guests. "Excellent," I said. "Please, join us?"
"Reindeer, isn't it?" Thorbjorn said, having sampled a bit of the roast meat. "I haven't had that in ages. However did you manage to acquire it? I hope it wasn't too much trouble on our account."
"We have partners with whom we trade," one of the dwarves said. He sounded as gravely somber as ever, but somethi
ng had changed in their demeanor because they each finally reached for the bowls and platters and started filling up their own plates.
I ate my pickled herring, then rested my fork-hand on the table to speak, but Thorbjorn elbowed me again and shook his head at me.
Got it. No talk at the dinner table. I turned my attention back to that overabundance of food and tried not to imagine how far the sun had traveled across the sky or dwell on how little time we had left to get back to the lodge.
Thorbjorn had seconds. First of all, I had no idea how he fit it all in, but second of all, I was anxious to get to the talking portion of the agenda. But he just winked at me and slipped a little more cucumber in cream sauce onto my plate.
Finally, the dwarves stood up and gathered up the plates and bowls, scurrying off through a doorway on the far side of the room.
Then they returned with yet more plates of sliced fruit and cheese. Thorbjorn served me first again, but at least this time when he had taken his own portion, the dwarves served themselves at once without waiting for some sign from us.
I tried a cube of white cheese, which turned out sharper than I expected but very tasty. I was still chewing it when one of the dwarves spoke.
"We are of course aware that the Wild Hunt has been haunting the forest where your people dwell," he said, as if answering some remark we had never made.
"Yes, that's true," Thorbjorn said. "Two nights in a row. Is that strange?"
"Is it?" the dwarf who had brought us up from the square asked. He sounded like a teacher leading a class discussion, waiting for us to provide the answers.
"I confess we know little of such things first hand," Thorbjorn said. "It has been more than a century since the Wild Hunt last rode through our part of the world. I'm sure that is but a moment for such as you, but for us humans it is many lifetimes."
"Indeed," the dwarf said, regarding a slice of golden pear that he was clutching in his gray fingers. He looked so much like a living statue, one crafted from flowable stone.