The Space Between

by Scott J Robinson

  "Wake up." She nudged his shoulder. "Wake up."

  His eyes slowly opened and he smiled as he looked at her body. "Not again. I'm exhausted."

  "Listen, you fool." Meledrin climbed over Palsamon and slipped into a long white dress that emphasized her hair. Then she quickly pulled on a pair of soft shoes and tied her hair back with a ribbon — it really needed to be brushed, but she did not have the time. She had her bow and was out the door while Palsamon was still lacing his boots. The sound was coming from the old smoking shed, out near where Faldorin's Path began. Meledrin quickly made her way in that direction.

  There was nobody ahead of her, but she was pleased to see that others were stirring in the buildings behind.

  A few moments later she saw a man kneeling in front of the shed. He was extremely short, but broader than any elf, and solid. He wore only stained, cloth breeches and large, heavy, leather boots. He worked methodically, hammering a long nail into a loose board on the wall. His broad, bare back was to her, muscles flexing with each powerful, precise stroke.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  "Hello," Meledrin said softly.

  The hammer paused, then descended one final time. The man turned to look at her. A beard, curly and unkempt, covered his face. Short dark hair was plastered down with sweat, on both his chest and head. He was younger than she had first thought — he had seen perhaps 25 summers — but his dark, brown eyes seemed like those of a child. A strange contraption of gears and metal had been strapped to his arm in place of his left hand.

  The stranger stared for a moment, looking Meledrin up and down. Four nails were clenched between his teeth. "Whistler," he mumbled, "you're the tallest dwarf I've ever seen." Then, "Sorry, did I wake you?" He smiled crookedly.

  "Yes. I believe you have woken everyone." Meledrin glanced over her shoulder and saw a dozen more elves almost upon them. "Pardon? Dwarf?" She turned back to the stranger and lowered her bow. She had suspected he was a dwarf, but she had never seen one up close and would never have assumed. But he thought she was a dwarf?

  "Work starts at dawn. That's the rule. Every dwarf knows that. And you dwives should know it too, if you're going to help."

  "I'm sure. Perhaps you might have thought of some quieter work?" Meledrin thought it strange, chatting with a dwarf while the sun was still struggling to lift its weight above the horizon, but what else was she to do?

  The ugly little man shrugged. "This is what needed doing. Winter's coming and if we can't dry meat properly we might have problems."

  "Undoubtedly." The residents of Grovely had eaten mainly fruit and vegetables in recent years. The men trekked to the human markets and traded highly sought after elfish craft products for whatever else they required. The smoking shed had not been used for a long time.

  But the dwarf nodded as if pleased she could see the sense of it. "Keeble's the name. Pleased to meet you. I asked to be reassigned to your work gang. You don't have a center punch, do you? These nails just don't look right."

  She examined the nails, considering what might be the correct aesthetic for such things — Palsamon would know — before shaking her head. "My name is Meledrin." She wondered what else she might say. Manners dictated that she talked to him, but she really wanted to be somewhere else. She could smell the sweat on him. And Keeble was obviously having problems she could not comprehend.

  Others finally started to arrive, all with arrows nocked and ready.

  "What is happening?" Takande asked as she came to a halt beside Meledrin. Her long blonde hair was loose and she wore only a sleeping robe that failed to cover her knees, but her bow was ready.

  "They breed dwarves to look like trees out here, do they? Or is it just the dwives?"

  Meledrin gestured vaguely. "Takande, Keeble is repairing the smoking shed."

  "So I see. He is a dwarf, is he not?"

  "Yes."

  Takande nodded as if that explained everything. Meledrin decided that quite possibly it did.

  "Why is he repairing the smoking shed?" someone asked. It was a young man, and he was not looking at the dwarf, but rather at Takande's legs.

  "It is what dwarves do," Delfrana explained, moving towards the front of the group. "Go and get dressed, Takande. That is not decent." She poked the younger elf with the stick as she continued forward. Without the support she wavered dangerously and a Warder rushed forward to steady her. "Lacking work and community, dwarves go batty: it is a documented fact. From what this individual did out in the forest, I would say he is well on the way."

  "What did he do?"

  "Started things that he failed to complete."

  The dwarf rose to his feet, his face set. It appeared he would say something, but his eyes glazed over and he turned instead to examine his handiwork. "Done," he said eventually, with a small, teeth-clenching smile. "No smoke will get out of there." He turned back for another look. Whatever had been troubling him a moment before was forgotten. "If we had some mud, we could do some daub to really make sure."

  "No. That will not be necessary."

  "Well, I guess I'll get started on one of the other buildings then. I saw some loose shutters earlier. Hanging terrible, they were."

  "No. That will not be necessary either."

  "Oh."

  Delfrana hobbled forward to get a better look at the dwarf with her bad eyes. The old woman wrinkled her nose in concentration. Or maybe she had noticed his stench as well and was unable to hide her disgust. Meledrin felt several women tense, ready to leap to the High Warder's protection.

  "What crime did you commit?"

  "What? None." Keeble fiddled with some of the wheels on his mechanical hand, winding the two pronged forks closer together then further apart.

  "Oh, do not take me for a fool, boy. You are a Wanderer, are you not? No other dwarf would leave the mountains of his own accord. What did you do?"

  The dwarf hesitated. He examined the nails in his hand.

  "What?"

  "I failed the Singing Test. But I'm not a Wanderer. They gave me a choice. Change gangs or leave."

  "Oh, I see." Delfrana grunted, relenting slightly. "Why did you try if you were unable to do it? That is the thing that always confuses me."

  "I could do it, though."

  Delfrana grunted again. "Obviously."

  Meledrin was confused. Dwarves valued singing so highly they would cast out one of their own who could not do it? That did not seem right. It did not fit with what she knew of the uncouth, uncivilized people.

  "So, what would you like me to do then?" Keeble asked. "If you don't want me to fix the shutters? If you have a center punch I could finish this job properly."

  "I think, actually, that you should leave."

  "Leave?"

  "We cannot have you waking up decent people at all hours of the night with your hammering. Go home, lad. Die with your family."

  "But they will not take me back." He scratched at the turf with his boot. "I was assigned to this work gang."

  "It is not possible for you to stay here."

  Meledrin did not like Keeble with his dark, messy hair and heavy lidded eyes, but if he would die if left on his own, she did not feel it was civilized to send him away. "Delfrana," she said, almost taking a step back when the old woman rounded on her. "If all he needs is community and work, we can offer both, surely."

  "Do you like rising before dawn, Meledrin? Do you wish to do that every day? And for a dwarf, being near people is not enough. He will need almost constant interaction. Talking, talking, talking, every hour of the day. Probably talks in his sleep. He will say more in an hour than you will say in an entire day. In two days. Elves like to talk, Meledrin, but all our talk has a purpose. A dwarf will make inane chatter all day while he thinks of something he really wants to say."

  Meledrin dreaded the thought of listening to Keeble's rough, deep voice all day but could not condemn him to death on that basis alone. "It cannot be that bad, surely."

  There was muttering from
among the group.

  "Are you questioning me?"

  "No, High Warder, but surely you cannot wish for him to die."

  "I do not wish for him to die, Meledrin, but whatever he is to do, I wish for him to do it in some other location."

  Meledrin wanted to say more, drew a breath to do it, but forestalled.

  Delfrana noticed and gave her a solid poke with her walking stick. "Very well, Warder, the dwarf can stay." She smiled coldly. "But he is your responsibility, every moment of every day."

  Meledrin gasped and tried to order her thoughts. "I am to be with him all the time, or I am to be held accountable?"

  "You are to be accountable. You can let him do whatever he wishes, but if he does something I do not like, you will pay the same price as he." Delfrana's smile grew. "Either that, or we send him on his way."

  Meledrin chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. She did not want the dwarf dead, but she hardly wanted to be his nursemaid either when he may well be completely insane. He certainly did not look complete, standing bemused but smiling while his future was decided. And she did not want to spend her days in his company. Meledrin almost told Delfrana to send him on his way — how would she get any reading done if he were constantly talking — but she felt a hand grip hers. She did not have to look to know that it belonged to Palsamon. She would know his hand anywhere: the strong fingers, the callous on the heel of his thumb. His hand squeezed hers slightly, and she knew, suddenly, that she could not back down. Delfrana would never forget her small rebellion either way, but the others would only forget if Meledrin was proven to be correct. And for her to be correct, the dwarf had to stay.

  "Very well, Delfrana. I shall be the dwarf's mother." The child she was not sure she wanted to have.

  Delfrana laughed at that and shook her head, but Meledrin saw the sneer that crossed her face first. "Very well, Meledrin, Warder of dwarves, but I shall be watching."

  "I am sure you will," Meledrin muttered when the old woman had turned away.

  "Takande," Delfrana said as she started to make her slow way back to her home, "I thought I instructed you to get dressed." She thumped the younger elf with her stick. "Do not come complaining to me when some dirty saveigni touches you."

  "Was that wise?" Palsamon asked quietly, when the others had walked away.

  Meledrin sighed and turned to look at the dwarf. "You told me to do it."

  Palsamon laughed. "Did I? Well, yes, perhaps I did, but only right at the end. You got to that end by yourself."

  "Wise or not, it is done and cannot be undone."

  "You don't have a center punch, do you?" Keeble asked.

  "Do you think I was correct?"

  Palsamon turned her to face him. "Of course I do, but perhaps we are a little bit different from everyone else."

  Meledrin knew her relationship with Palsamon was strange but had never thought that she was strange. She looked at the retreating elves and took a deep breath. "Perhaps we are."

  "These nails just don't look right. Where do you dwarves keep all your tools? I'll see if I can find a center punch." Keeble started to stride away towards the houses and Meledrin was forced to rush to catch up. Palsamon stayed by her side.

  "Do you think he would bathe if we suggested it?" Meledrin asked.

  3: Builder

  Keeble put down his borrowed hammer and rose to his feet. Normally he wouldn't have laid a hammer on the grass, but the tool was already terribly rusted. In the two days he'd been in Grovely, none of the other dwarves had shown any concern about the state of their equipment.

  "A bit more rust won't even be noticed."

  Turning around, he strained his senses as he fiddled nervously with the gears on his mechanical hand.

  "What is it, Keeble?"

  Keeble had almost forgotten Meledrin was there. It felt as if he were talking to himself half of the time. She'd done some archery earlier but for most of the morning she had been reading, leaning back against a tree, long legs stretched out on the grass before her. He thought it strange that a dwarf would sit all day when there was work to be done, but he didn't mind. It just meant there was more for him. There was also a nagging thought about women.

  "Shhh. Can't you hear it?" He scratched his chin with his fake hand. The gears caught in his beard, horribly short though it was, and he winced as he freed himself.

  "Hear what?"

  'Hear' wasn't exactly the right term. He turned to the east, peering through the trees as if he might be able to see what he couldn't exactly hear. But for all of his looking and listening, Keeble couldn't decide the origin of the feeling that had gripped him. "Don't know where it's coming from," he said.

  He realized, standing in the shade as the sun dipped down towards the horizon, that the sensation had been present for a long time. "Been there for a while. Don't know how long, but I finally realized what it is." Or what it almost was. Or what it might be. He grunted in disgust. "Should've worked it out ages ago."

  "Am I able to hear what?" Meledrin repeated. Rising to her feet and waving her hands in one of her silly little ceremonies, she followed his gaze through the trees.

  "Singing," Keeble said. He looked around. "Where's my multi-tool." He'd found it in a shed and claimed it as his own but was forever forgetting where he put it. With an axe on one side and a sledgehammer on the other, it was extremely useful. When he saw it lying on the ground nearby he stooped to collect it then took a few steps forward. He thought perhaps he should finish the gate before he left. He turned back to look at the gate that kept the three sheep in the pen. The fence had obviously been repaired recently as well. "Timber's such a horrible medium," he said. "Who'd want to make anything from timber?" He shrugged. "It's only a gate."

  "Singing?" Meledrin asked.

  "I don't like singing much," Keeble said. "You dwarves sing way too much. Must be all the timber, I reckon."

  "You said you were able to hear singing."

  He cocked his head to listen. "You're right," he said, once he'd caught the faint tickle of it in his mind. He was surprised Meledrin had noticed. "It sounds almost like the magical part of Rock Singing, but not quite." He couldn't hear the magic, of course, but he could feel the power of it, the rhythms and melodies waltzing in his mind.

  "I hear nothing."

  "But you just said..." Keeble grunted in disgust. Looking around for the source of the Singing, he discovered that someone had left a gate half repaired. He shook his head. "Very lazy." He would've finished the job himself but he didn't have time. Making a guess, he strode away through the trees. Meledrin, muttering under her breath, collected her book and bow, and hurried after him, covering the ground one step to his two.

  After several minutes of walking Keeble stopped to look. He turned a full circle. "This way," he said, picking a new direction and starting forward again. The feeling was growing within him, flowing into the cracks and fissures of his mind.

  The next time he stopped he was in the center of a wide clearing. The main green of Grovely was to the west, several hundred meters away.

  "Where are we going?" Meledrin stopped by his side, bow held negligently. She pushed her fiery hair back from her face with long pale fingers as she gazed down at him. Not for the first time, the hidden depths of her green eyes unsettled Keeble. He had a vague thought that the whole idea of her was unsettling, but he couldn't grasp the idea fully. When he hurried on again she stayed where she was. He could feel her watching him like he could feel the Singing. It was as if she knew all about him, or was about to find out.

  "What is that?" she said a moment later.

  "I told you, I don't know, but it's this way." He flung the words back over his shoulder, silently cursing her loose tongue while he tried to concentrate.

  "No," Meledrin said. "What is that?"

  Keeble stopped and looked back at the dwife, annoyed that she continued to try to distract him when important matters were afoot. She pointed skywards and he turned to look.

  "It's
a bird." He turned to continue on.

  "Yes. But it's extremely large, is it not?"

  He turned for a moment to look, as if he, cave dweller that he was, would know more about the subject than she. "It's still a bird." He started to walk, picking up the threads of the magic rhythm in his mind again. He passed a house that was hardly distinguishable from the natural surroundings. "Ingenious."

  "There's another."

  Keeble looked again. There were a lot of birds. A lot of big birds. But birds were birds, and the Singing was etching its rhythms onto his bones. "I once saw an eagle with a wingspan of about three meters," he said. The birds they were looking at seemed to be much larger than that, but the Song filled his mind. "I'm not sure if they are birds," he said, having another look. "Whoever called them that is crazy. They're bats." Being a cave dweller, he did know a bit about bats.

  He turned and walked quickly through the trees, not really caring if Meledrin followed. He stopped twice more, senses straining, before he was finally sure of his bearings. "This way," he said. With the direction of the Singing set in his mind, he picked up the pace until he was almost running. Dwarves and dwives were all about, clustered in groups and staring off at nothing. They seemed to be ignoring him for a change. Keeble ignored them as well as he wove through the trees. He had more important things in his mind.

  "I once saw a bat," he said, "almost a meter from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other." The bats flying over the forest were quite a bit bigger than that. He didn't know if Meledrin was following him.

  As the pulsing of the Song grew in his mind Keeble decided that it wasn't really much of a Song at all. "The rhythm is much too complex to follow. If there's a rhythm at all."

  But as he walked forward some more, he decided that there was a rhythm, dancing syncopations across his nerves. He felt the flow of his steps changing to match. "There is a rhythm." Or, more accurately, dozens of rhythms. He counted at least fifteen layers to the Song. "It's like a bar full of Singers all Singing at once, bringing their magic to bear on one place."