by Tj Dixon
Peter of Dwarven Stone Book 4 of The War of Contractia By T.J. Dixon (part of The Chronicles of Contractia)
Author’s Foreword
Please note that all people, places and events in this story are purely fictional. Any resemblance to any real person, place or event (or anything else) is purely co-incidence. This is the fourth book in The War of Contractia, which is the first series in The Chronicles of Contractia.
If he is to return home Peter must find and pay a dwarf of sufficient skill to remove Lucy’s curse. It doesn’t sound like it will be cheap though. Peter will also cross paths with a dwarven genius who may be able to help, but there is a thin line between genius and insanity. That is especially true for a dwarven boy obsessed with girls in a society as repressed as Nirvali.
Despite his experiences and talents, Peter is still a boy growing up. He is beginning to become a bit more aware of girls, but it isn’t just girls and puberty that he must come to terms with.
Prologue (Grunti)
I’ve just finished this helmet and it looks fine. Black stone in the traditional dwarven design, with the magical runes for protection and sight carved in amongst the more decorative flowing curves. It has been tempered with magical flames and will stop most attacks, but it is boring, so I put down my hammer and pull the lever on the forge. The flames die down and after a moment they are gone completely.
My dad went home over an hour ago now, so it should be safe. It is rare that I get the chance, because he normally works until late, so now for some fun! I close my eyes and create a small lump of black stone. I change its form so that it is in the shape I want. Two small black rings, a small link between them and from each ring a long strip of stone. In other words they are the shape of a pair of glasses, though there is no glass in them. This is as far as earth magic alone will get me.
I take my enchanted chisel and start to carve the runes, but I am careful to ensure they are hidden on the side that will be facing me. I then take a small amount of silver and slowly melting it I carefully fill the runes. I then cover the runes with a very thin layer of black stone. Lastly, on the side that everyone will see, I carve the runes that a dwarf would expect to see on a pair of glasses without glass. I don’t enchant them though, because that would interfere with their real purpose.
“Time to try them on!” I say eagerly and happily do so. They fit perfectly. I look at the helmet and focus on the magic in the glasses. No sooner have I done so than the helmet disappears from my sight. Perfect! This isn’t my first attempt, but it is the first time I’ve succeeded. I smirk and say. “So now the real fun begins.”
“Doing something stupid again, Grunti?” My dad says and I gasp in shock. He is standing a few feet away. I look up at him, because he is tall at almost four and a half foot. I am below average for a male dwarf at three foot, though like my dad my belly is rather large at two foot outwards.
“No!”
“I don’t recall your eyesight being so bad that you needed glasses, and the runes I can see with my eyes aren’t even enchanted. Of course the hidden runes have a really interesting enchantment.” My dad says with a laugh.
“I thought they were perfect.” I say with a sigh.
“Most dwarves wouldn’t be able to tell, but you only need one dwarf to realise the real purpose of those glasses and you’ll end up in jail with those outsiders.” My dad says with an amused smile.
“I’ll have to hide the runes better next time.” I say with a sigh.
“Already planning for next time?” My dad laughs.
“Of course.” I laugh and taking off the glasses I throw them to him. He pulls the silver out and returns it to our stockpile. Then he eats the stone.
“Now let’s go home and eat something nice.”
“That sounds good!” I say with a smile.
Chapter 1 (Peter)
It seems unwise to have Dairon look for work, given the history between dwarves and elves. It is an opportunity for him to try to teach Elucia though. If anyone can teach her to control her magic, perhaps Dairon can. There is a large area for magical training that anyone can use, so I had Kai show them where it is. Lucy went with them, because she wanted a chance to see what Elucia is doing wrong.
“I’m back!” Kai calls out as she comes through the door.
“Welcome back. Now to find some work for the two of us.” I say. It is only our first day out of jail, but we don’t want to starve!
“I popped into the main forge on the way back and it seems they need an errand boy. Until we can find something better it would earn enough to pay for food. Would you be interested?” Kai asks.
“An errand boy. I’ll do it, but only until we find something better.” I say disheartened, but also relieved. “What sort of errands?”
“I don’t know, but it didn’t sound like it would be anything too difficult.” Kai tells me.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I’ll have to keep looking. They made it clear they weren’t interested in hiring someone as tall as me. They were a bit concerned that you might be too tall until I told them your height. I might have more luck with an outdoors job, perhaps at the market.” Kai says.
“So when can I start working at the forge.” I ask.
“As soon as you can get there. I’ll show you the way, but you’re on your own once you go inside.” Kai says and I follow her out of our small home and onto the street. Like our home and the rest of the city it is lit by a dim white light that doesn’t seem to come from anywhere in particular. There are lots of doors in the stone, all more or less evenly spaced. On the other side of the street there are small stone buildings that are probably homes like ours. They have similar doors to ours too.
“They all look the same.” I say.
“They each have a number carved into the base of the door. Ours is number three, though it is written in dwarven runes so you would have trouble reading it.” Kai says.
“It is a good job they talk the same language we do.”
“They are talking dwarven. You must be using translation magic.” Kai says and I blink. I didn’t realise that I even had translation magic for the dwarven language. I don’t for the elven language, though thankfully Dairon and the other elves I captured all knew Contractian, which I am already using translation magic for. “Try reading the number down there.”
“Is this the number?” I ask pointing at a few odd lines that go through a small circle.
“Yes, so you can’t read it then?” Kai asks.
“Sorry, but I wouldn’t even know it was a number if you hadn’t told me.” I say apologetically.
“Well never mind. We’re third from the jail so it should be easy to find our home again.” Kai says and we head that way. Kai points at a large red sign with three vertical black lines. It reminds me of the jail bars so I should remember that. “Now follow me, and try to remember the way.”
The streets all look very much the same but I keep my air senses open as we walk and notice a few hints that should help guide me home later. Something seems odd though. “Why aren’t we passing anyone? Shouldn’t these streets be full of dwarves?”
“These streets will be really busy when you return home. Everyone is working at the moment, but they’ll all be going home, or wherever they need to, when you finish work. You’re not allowed to port so you’ll need to walk home through the crowds.” Kai tells me.
“Are there any rules against using flight magic?” I ask.
“No, but it would be better not to, because you’ll stand out too much if you do that. We should try to keep our heads down.” Kai warns me.
“It’s a pity I can
’t just do bounty hunts like I did in Contractia.” I say with a sigh.
“You don’t have a license, or the money to buy one.” Kai reminds me.
“I know. I hope we can earn enough to get one.”
“This is the forge.”
“That wasn’t far. I should be able to find my way back.” I say and look up at the black stone building. It is large but not that tall. It is as wide as most of the streets we passed, but only about six feet tall. There are lots of small chimneys belching out smoke. The chimneys are each only about a foot tall. With my air sense I count four hundred chimneys and I can tell the building is five times as long as it is wide. In other words it is huge. I hope I don’t get lost inside it!
“Well, good luck!” Kai says and leaves me standing here.
“Wait, how will they know I’m the boy you told them about?” I protest.
“How many human boys do you think there are in this city?” Kai asks over her shoulder without stopping.
“True.” I say and look at the stone door. It is about ten foot wide and reaches the very roof of the building. It is also really heavy, so I use earth magic to open the door. That’s not my strongest element, but it would be difficult to open this door with wind magic.
“Welcome.” Says a male dwarf in the same black armour everyone seems to wear. He is sitting behind a short desk just the other side of the door. The desk extends about twenty feet in both directions. The dwarf has green eyes, black skin and golden hair just like all the other male dwarves I have seen. At this point I’d be surprised if his skin or hair were any other colour.
“Hello. I’m Peter and I was told there was a job for an errand boy.” I tell him nervously.
“That’s right. One of the smithy masters got sick of his old errand boy, so there happens to be an opening. Follow the light to Grundle’s forge. Be careful of his guard though, it bites anyone who gets too close.” The dwarf says and a line of bright white light appears on the floor.
“Thank you.” I say and follow the light. This place is a maze of winding tunnels and it seems Grundle’s forge is really deep within that maze. I pass lots of small doors on the way but eventually the light reaches a door and stops. I don’t see or sense any guards so I knock on the door.
“Who’s there?” A gruff dwarven voice calls out.
“I’m your new errand boy!” I call back.
“Well, come in, but mind Pebble.” He calls back. I open the door and look around for ‘Pebble’. He laughs and points at a stone to the left of the door. “That’s Pebble, over there.” It is about twice the size of my head, so I’m not sure how it got the name Pebble!
“Ah, thanks.” I say and keep to the right, well away from Pebble. The dwarf is standing by a large black metal anvil. He looks very much like all the other male dwarves and is wearing the same black stone armour. His eyes are green and he is about half a foot shorter than I am, so about four foot tall. He is probably about two foot wide and a foot and a half deep. His long white beard looks a little singed.
“I’m Grundle, and you’re name is?” He asks gruffly. It seems to be normal for dwarves to act gruffly.
“Peter.”
“Peat?” He asks with a laugh and creates a little to demonstrate.
“No. Peter, not peat.” I tell him firmly.
“Well, I’ll just call you boyo then.” He says with a hearty laugh. I shrug. It doesn’t really matter what he calls me.
“So what do you want me to do?” I ask.
“You know any magic?” He asks.
“Yes. Wind magic is my strongest element. I can use all the elements to some extent and I learnt some dimensional magic whilst I was in Contractia.” I tell him.
“Wind magic is good. Just sit there by the forge and feed air to my flames when I tell you. As much as you can.” He says.
“As much as I can…? Wouldn’t that be a problem?” I ask nervously.
“Why?” He asks.
“The flames would fill the whole room if I do that.” I tell him. He laughs with one hand over his stomach.
“You’re confident! Well don’t kill us, but feed plenty of air to the flames when I tell you.” He says and walks over to the forge. It is a square hole in the wall with black metal lining the edges. There is a chimney for the smoke to leave and the base is covered in coal. Grundle creates a black metal sword using earth magic and then holds it in the forge. His hand is worryingly where the flames will be. “Be ready.”
“Ok.” I say nervously. He summons flames.
“Now!” He says. I increase the air a lot, just like he asked. The flames surge but he focuses them around the sword and they never touch his hand. “More air.” So I add almost as much as I can. “Less air!” He shouts as the flames almost wrench themselves out of his control. I reduce the air. “That’s better, keep that level of air. Just a bit longer, almost there, almost… stop!”
I stop increasing the air and he stops the flames with fire magic. He pulls the sword out of the forge and examines it carefully. It is red all over from the heat. He uses earth magic and then water magic. The water turns to steam the moment it drops onto the sword.
“Is it ok?” I ask.
“Yes, that was perfect. Now, just another couple of hundred by the end of the day. You wouldn’t believe how many the army get through each day, and they aren’t even fighting anyone. Just training, training and more bloody training.”
True to his word we really do make another two hundred swords. Two hundred and three to be precise, as I keep a count. I have no idea what the point of this process is, but I assume there must be a point. I certainly hope that there’s a point to it!
“That’s it for today. Be here at five o’clock in the morning tomorrow though.” Grundle says.
“Five o’clock?” I ask confused.
“You don’t know how to tell the time?” He asks.
“I don’t sense a dimensional time keeper. I can keep track of time with my body’s timekeeper, but only if I focus on it.” I tell him.
“Well, take this then.” He says and takes a ring of black stone out of his pocket. There are three smaller stones moving around it, one black, one red and one blue and each moving at a different pace just like at the prison. I guess this must be what a clock is. “When the black stone reaches the mark for five it is five o’clock. It has an alarm set just before five o’clock so it will tell you and you should be thinking about leaving then. Are you far from here?”
“No, not far.” I tell him.
“That should give you enough time to be here then, as long as you don’t take long getting ready to leave.”
“Don’t worry, it only takes me a moment to get ready.” I tell him with a smile.
“Well, don’t be late. You’ll want paying, I suppose?”
“Yes, sorry.” I say.
“No need to be sorry, we’ve all got to eat.” Grundle says with a laugh and pats his plump belly. “You did a good job today, but we’ll be starting on the real work tomorrow, so make sure you are well rested and not suffering from hunger pains. You can have ten blue coins for today’s work.” He then puts his hand through his armour as if it wasn’t there and when he pulls it out again he is holding ten bright blue crystal coins.
“Thanks.” I say.
“Don’t let anyone con you. Those coins are each worth a good meal. If you cook it yourself you could feed a family of six or seven with just one coin.” Grundle tells me.
“That’s a lot of pay for just one day’s work. Not that I’m complaining of course.”