by deSouza, Leo
“No, listen…” Torag was saying when the other one dragged towards him the pieces on the table. “No ye can’t, wait…” Torag spoke again trying to argue.
But everyone around began to mock on him and boo.
“Ye lost, it was a fair game.” One said.
“All right, all right!” Torag replied slapping the table. “I’ve never got much luck in games anyway…” He now rose and went into a corner, lying against a rock, there he lit his pipe and began smoking.
“How is it, when someone finds a diamond down here?” One of the dwarfs asked as he bit a piece of bread, his hands greasy and dirty, and his beard too.
“There are no diamonds down here.” One spoke as he chewed.
“My grandfather once found one, the size of a fig.” A dwarf spoke.
“Your grandfather?” Torag asked.
“Yes. He dug here ages ago, he became rich, the richest of all dwarfs, except for the King himself.” The dwarf replied.
“Nah… I don’t believe this, unless I come to see the diamond with my own eyes.” Torag spoke.
“I swear by my beard. My father told me he saw the diamond.” Continued the dwarf.
“Then he is a liar.” Spoke Torag.
“Maybe it is true, ye know what they say.” Another one broke in. “They say the three houses of the West are known by digging deep and finding precious metals, but as far as I know, there is not another mountain range that keeps so many gems like our one, this Red Mountains of ours.”
“It is true! The King’s halls are adorned with so many gems that they could not even be counted! They are all spread on the walls and even on the ceiling!” Someone said.
“It is a forbidden place, only the King and the royal court can be there, unless ye are a thief trying to steal something. Have ye ever been there?” Torag asked.
The dwarf babbled: “No but… A cousin of mine once entered it and…”
“Ye see, folks? One can identify a liar when he starts to quote cousins, brothers in law, grandfathers…” Torag said.
“Ye seem quite pessimistic, and yet ye said ye came for wealth.” One near Torag spoke.
“I’m defying my own luck, it thinks it can keep sabotaging me, but maybe one day I will give it the payback.” Torag replied.
The dwarf who told the stories about the gems spoke again: “Ye doubt too much! One like ye scares luck! Keep your bad omens to yourself!”
“Fine, fine.” Torag whispered, disinterested.
“Yes, keep your pride, but I will tell ye what, I know there are those gems here, and I will find one, like my grandfather did, but even bigger! The size of an apple!” The dwarf continued.
“Once a fig, now an apple.” Torag said as he shook his head. “If I come to find a gem that size I will stick it into your mouth to avoid ye telling lies like this!”
The dwarfs around burst in laugher. Torag rose and went to a parchment hanging on the wall, it was a map of the tunnels and a plan for the digging. “I see here, my friends, we still have a lot of work to do.” He said.
“The work is stuck, ye all heard about that.” Someone said.
“Yes.” Another dwarf broke in. “Since we found an iron mass, it is impossible for us to dig ahead. But we are finally going to breach.”
“Are we? How?” Torag asked.
“The Steel Fists, our cousins, they sent the artifacts, it arrived today morning.” The dwarf replied.
“So we will blow everything out of the way!” Another one said. “That Steel Fist dwarfs knows how to do things, wonder why we do not have our own crafts like that.”
“Because it takes a lot of knowledge to do such, and the components inside it are secret! I heard that our guys swore to never tell, otherwise they would be punished! These things are made for war.” Someone spoke.
“Well I don’t care if it is secret or not, nor I want to know how it is done. All I care is about cracking the rock so we can start again with our mattocks.” Torag said.
Then a dwarf entered the room, one of the dwarf foremen responsible for conducting the work of the many miners. “The Steel Fist artifacts have arrived! It is time for us to blow up this damn iron block out!” He spoke.
All the miners began to rise and prepared to get back to work. That was something that all them were willing to see, the Thick Beards had no means to breach the rock when they faced some metal formation, so they had to ask for the aid of their distant kin, the Steel Fist dwarfs. These ones produced a peculiar artifact, something strange for Torag and his fellows, and some could even call it witchcraft, but it was not more than a well crafted piece of dwarf engineering. A ball metal container, and inside it a mixture of some artificially worked substances, like the gunpowder we know, this artifact composed a tool that could be used to break hard portions of rock, by exploding it. Now everyone followed the foreman, a long row of miners walked through one of the largest corridors while a mining car was being pushed on the railroad, and inside it, two of these artifacts. Torag looked at them with curiosity, metal balls, the size of a big pot, with many spikes. “How does this thing work?” He asked as he walked.
Someone behind him replied: “Ye put one of these inside a crack on the rock, push a wick from it, far enough, and then light it.”
“What then?” Torag insisted.
“Well… Then ye hide behind some place and wait for the entire thing to blow up!” Said the dwarf.
“Huuum…” Torag muttered. “Is that thing safe enough?”
“Yes, at least they told us so. The point is, how far will one be after the wick is lit, and how strong is the wall behind which he is hiding. But don’t ye worry, they used it before with no problems. Yes, it is safe.” The dwarf replied.
“I’ve heard about people saying such thing just a moment before dying.” Torag said.
“Are ye the one going to light the wick? Why are ye so worried?” Asked the dwarf.
Torag whisked in the air. “Nevermind.” He spoke.
The place where these artifacts were to be used was a large room where the dwarfs mined the rock wall trying to go around the iron mass, but they found out it was too large and they could not find its end, that was when they realized they needed something else to be able to continue. This place had many lamps around, and was clean as the dwarfs removed all the mining waste, leaving it prepared for the task. Now a foreman dwarf held the line of curious ones at the entrance of the cave and only two miners went ahead, pulling the mining car. They took one of the artifacts from it and the other ones could see the moment when they put it into a crack in the rock wall ahead, then they came back unrolling a wick, joining the other miners. Torag was watching it all from a distance when he stepped on water. “What is this? Where has this water come from?” He asked.
“Oh it’s nothing, just some water coming from the many cracks in the rock.” Someone nearby replied.
“I recommend none of ye being out of protection.” The dwarf foreman said with a smile.
Everyone hid behind bulges to get covered. The miner with the wick lit it with a torch and ran, now all the dwarfs watched the flame sparkle along the wick towards the artifact. The expectation was great and their eyes had a mixture of excitation and wariness, when the flame finally reached the end of the path, everyone crouched even more, a small smoke came from it, but nothing happened. For a moment everyone stood silent, looking at each other as if expecting someone to say something, the foreman stirred the wick.
“What is happening?” A voice asked among the dwarfs.
“Go there and check it by yourself.” Someone else spoke.
But Torag had his eyes on the thing, and he saw the exact moment when a spark jumped from inside the artifact. A light blinded everyone, a brutal noise sounded, the thing exploded.
“Boooooooom!” It sounded.
The entire cave trembled, the lamps went off, the place became dark and covered by dust. After a moment of deafness and dizziness, the dwarfs lit their torches and the lamps on th
eir helmets, slowly, they came into the cave, and it took a while for the dust to settle. They could see a large hole made by the explosion in the wall ahead, many rocks spread on the ground around, and with joyful impetus the miners advanced against the rocky wall with their mattocks and hammers in hands, Torag was one of them.
“One can’t keep a gem found here, but the bigger it is, the bigger is the bounty the King pays!” Someone said.
The dwarfs began a frantic work, the metal of their tools hit the rock spreading sparkles, the sound composed a continuous metallic noise of many mattocks repetitively hitting. Torag was enjoying the task as his hope about the gems he could find while breaching the way to build this new tunnel grew, he always had a trend to like richness but it was from this moment that his famous greed really revealed inside him. The dwarfs sweated, some of them let their helmets drop on the ground while they pushed each other to find space to dig. Now Torag suddenly stopped, and another miner beside him did it too as both noticed the same thing.
“Where is this water coming from?” Torag asked.
“I had already told ye! It comes from the rock, its normal to be like that.” Said the dwarf who spoke to him before.
But what Torag noticed was that there were now not just puddles on the ground but small streams coming from the cracks just made in the rocky wall.
“Here is my friends! This is what ye find when ye blow up a stubborn mass or rock like this!” A dwarf shouted among the others as he raised something in the air.
Everyone stopped to look at him, and they could see in his hand a shining thing, not that anyone could identify what it was, but the greed grew fast in the dwarf’s hearts, and whatever it was, a diamond or a gold nugget, the dwarfs hurried back to dig the rock, now they worked even faster.
“Everything belongs to the King!” The foreman shouted. “Everyone who finds a gem will be properly rewarded, depending on the size and value of it!” Then he came to the dwarf who found the gem and took it.
The army of miners was compulsively digging, even Torag was now obsessed with the idea of finding some precious stone, and what was his surprise, when after some hits on a rock piece, it dismantled and revealed something shining under it. Torag dropped his mattock, he got on his knees and shoved his hands against the mud on the rock while the water leaked, the dwarf took from it a big nugget of gold, he got fascinated with it.
“Oh ye lucky bastard! Look at the size of this thing!” The dwarf beside him said.
“Finally a worthy reward for Torag! One most deserved reward!” Torag exclaimed as he held the nugget.
“Ye found a big one, didn’t ye?” The foreman said approaching. “Now go back to the keeper and put it into the car, all the precious gems are for the King, he will reward ye later.”
Torag rose, with the gold in his hands, some of the other miners stopped to look at him. He left the place stumbling on the rocks in the ground for he could not get his eyes out of the gem he just found. In the corridor he found there the keeper, sitting beside a mining car with some gems inside.
“Wondering about how fair it is to give up this one, right?” The keeper asked. “I know… Everyone who find such a beauty thinks the same thing. Thoughts about how big his pockets are, and how unnoticed one could pass with such a thing hid under his clothes, but let me tell ye what, my friend. All this belongs to the King, and ye must feel proud for finding it, now put it in the car.”
But Torag was still fascinated, looking at the gem in his hands.
“Do ye hear me? Miner!” The keeper insisted.
Torag suddenly looked at him. “How is this reward the King offers? I mean, how much?” He asked.
The keeper chuckled. “Ye better don’t feed such questions for now. The last guy I saw being rewarded became happy enough, that is what I could tell. Anyway, what do ye think ye would do with such a piece of richness in your hands?”
“I actually came thinking about a way how to hide it and keep it to myself. I was the one who found it after all, then exchange it for many things, so many things…”
“Hunf…” The keeper snorted. “Then ye better think about a good excuse to be told. They would punish ye, believe me.”
“If they would come to know…” Torag whispered.
“Unless ye get out of the Stronghold to sell it somewhere else, they would catch ye. Actually, I don’t think the guards are going to let anyone leave the fortress for now without a good checking in his pockets and bags.”
“Fine…” Torag replied with a vexed mien. He reached his hand with the gold piece above the car and stood like this for a moment, the keeper raised his eyes and motioned his head towards the car, as if telling him what to do. Then finally Torag dropped the gem, he propped on the car’s edges with his hands and leaned to look inside it.
“I know how difficult it is, my friend. That is why I left the mining work.” The keeper said.
“Ye were a miner too?” Torag asked.
“Yes… A long time ago, and I began to think too much about fairness, about how one worked hard to find something, and then someone else appropriates the fruit of his labor. So I found it wise to stop thinking of such things, and the best way I found to keep my mind far from it was leaving the mattock.”
“But ye still work here, and ye watch these gems all the time!”
“Yes! But this is no problem, they are not mine at all, and I was not the one who spent my sweat to find them among the rocks, so I feel no injustice against me. It is quite different from ye, right? I know what is passing in this chunky hard head.”
“Yes, ye seem to know about things.”
“Besides…” The keeper continued as he raised one of his legs, revealing it was a false one. “I lost my leg long ago, how could someone mine like this?”
“How it happened?”
“I was digging, like ye, dirty wet work, lots of sweating, sparks coming when I hit the mattock on the rock, burning me, some ones lost their eyes because of stone chips. But in my case it was a big boulder, it rolled down after I hit the rock, smashed my leg, they had a hard work to remove it and get me out of there.”
“That seems quite painful.”
“Oh it was, ye can bet. But ye know what? Now that I think about it, I could say pain is like a punishment for us when we do something wrong.”
“What ye did that ye think it was wrong? Digging in the mines is an honest job.”
“Tell this to my wife. She warned me many times, she told me how dangerous it was and how she disliked the dirtiness in me after a hard day of working. She always repeated the same thing, oh yes, I can remember her words… Why don’t ye work like a smith, or like a butcher? But no, the stubborn dwarf was eager to use his mattock.”
“Then I think hearing her would have been wiser.”
“Ye bet, my friend!” The keeper said knocking on his false leg. “But as I said, this was my punishment for being stubborn, a fair punishment. All right, now, I must take your name and mark the nugget with it, so ye will be paid for it later. Tell me, friend, what is your name?”
“It is…” Torag was saying when a tremble was felt.
The sound from the many tools hitting the rock coming from inside the cave ceased, then shouts were heard, and a big noise of water gushing, the desperate cries of the miners echoed through the corridor.
“What is it?” Torag asked wide eyed.
“The water came in! From the river right above us!” The keeper exclaimed.
Torag stepped back to the cave.
“No!” The keeper said as he hold his arm. “There is nothing we can do!”
“Let me go! They are all there!” Torag spoke abruptly freeing his arm.
The keeper pushed him inside the car and ran pushing it, then jumped inside too, looking back they saw a flood of water coming from inside the cave, a deafening sound took the corridor. The water came fast but the car speeded up as the tunnel was a slope and they were coming down, some distance ahead was the end of the tunnel and
a small flight of stairs leading to the upper level. But before they got there the water reached them, pushing the car violently ahead, so abruptly that Torag and the keeper were thrown against the stairs and hit the rock. Now the water filled the way up and leaked towards a side tunnel, the dwarfs were laying on the ground, adrift, as they coughed water. It took some moments for them to recover, they were in the upper level, and right beside, the water was strongly flowing towards another tunnel, going to the lower chambers. Torag raised himself and dried his face with his hand. “They are all there!” He spoke.
The keeper came to the water and looked at it as if expecting something, then all of sudden a bald head emerged, a dwarf came out of the water and was held by Torag and the keeper, it was the foreman, he spoke among coughs: “The wall collapsed… Cof! Cof! The river came in…”
“What about the others? Torag asked.
The foreman shook his head. “Dead.” He said. “Drowned, a big boulder blocked the way… They had no chance… I was half the way to the car… That is why I’m alive, the water pushed me out.”
Torag looked at the water, desolate. “All of them…” He whispered.
Some time passed and they just stood there, more dwarfs came from the upper levels, to find out what happened.
“Ye see how things are…” The keeper whispered to Torag, still frightened. “Ye came to the car thinking about a way to keep the gem to ye… Greed saved ye.”
Torag looked to the water torrent, there came bodies of the dead miners floating and passing towards the side tunnel.
The Carpenter Elves.
Two days after leaving the Noon Dale the dwarfs were now walking in uninhabited lands again, another field that looked like the first ones they saw when they left their home, some trees were around, dropping the last leaves of the autumn, a dark formation of clouds could be seen right ahead. But they were about to reach a special kind of dwelling, a place where folks lived amongst nature, and in a very peculiar way.
“How is your arm, Olaf?” Asked Rurur.
Olaf raised his eyebrows. “Almost healed!”