II
Trials and Effort
8
The Most Serene Council of Dwarves was forty strong; its members were known as the Grisly-beards because their combined age was six thousand four hundred and twenty-eight. Despite their venerable years, not a dwarf among them had wrestled with a problem such as that now under consideration. What to do with the pixy and the girl was no problem: The Constitution of the Dwarfish Lands was clear on that point; so was the Dwarfish Code of Hospitality, known by heart even to dwarflings. What to do with the boy Adam was another matter.
First, there was a problem since he was seriously ill—worse, he was hovering between life and death. He’d lain in a fever for many days, his skin had a deathly pallor under the beads of sweat, and the girl and the pixy had refused to leave his side. Balom, having found the companions, felt a responsibility for them, so it was he who called the best doctors in the land to Adam’s bedside. It was clear that the gash to the boy’s face was infected. He’d learnt from the girl that the slash had come from a foul black kite. Those birds were worse than carrion crows: one never knew what their talons might have ripped through.
Emily was distraught. She couldn’t get the three dwarves that passed as doctors to make a decision. Dwarves love taking their time and are prone to argument, so while Adam, gripped by fever, struggled for his life, the three dwarves spent their time quarrelling. It was when she threatened to get rid of two of them that they reluctantly reached a decision. Their fear of not being the chosen one was greater than the antipathy among them. Dwarves hate to lose face, so they agreed (with astonishing speed) to clean the wound and to mix up a medicine made of the third part of sesame oil, the third, grated beeswax and the third, honey.
Some dwarves were ordered to carry a brazier to place by the bedside where the doctors (not without angry discussion first) melted the ingredients over a gentle heat in a double boiler. Then they argued again about what to add to the liquid. It was only when Emily, who’d been bathing Adam’s forehead with a cool, wet cloth, screamed and threatened them with the scalpel she’d confiscated (when they wanted to bleed her brother) that they decided (with astonishing speed) to add five drops of peppermint oil. They removed the liquid from the heat, and when they’d finished arguing about how cool it should be, they applied it to Adam’s wound.
The fever broke the next day; Adam woke to find his sister’s silver eyes, full of grateful tears, peering down at him. He felt as weak as a female pixy, but as Emily said, he should be grateful to be alive—and he was. Now he must get his strength back. For this, the doctors recommended a diet of bread and honey. Honey, they said, was the best remedy. On this, all three agreed immediately, which convinced Emily that honey really was the best remedy!
Meanwhile, the meeting of the Most Serene Council of Dwarves had lasted only seventy-three days, a short time by Dwarfish standards, when they reached a decision about Emily and Lar. “It is clear,” Balom the Black announced, “that the girl and the pixy are not a problem. They may stay, always provided that they agree to work hard.”
“They will have to be apprenticed to a craft or a trade,” Torobin, the oldest and most wizened of the dwarves, cautioned. Once Torobin agreed to anything, a decision soon followed, as he was by far the most difficult of the dwarves. The vote allowing them to stay was taken; so, the quickest decision in the entire history of the Dwarf Council – a mere seventy-three days – was recorded.
The problem of the boy was certainly a knotty one. It took four hundred and eleven more days, during which time Emily and Lar had served their first year of apprenticeship before the dwarves reached a decision. Even then, they wouldn't have done so had Torobin not been suddenly stricken by Dwarfish Lock-tongue. This ailment (which can afflict over-talkative elderly dwarves) forced him to take to his bed. A circumstance which enabled a decision, urged by the most forceful of the councillors, Balom the Black, to be hurried through.
“The boy is clearly a problem,” he summed up. “If he had come here without the orb, that would have been a different matter. But to come from that foul place with a stolen orb—” the dwarf knitted his imposing black eyebrows, “why, it is a grievous matter.” He paused and looked around the gathering, which, after four hundred and eighty-four days, was just beginning to warm to the case. Some stroked grey beards, others nodded sagely or rested a forefinger wisely against a lip.
“While it’s true that boy was not the original thief, he must still be put to the test,” Balom's deep voice rumbled from his barrel-chest.
“Ay, put him to the test!” others agreed eagerly.
“We don't really know where the boy comes from. He, least of all, seems able to explain. Yet, he must have some good in him,” Balom argued, “or else the orb would have punished him by now. We all know about the elven magic sealed in the sphere and how only one who is worthy may safely bear it.”
“Ay, but how worthy?” Strutt the Stammerer was so interested in the case that he didn’t stammer.
“Put him to the test!” various Grisly-beards shouted.
“Should agreement be reached without Torobin?” someone asked.
“It would never be reached with him, that's for sure,” Balom grumbled. Later, after his tongue was freed, and to the end of his very long life, Torobin always swore that the decision was taken with unseemly haste. In the high-vaulted Council Cave, the decision was taken to put Adam the Stranger to the test. It was to be no ordinary test. For, to tell the truth, Balom was more cunning than the average dwarf, who is generally simple and honest (if stubborn). Balom was aware of the powerful elven magic in the orb. He saw an opportunity here for all the Dwarfish race.
The boy was to seek the lost Key of Ingenuity. Once the suggestion left Balom's lips, there was no restraining the enthusiasm of the assembled Grisly-beards. What did it matter that the Key was with Lentor the Dragon? It had been so for a thousand years. Should the boy prove worthy, the elven orb would protect him; if not, he would simply be devoured. In either case, the problem of Adam the Stranger had been most ably resolved.
Balom the Black decided to carry the news to the Stranger himself. He left the high cave mouth behind him and wandered deep in thought through neat fields of oats and barley to the village. It had been many generations, he reflected, since the dwarves had left the caves and turned to farming. Long ago, before the Key had been lost, dwarves worked on the crafts dwarves had always worked on. Magic blades, beautiful jewellery, fine armour, all these had been the everyday skills of even the simplest dwarf. Now, almost all these skills had been lost. What art was left, was practised by few, such as Bella the Fair. Well, she had been fair in her younger days. Balom smiled at the memory. Now Bella the Wrinkly would be more apt. Bella, alone among them, retained some of the old skill for fashioning beautiful objects.
They chose the girl, Emily, to be apprenticed to Bella. Balom wondered how she was getting on. Four hundred eighty-four days she had been with Bella: no time at all, really.
Balom turned down the main street of the village and almost fell over three dwarf children playing hop-dwarf. One of them had succeeded in rolling his stone onto number 754 and had hopped straight into Balom. “Look out, young rascal!” Balom the Black growled fiercely. “Haven't you anything better to do with your time, like work, for instance?”
“Oh yes, sir,” the dwarfling answered politely – for dwarflings love work – “but we've only been playing this game for three weeks, sir.” This reply satisfied Balom, who headed for Bella's workshop, after patting the dwarfling on his head.
Bella was almost three hundred years old. Quite an age, even for a dwarf. Her hair was completely white and her skin was terribly wrinkled. It was a source of general amusement that she bought expensive herbal anti-wrinkle cream at the market. She still had a twinkling eye, but it was difficult to imagine that she had once been a beautiful dwarf. The joke doing the rounds was that Bella’s wrinkles were so deep that she needed mortar rather than anti-wrinkle cream. Balo
m smiled to himself but, for all his gruffness, was very fond of Bella.
He looked around the workshop. All sorts of tools with the tackle that goldsmiths use for their work were hanging from the low, beamed ceiling. Likewise, tools and half-completed pieces of jewellery covered the benches.
“Bella!” Balom boomed, startling the old dwarf and the girl, who was sitting on a stool in a corner of the workshop.
“Balom, you oaf!” the goldsmith snapped. “You've made me solder the wrong joint! I shall have to start again!” She tutted crossly and removed her magnifying glass from her eye. “What do you want, anyway?”
“Thought I'd call in and see how the girl is coming on.”
“Oh, her!” Bella snapped. “She's driving me mad,” the goldsmith screwed up her wrinkled face until it looked like a large raisin.
“Oh?”
“Well, she's only been here two minutes; now, she wants to make things. Make things! I ask you! As if it's that easy. Just look at all these unfinished things. I can't finish them. Things used to be different in the Old Days. And this little minx thinks she can just swan in here and make jewellery in two minutes without any snags. I ask you!” Bella paused for breath and unwrinkled her face a little. Emily had been listening to all this from her stool in the corner, where she sat with an enormous book on her knees. She had kept quiet because their visitor looked fierce. Now she looked up again.
She took a deep breath, and all her resentment flooded out. “Well, in the first place, I've been here for more than a year. All I ever do is read this book.” She struggled to hold up the leather-bound volume so that Balom could read the title, The Dwarfish Art of Jewellification. At least, he would have read it if it hadn't been wobbling so much at Emily's effort to hold it up. “And I'm sick of reading it!” She heaved the book dramatically onto the bench, sending up a cloud of dust, and jumped off her stool.
“But a year is no time at all,” Balom smiled patiently as Emily's silver eyes flashed angrily. “Why, apprentices are bound for seventy years before they become masters of their craft,” he explained.
“Dwarves maybe!” Emily burst out angrily. “But I'll be dead by then! Humans don't live as long as dwarves. In any case,” she added boldly, “how do you know that humans don't learn faster than dwarves?” She smiled sweetly as she said this and was relieved to see the thunderous look disappear from Balom’s brow. Balom had a weakness for a pretty face.
“Now you see what I have to put up with!” Bella grumbled.
“Well, Bella, let's face it,” Balom said slowly, “Success hasn't passed through these doors for many, many years. Let the girl try her hand, eh?”
“But she's got another twenty-nine years’ reading yet! The idea's preposterous!”
“The girl is right, Bella. She is not a dwarf. Let's see what a fine mess she makes!” He laughed and winked at Bella, who slowly changed expression, too, finally agreeing to the joke with a laugh. Why not see what a fool the little minx made of herself? She could start immediately. Emily bit her lip and looked very determined. She’d show them a thing or two!
9
The next day towards nightfall, Mangey Yellow-fang, half-starved with hunger, led his pack of wolves in a headlong charge towards the boy, the pixy and the dwarf. Their empty bellies drove them forward at breathtaking speed for the kill. The dwarf barely had time to leap to his feet and shout a warning and the boy scarcely time to snatch out his orb—but what an orb! At the sight of it, old Yellow-fang dug in his front paws and skidded to a halt. The pursuing wolves tumbled and barged into him, but his wary eyes never left the orb. He did not approach, for the creature that held the orb was content to stand its ground, and Yellow-fang sensed danger. The pain in his belly grew sharper in the knowledge that he would have to go hungry a while yet. The pack-leader didn’t know why he was so afraid of the orb. Something about it flashed a warning to his savage heart; better to slink away with his miserable pack.
“Phew! That was close!” Adam thrust Cari back in his pocket.
“We must learn from it, friend Adam,” Palustric the Dwarf cautioned. “Nothing is gained in this Land without toil. Here were we, thinking that the first day of our adventure had gone well, carelessly settling down for the night without making the proper effort. From now on, we must take the trouble to build a stockade at night, no matter how tired we are.” Adam was too tired to build a stockade. Just the thought of it made him sway with weariness.
“Palustric is right, Master.” Lar looked into the young dwarf's sincere brown eyes and nodded his approval. “The tail is the most difficult part of the beast to skin, is it not so, Master?”
“I don't know, Lar,” Adam snapped. “I'm too tired tonight to think about what your riddles mean.”
Palustric looked sternly at Adam. He folded his muscular arms across his broad chest and took a deep breath. “What Lar means is that towards the end of any task is the hardest part because that's when you're tired and you hurry to get finished, then you spoil everything.”
“Well, I'm glad that you understand that I'm tired after all this walking,” Adam grumbled.
After a tedious argument with Palustric (dwarves love arguing), they climbed a tree near the forest's edge. Adam settled into a hollow between two branches and unhitched his belt, which he fastened around a branch and through a loop in his trouser-band. He didn't like the idea of rolling out into space in his sleep.
Palustric didn't get to sleep, he was too uncomfortable in the tree. Elves, not dwarves, are suited to trees. As he dozed fitfully, he thought over what had happened the day before. His uncle Balom had always favoured him among his nephews. He was his uncle’s sister’s youngest son, still too young to wear a beard. Dwarves may only grow a beard after they reach fifty—the age of majority. Perhaps it was because he was still only forty-four that Uncle Balom continued to treat him like a child. Yesterday, Balom had made it clear that it was unthinkable to send one’s nephew up Mount Ember, especially with a stranger. Palustric thought of Adam and smiled. Adam was a friend, and Palustric was proud that he had defied his uncle and come along, whatever fate lay in store for them. Balom had also tried to persuade Lar to return to Elm-dale, but Lar insisted that he would never abandon his Master.
Still, something bothered Palustric; it would give him no peace. Balom had made him swear upon the Sacred Anvil and Bellows of the disused Smithy, where the Key had been forged, that he would go no further than the foot of Mount Ember. In other words, thought Palustric, easing his poor uncomfortable back into a better position on his branch, he had promised to abandon his friend just when he would be most needed.
Palustric turned and squirmed in the tree. He yawned and rubbed his eyes, turned and wriggled and fell out of the tree, landing on a perfectly soft cushion of leaves, where he fell asleep, wolves or no wolves.
Adam woke feeling refreshed to find Lar and Palustric already up and about. He yawned and scratched his head before unhitching his belt and climbing down to join them. Another yawn: “What's for breakfast?” Continuing his conversation with Lar, without looking round, Palustric pointed towards the heavy pack which he alone had carried the previous day.
Adam stepped over to the pack and began to unlace it. As he did so, he saw that the pack contained at least ten big glass jars. He took out the first jar and examined it. Palustric and Lar were still talking. He held the jar up to the sunlight. It had a translucent golden colour. “Honey,” Adam murmured, and a sour expression crossed his handsome but scarred face. He liked honey, but he’d eaten nothing else throughout his convalescence. He took out another jar: honey! All the other jars contained honey. Adam groaned. Just honey! No wonder the pack was so bulky. There were also three or four loaves of bread and some spoons. Adam raised his voice, “Only honey?”
Palustric and Lar stopped chatting and looked around.
“Don't you like honey?” Palustric asked, surprised.
“Well, yes, but we've only got honey.”
“When there's ho
ney, you don't need anything else. It is the product of endless toil by bees.” Palustric looked at Lar for support.
“Ay, honey is full of energy, Master,” the little pixy smiled.
Adam blew out his cheeks and said nothing. He replaced the jars, grumbling to himself, before biting into a hefty chunk of bread coated with honey. Palustric smiled as Adam ate because this was Uncle Balom's best honey. But when the boy had finished, he refused to admit how much he had enjoyed it. “It’s all right, I suppose,” he muttered, and Lar and Palustric smiled knowingly at each other.
They had a rough map which Balom had drawn for them. Judging by yesterday’s progress, from the map, Adam calculated that they would be at the foot of Mount Ember in five days. An owl screamed twice, interrupting his thoughts. Adam looked around and found the bird perched in a nearby tree. Pleased, he called to Lar and Palustric: “Have you seen the owl?” He pointed it out.
“It's a barn owl,” Palustric said, but his voice held a strange note.
Adam noticed at once. “What's wrong, they're supposed to be wise, aren't they?”
Palustric shook his head. “It's not the barn owl which is wise.”
“Which owl is it, then?”
The dwarf shook his head again and seemed distracted. “I don't know, I can't remember.”
“Lar, do you know?”
The pixy squinted hard and shrugged. “I thought all owls were wise, Master.”
“No, they're not!” Palustric’s irritability surprised Adam.
“Well, it doesn't really matter,” he said. “Let's go!”
“No!” Palustric's deep voice boomed. “We cannot.”
“Why not?”
“Because the owl is looking at you.”
“Well?”
Dwarves are stubborn and very superstitious. “Blessed where it sits, bitter where it looks,” Palustric recited ominously. “Today we cannot move, or we'll surely meet with misfortune.” He planted his feet apart and folded his arms.
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