A demon and his dwarf (part 2)
He kept the kilt. And the vest of elven silk, white as the Blessed Father. When he rode out it was evening and the last rays of the Blessed Queen glittered orange in the foreign threads. With the setting sun in his eyes, he headed to the Ashen hills, looming dark and forbidding. He had seen it from his window for sixteen years, and a vague sense of excitement filled him, at finally approaching them. They were the border of the northern realm, and rose in peak upon peak out over the Red Plains that separated their Sun touched kingdom from the unknown lands of the Lunar kindreds; elves, humans, dwarves and the strange Tsik, birds with human faces. The Ashen hills were rumoured to contain dwarves, hidden in the deep dark caves – but other rumours claimed the dwarves were dead, fled, or mere legends. Treasures on the other hand – all rumours spoke of them. A’Grih wondered why there would be treasures – but no dwarves to protect them, or anyone else for that matter.
The night was deepening, black upon the black hills, when he arrived at the path to the caves. His pupils widened, like a cat, drinking in the light of stars and the two moons, and he stepped lightly down from the riderbeast. It grunted a wish of good luck, and A’Grih stroked its nose.
“Stay here, my friend,” he whispered, and then he started climbing the path, dark grey rocks against dark brown soil, under the looming ashen grey hills. A glint of moonlight passed over the silk and eyes and golden horntips, and then A’Grih himself was a shadow within shadows. He found a crack in the rocks and he pressed himself into the deeper darkness under tons of stone, into the bowels of the earth itself.
It was oppressive, blinding, deafening. There were no moons to light his way, no breath of wind and tree to soothe his cheeks and measure space. There was only the crack, the path, the smooth walls against his groping hands, and he went onwards. For a brief moment he wondered if he might find anything at all, and what might happen should he return empty handed, but the thought was so much more terrifying than the night under the Ashen Hills, that he walked onwards, for hour upon hour.
It must have been close to dawn that he heard the faint tinkling of metal on stone, smelled the smoke of torches, and the blackness subtly lightened to black greyness. He understood that not all of the rumours were merely that, and tore off the arms of his elven shirt, once white as Blessed Father, now grey with dust and darkness, to bind around his hooves and muffle the clip clopping against the rocks and pebbles.
Guards there were, between him and the tinklings and the treasure, but he moved past them like a shadow within shadows. He wondered a little at that, wondered how he could sneak and not be noticed by strong warriors, ever alert, but he moved onwards to the light that beckoned him.
Before him stood a room, square shaped, with a forge in the corner, enticingly hot like the Blessed Queen, and a table with the prettiest little bauble A’Grih had ever laid his eyes on. A brooch of filigree gold around a blood red ruby as big as his thumbnail. He wanted to take it – and then he saw the craftsman beside it. A dwarf, of course, shorter than himself, but as wide as father over the shoulders. His silken strands of gold hair was plaited and tucked into tiny metal bands, and a leather apron covered a simple tunic and woollen leggings. Slippers were on his feet – feet with toes like a female – A’Grih shook himself at the oddity. He had never seen the Lunar races up close, but he had always imagined them a little like himself – only frailer.
The dwarf looked up, startled by the intruder, opened his mouth to shout, and A’Grih moved to grasp the brooch.
They stood still, one with a pair of harmless tweezers in his hand, the other with a hand on the brooch and the other on his knife. They looked into each others face; panic, anger, desperation and fear.
A’Grih saw beyond the terrified, round face of a pitiful enemy into a soft face, a face of gentleness and kindness – and between them it seemed his hands rose in strange gestures. From the gestures rose beings, flowers, animals, stars and lights. Dancing, shimmering, appearing, disappearing. He lifted his real hand, stared at it, moved it – and around it moved ghostly shadows, shadows that with only a little concentration coaleced into beings, flowers, animals, stars and lights. He stared at the dwarf again. It was sweating, looking partly at the ghosts between them, partly staring into the depths of his eyes. “Enough!” it whispered. “Enough! Take the jewel and go! I can’t do this. I can’t know this. I’m not this.”
“But you are,” whispered A’Grih back, dazed. “My Source. I – I didn’t even know it could be a singular being like this. I didn’t even know I had a Gift. I didn’t know…” For a moment his heart sang – then the terror of what father would say engulfed him. He grabbed the brooch and ran back through the shadows, shaping them now with purpose to surround him, and the guards did not know where he passed them.