When the Elves are Gone Read online

  The kindlers made no attempt to listen to the young priest’s prayers, having made the trip so many times they could complete it in their sleep. They slowly carried the corpse as near to the edge as they could bear without blistering. Without a word, the kindlers rocked the corpse rhythmically and then heaved it as far as they could into the blazing fire before them. The body quickly disappeared as the inferno swallowed it hungrily. Another journeys end.

  The same two kindlers slowly walked to the wagon and grabbed the second body, repeating the ritual. Tonge could barely concentrate now. His tunic, drenched with sweat, clung tightly to his body. He grabbed at it incessantly, managing only to pull it tighter in another area of his body with each grab. His choking cough came more often, and at one point he thought he might suffocate from the unbearable heat and ash that swirled around him. His prayers became regurgitations rather than meaningful messages as he barreled through the chants.

  At a distance, the third kindler sat staring into the fire, entranced by the swirling, dancing flames that licked the walls and ceiling like the rattling tongues of a thousand snakes. He admired the fire a moment before his eyes swiveled slowly to the carefully wrapped corpse awaiting its final journey. “How many times have I done this trek?” he asked the corpse. “Five hundred? A thousand?” Perhaps many times more. The dwarf’s nostrils filled with dull smoke, leaving a film of char over the thick paste already masking the building stench of death. He wondered why the smell of the dead lingered so heavily upon the living.

  Agonni sat in silence, awaiting his duty. He remembered passing a human burial once, when he was a small boy. He’d watched as the humans unloaded a similarly wrapped corpse from a similar wagon. Gravediggers, those humans were called. He thought at the time there was no lonelier profession in the world of Solinth than that of a gravedigger. The only relief from the hot toil of digging would be rain, but rain would make the soil into mud that would cling like an iron weight at the end of the shovel each time the spade pierced soil. A sad thing when relief comes at a greater cost than the original torture at hand, he thought.

  The dwarf was reminded of his own toil, lumbering the dead, until his own death. It was not a constant torture; it was much worse. He would labor continuously until his bones, aged and brittle, crumbled under the load. After a time, his muscles would wear and tatter like a flag snapping in the wind, age and exertion mixing like the ingredients of an assassin’s poisonous brew. The trek to Journey’s End would feel like trudging upriver through knee-deep water, his load like lead. Then one day, the walk would resemble ascending a mountain peak, dragging a dead horse behind him. He would continue, stranded on the long trek to this place until the exhausting effort became impossible and his own fluids seeped through off-white cloth like those of the corpse beside him. He would be cast into the same fire as kings and orphans, while a young priest complained like a brat about the heat and the duty of the dead.

  He looked down at the small corpse in his wagon. To this day, he cannot explain why he touched the dead child’s shoulder. Perhaps it was pity. Perhaps understanding. He gently squeezed the shoulder like a compassionate father would reassure a disappointed son.

  Agonni’s thoughts drifted back many years to meandering the mountain switchbacks with his wife. She so loved to sing back then. Her cheeks bright, she would smile and tell him that singing helped her climb. “I swear, if I were to stop, I would fall to my death,” she said, teasing him. He remembered her feigning an exaggerated fall and tumbling backward into his arms. He smiled at the memory. She had a lovely voice. His eyes suddenly welled up in frustration: he had forgotten the sound of her voice. Agonni found himself digging at the ground with his eyes, searching for the memory. The terror one feels when he loses a precious gem or gift pales in comparison to the dreadful panic of losing a cherished memory.

  The dwarf felt his heart compressing, his throat constricting, as if a noose had been cinched tightly around it. He searched the air around him, his hands quaking uncontrollably. In disbelief, he scoured his alcohol-soaked mind. Her voice…he would do anything to hear it one more time. Suddenly, a muffled cough from Jaar pulled Agonni back to the present. The dwarf shook his head, attempting to ignore his moment of drunken weakness.

  The smoke and heat sifted from wall and floor, growing more intense as the first two wagons were unloaded. Four bodies had found their way to Journey’s End; Agonni and Jaar were responsible for delivering the final four. The unusual pair, dwarf and ogre, repeated the process of the first two kindlers, moving carefully but efficiently in their work. They, too, had made this trek on so many occasions they could perform it without eyes. A few minutes later, they sent the last body on its way through Journey’s End.

  Envious, Agonni watched as long as he could before flames invaded the crowded air and he turned away. He massaged the back of his neck, dragging his fingernails through the sweat and leaving four streaks upon his flesh. He looked at his fingers, noting the new gray sludge under the fingernails. It looked as if someone had carefully penned black ink in the crevices of his skin. He rubbed his hands together and then wiped them on his pants.

  “A tragedy,” Tonge said, shaking his head in disapproval.

  Agonni ignored the young dwarf as he stretched his knotted shoulders.

  “The young one—the last corpse,” Tonge whispered in Agonni’s ear, as if a scandal had just been unearthed. “What could such a young dwarf have done to deserve such punishment?”

  The inflexion in his voice struck Agonni as that of an old lady relating gossip in a hushed tone just loud enough to be heard by everyone. “Disappointing indeed,” Tonge added dramatically. “Had Sufara only turned toward the cause of good and abstained, perhaps…Well, it matters little now.”

  Agonni cocked his head and turned his tired, bloodshot eyes toward the young priest. He squinted tightly to refresh them. “What did you say?” he asked accusingly.

  Tonge looked up dumbly at the haggard dwarf for the first time, shocked that his priestly recital had been interrupted. “I said it was a pity you couldn’t save your wife.”

  “How would you know my wife, you miserable bastard?!” Agonni spit the words, the knuckles of his first hands turning white. “You haven’t even been alive as long as she’s been gone, you fool!”

  Tonge looked at Agonni bewildered, having forgotten his place in the prayer when Agonni interrupted him. The dwarf stepped closer to him.

  The rest of the kindlers watched silently. Jaar saw fear and confusion in Tonge’s eyes as he stood before Agonni with his mouth agape. “Sufara would be alive today if you had just done something, Agonni—anything at all. But you just laid there when she was attacked. You pretended to be dead.”

  “Bastard!” Agonni wailed as he jumped at Tonge.

  The priest pressed himself tightly against the wall of the cave, watching wide eyed as Agonni balled his fist until his hand trembled and then drove it deep into his mouth, sending two of his teeth to the floor. Tonge flailed backward against the stone, spitting blood. Agonni leapt on him like a cat, driving him to the ground and wrapping his iron hands tightly around Tonge’s tiny neck. He began to crush Tonge’s throat, his strong fingers burning white and his open mouth spilling saliva on the young priest’s robe.

  Until this point, Jaar and the other kindlers had merely tossed perplexed glances toward the angry dwarf. Now they looked at each other anxiously, quickly making their way to the insane dwarf who was squeezing the life from the young priest. Jaar and the others grabbed at Agonni, and with extreme effort, pried the crazed dwarf off Tonge.

  Tonge lay there, curled like a kitten on the hard ground, shaking uncontrollably. He felt for his missing teeth, finding only empty holes. The young priest’s spectacles had been thrown from his face, adding to his confusion. Barely able to speak, he wiped the blood from his nose, mustering a high-pitched squeal. “Why?”

  The kindlers held Agonni with strong hands, restraining him during his unpredictable moment of insanity. They knew well the trouble he was in, and they shot each other looks of concern. What had made the dwarf lose control?

  Agonni felt the room begin to spin. Suddenly finding himself weak. As the fog of confusion began to lift, Agonni realized he was not bound by metal and chain but by concerned hands. He looked around, dazed.

  Agonni could not explain the perceptive reality he found himself in during moments like this, having been robbed of minute granules from the time glass and spent hours writhing in the dungeon of his own mind, starved of sustenance, of interaction, and shackled to the floor with chains just short enough to prevent him from standing. Fear crept up Agonni’s spine and into the back of his neck like a curious spider. The realization of what he had done was one thing; the reason he had done it was what froze him with fear.

  Apprehensively, the motley collection of kindlers released him.

  Agonni got up slowly and walked over to his cart. Calmly, he attached the old, leather harness, pulling the belts tight against his body. Without looking back, he heaved his wagon into a turn and pulled away from the band.

  He refused to think any more about the event as he labored forward. He would have several hours before his father sent for him or sentries came for him. Either way, he wished to be drunk when it happened.

  Chapter 2: A Face in the Mountain

  The monstrous metropolis of Stone Deep was nestled neatly into the face of the sheer, rocky cliff called Grieving Rock, which had been strategically carved into the western range of the Spike Tooth Mountains over a thousand years earlier. The lofty kingdom stood vigilant watch two thousand feet above the Dancing Sea and was home to over a million dwarves from the battle-hardened clans of Grimweller, Bronzehammer, and Fireglenn. From the sea, the mighty kingdom soared high above the clouds. (Of course, when you’re at the bottom of the world, everything above appears mighty and unreachable.)

  Stone Deep was the oldest and largest of the three dwarven kingdoms, sharing the mountain with the ancient kingdoms of Red Stone and Black Burrow. Merchants, dealers, swindlers, and cutthroats alike had looked eastward from the white curls of the Dancing Sea to behold the beauty of Grieving Rock for almost a thousand years. From the very moment that Black Burrow, the final dwarf kingdom, was hammered into the side of the mountain, the sailors had called the place Grieving Rock for the appearance it now had of a face in perpetual sorrow. The kingdom of Black Burrow, the sad façade’s right eye, lay to the north. Red Stone, next to it and lower, formed the nose; and Stone Deep was the left eye—or, as sailors referred to it, the one on the right.

  Finishing off the ever-grieving features of the mountain were the symmetrically plummeting waterfalls Lightning Strike to the north and Weeping Falls to the south, making the sad mountain face tearful. Sailors referred to them as the three-thousand-foot tears or the cloud’s lament. Yet, as impressive as the picture from the silvered waves of the Dancing Sea was, Stone Deep’s interior was even more remarkable.

  The complicated system of winding support pillars was designed to stand until the mountain itself ceased to exist. The spider-webbed pillars rose like mighty trees, branching in sweeping curves into hundreds of supporting arms. The cradling walls of the great dwarven kingdom not only stood several hundred feet above the mountain surface, but they extended over two thousand feet across the mountain, and that was only the part one could see. The walls sank an unfathomable distance deep within the mountain’s bowels and supported level upon level of towns, waterworks and other infrastructure, as well as an infinite number of tunnels.

  The Dancing Sea to the west reflected the day’s light into the enormous cavern on the main level while exhaling the constant, stirring aroma of salty seawater and fish through the city of Stone Deep. The view of the sea was spectacular from the large opening on the city level, though that was mostly an aesthetic bonus. The opening was an elevated port, where large ships that sailed the world of Solinth traded goods. Day and night, the grinding reverberation of the giant pulley system could be heard as wooden rail cars were laboriously hoisted up and down the two-thousand-foot face, delivering goods to waiting merchants on the city level of the prospering kingdom and carrying exports to ships that would take them to foreign markets.

  If one were so inclined to descend into the bowels of the kingdom, the strong smell of the sea would grudgingly give way to thick fumes of burning oil and coal, leaving one feeling as if his nostrils were stuffed with chemicals and heat rather than anything breathable. The further one traveled below, the heavier the air weighed on one’s lungs. Soot, ash, and oil leaned on the walls and floors like an elderly man, settling its weight upon anything stuck in the tunnels for any length of time. Only a few chose the solitary heat of the tunnels as their home; most would make homes anywhere other than the tunnels below the city. Poverty dictates many circumstances, however, and those with nothing lived below.

  The homes and buildings that stood within the cavernous kingdom boasted sophistication and strength. They were chiseled from the thick, mountain stone. Windows on any building were a rare sight, adding to Stone Deep’s already melancholy air. To the dwarves of Stone Deep, simplicity was not only strength but also the mother of purity, and purity was the attribute of tradition.

  But is tradition a matter of simplicity? At times, clinging to tradition feels like hugging a mountain cat through a bath. We hold on until we can bear it no longer, and then we wonder why we did it in the first place. Tradition tends to find comfort in its rich and spectacular presentation, commanding respect in the facade of historical preservation. It is the ruler’s poetic name for habit, and the poor man’s justification to follow it.

  A society whose weight is borne on tradition is fragile, for tradition is nothing more than the habits of past practice presented as useful and relevant. Although it can be agreed that some tradition makes a population cohesive, it can be argued that too much is poison. The kingdom of Stone Deep was not without tradition; very much the opposite was true. To a great fault, Stone Deep was drenched in carefully handpicked ribbons of tradition, tattering the frail boundaries of what was and what is. And while tradition solidified power in this kingdom, it worked to no end to unravel a particularly lonely dwarf named Agonni.

  Chapter 3: A House Where No One Lives

  The warm, oppressive air hung heavy, like a thick wool blanket in the tiny, stone-block room, exaggerating the musty odor of mold and decay. The lingering stench of body odor had sunk into the pores of the place. Remnants of rolled tobacco sealed in prana leaf sat in a dirty clay cup, leaking smoke from one end. The haze from the butt swirled lazily to the ceiling and clung to each stalk of the straw roof.

  A single orange-flickering candle sat alone on a filthy, old wooden table at the center of the room, forcing dark-orange shadows to dance haphazardly around the small space. The thick, brown candle, once tall and proud, now resembled an ugly, dying volcano, pouring its contents widely onto the table and floor. The elderly candle was nearing the end of its life. Melted wax firmly rooted itself to the old, stout table, which had fared no better: stains and scratches covered its entire grimy surface. Bits of petrified meat and remnants of spilled ale clung to the grooves in its wooden slats, and pipe tobacco littered the surface.

  A thick coat of green moss and chalky white salt stains wrapped the four dilapidated stone walls surrounding the two lonely figures trapped within them.

  The dwarf appeared as an extension of the chair he occupied, both the living and the inanimate sharing a miserable existence. The old chair, held together at the joints by knotted twine, rocked uneasily with each shifting movement he made. The seat bottom had lost its plush cushion long ago; intertwined metal cord and a generous portion of flattened, dry hay had replaced it. Agonni sat quietly on his straw throne consumed by simple thoughts, clouded in the dense fog of inebriation.

  He read the poem again, poring over the meticulous curves of each letter. He thought back to the day he had penned it. The cloth parchment was new then. He remembered the care he had taken in dipping the quill to write each word on the then-bright surface. Twenty years had taken a toll on the weave, as it had on the dwarf. The parchment, now old and faded, had become thin and fragile. He looked at the worn fabric paper and closed his eyes, reciting the poem one last time. Exhausted, he rested his head on the chair back. He no longer needed the faded words to remind him of what the poem said; he had memorized it long ago. Opening his eyes, he brushed his fingers lightly across the words that he had taken such care in writing so many years ago in the slight hope they might come alive. The dwarf had vowed that day that he would sooner take his own life than forget her. It would certainly kill him now to admit that vow hinged on a built-up memory of pieced-together recollections and worn certainty. Sadly, the poem had become a frail footbridge between reality and memory, attempting to span eternity with rotted wood planks and frayed cord.

  He dragged the chewed nail of his index finger across the scab of a self-inflicted carving on his cheek that refused to heal. With a steady clumsiness, he carefully rearranged his thick fingers to follow the creased fold marks of the tightly woven cloth parchment, pondering how many times he had read the poem. More times in more years than I can recollect, he thought. His fingers trembled as he folded the cloth in its proper order. Sighing heavily, he returned the folded parchment to his pocket.

  Absently, he reached for his warm ale. The last of the hickory-spiced brew left a frothy cloud on his thick, greasy mustache. He ran a callused finger along the etching on the intricately engraved pewter mug. Careful to follow the darkened crevices, the dwarf traced the swirling image of a dragon from snout to tail and back again, and then stared at the dark-gray stain it left on his fingertip. Gripping the mug handle tightly, he squinted hard and heaved the cup at the sulking shadow across from him. The heavy vessel struck the figure hard, causing the skin above his right eye to burst open. The figure groaned in pain and grabbed at his bloody brow.