Serpent Mage (5 page)

It's odd for me to think a stranger may be reading this after I am dead. Odder still to find myself sharing my fears and doubts with a stranger, when I can't share them with those I love. Perhaps that person will be from another sea-moon. If there are other seamoons, which I doubt. Still, Alake says it's sinful to think that the One might have made us and no one else. But we dwarves are great doubters, suspicious of anything that hasn't been around at least as long as we have.

I doubt that our deaths will accomplish anything.

I doubt that the Masters of the Sea will keep their word. Our sacrifice will be for nothing. Our people are doomed.

There. I've put it down at last. I feel better for it, though I will have to make certain now that Alake never sees this journal.

My name is Grundle.

It came much easier that time. My father is Yngvar Heavy beard, Vate
²
of the Gargan. My mother is Hilda. In her youth, she was said to be the most beautiful woman in all the seamoon. Songs have been made of
my
beauty, but I've seen a portrait done on her wedding day; I'm plain, compared to her. Her side whiskers came almost to her waist and were the honey color, which is extremely rare and prized among dwarves.

My father tells the story that when my mother stepped out onto the field of contest, the other contenders took one look at her and walked off, leaving her the unchallenged winner. My mother, I am told, was extremely put out at this, for she had practiced long at the ax-throw and could hit the target
five times out of six. If I had stayed on Gargan, they would have been holding the marriage contests for me, since I'm near the end of the Time of Seeking.

That blot is a tear. Now I'm certain I can't let Alake see this! I wasn't crying for myself, mind you. I was crying for Hartmut. He loves me very much. And I love him. But I can't let myself think about him or the tears will wash out the ink on the page.

The person who finds this will probably be astonished to discover a dwarf writing this account. Our people have little use for such matters as reading and writing and ciphering. Writing makes the mind lazy, according to my people, who each keep the entire history of Gargan in their heads, plus the history of their individual families. Dwarves, in fact, have no written language of their own, which is why I am writing this in human.

We keep excellent accounts in our heads, as well—a marvel to human and elven purveyors. I have yet to see the dwarf who couldn't tell to the grain how much money he or she has made in a lifetime. Some old graybeards will go on for cycles!

I myself would never have learned to read and write, except that I am—or was—destined to be ruler of my people. And since I would be dealing so closely with our human and elven allies, my father and mother decided that I should be brought up among them and educated in their ways. And (I think they considered this more important!) they wanted me to educate the humans and elves in our ways.

At an early age, I was sent to Elmas—the elven seamoon
³
—along with Alake, the daughter of the chieftain of Phondra. Alake is near my age mentally, if not in terms of actual cycles. (Humans lead such pitifully short lives, they are forced to grow up rapidly.) With us was Sabia, the elven princess, who joined us in our studies.

Beautiful, gentle Sabia. I will never see her again. But the One be thanked that she escaped this cruel fate.

We three girls spent many years together, driving our teachers to distraction and learning to love each other like sisters. Indeed, we became closer than most sisters I've known, for there was never any rivalry or jealousy between us.

Our only disagreements stemmed from learning to put up with the others' shortcomings. But our parents were wise in raising us together. For example, I had never much liked humans. They talk too loudly and too fast, are too aggressive, and keep bouncing from one subject to another, one place to another. They never seem to sit still or take time to think.

Being around humans over a long period of time taught me to understand that their impatience and ambition and their constant need for hurry, hurry, hurry is just their way of attempting to outrace their own mortality.

By contrast, I learned that the long-lived elves are not lazy dreamers, as most dwarves consider them, but people who simply take life at their leisure, without a worry or care for tomorrow, since they are certain to have almost innumerable tomorrows left to deal with it.

And Alake and Sabia were good enough to put up with my blunt honesty, a trait of my people. (I would like to think it is a good one, but it
can
be carried to extremes!) A dwarf will always tell the truth, no matter how little anyone else is prepared to hear it. We can also be very stubborn, and once we dig in our heels we stay put and rarely budge. An unusually stubborn human is said to have “feet like a dwarf.”

In addition, I learned how to speak and write fluent human and elven (though our poor governess was always offended by the awkward way I held my pen). I studied the histories of their seamoons and their differing versions of the history of our world, Chelestra. But what I truly learned was affection for my dear sister-friends and, through them, their races.

We used to plan what we would do to bring our people even closer together when we at last came to rule, each of us on our own seamoon.

Never to be. We none of us will live that long.

I suppose I had better tell what happened.

It all began the day I was to bless the sun-chaser.
My
day. My wonderful day.

I could not sleep for excitement. Hurriedly I dressed myself in my best clothes—a long-sleeved blouse of plain and serviceable fabric (we have no use for frills), an overdress laced behind, and stout, thick boots. Standing before the looking glass in my bedroom in my father's house, I began the day's most important task: brushing and curling my hair and side whiskers.

The time seemed all too short before I heard my father calling for me. I made believe I hadn't heard him, stood looking at myself with a critical eye, wondering if I was fit to be seen in public. You mustn't think that such attention to my appearance was all for vanity's sake. As heir to the Gargan throne, I'm expected to both look and act the part.

I had to admit—I was pretty.

I cleared away the pots of oil, imported from the elves of Elmas, and replaced the curling tongs carefully in their stand by the grate. Sabia, who has servants falling all over her (and who has never once brushed her own long blonde hair), can't get over the fact that I not only dress myself, but clean up afterward. We Gargan are a proud and self-sufficient people and would never dream of waiting on each other in a menial capacity. Our Vater chops his own fire wood; our Muter does her own laundry and sweeps her own floor. I curl my own hair. The only mark of distinction the royal family receives above all other Gargan is that we are expected to work twice as hard as anyone else.

Today, however, our family was to have one of the rewards for services rendered to the people. The fleet of sun-chasers had been completed. My father would ask the blessing of the One upon them, and I would have the honor of nailing a lock of my hair to the bow of the flagship.

My father yelled again. Swiftly, I left my room, hurried out into the hall.

“Where is the lass?”
I
heard
my father demand
of my
mother. “The seasun will have passed us by. We'll be frozen solid by the time she's ready.”

“This is her big day,” said my mother soothingly. “You want her to look well. All her suitors will be there.”

“Bah!” Father grumbled. “She's far too young to be thinking of such things.”

“Perhaps. But what catches the eye now catches the head later,” said my mother, quoting a dwarven proverb.
⁴

“Hunh!” My father snorted.

But, when he caught sight of me, his stomach puffed out with pride, and he said nothing more about my being late.

Father, I miss you so! Oh, how hard it is! How hard.

We left our house that is more like a cave bored straight into the mountain. All our homes and businesses are built inside the mountain, unlike human and elven structures that are built on the mountain slopes. It took me a long time to get used to living in the Elmas coral castle that seemed, in my mind, to cling precariously to the rock. I had dreams about its tumbling down the mountainside, carrying me with it!

The morning was beautiful. The rays of the seasun shimmered up through the waves.
⁵
The sparse clouds that floated over the warren caught the sun's glow. My family joined the throngs of dwarves walking down the steeply sloping path
to the shore of the Goodsea. Our neighbors called out to my father, more than a few coming up to slap him on his broad stomach—a typical dwarven form of greeting—and invite him to join them in the tavern after the ceremony.

My father slapped stomachs in return, and we continued down the mountainside. When on land, the Gargan travel everywhere on their own two feet. Carts are meant to haul potatoes, not people. And although we dwarves have grown accustomed to the sight of elves riding around in carriages and humans using beasts to bear their burdens, most Gargans consider such laziness to be a symbol of the weakness inherent in the other two races.

The only vehicle we dwarves use are our famous submersibles—ships designed to sail the Goodsea. Such ships— the dwarves' pride—were developed out of necessity since we have an unfortunate tendency to sink like stones in the water. The dwarf has not been born who can swim.

We Gargans are such clever shipbuilders that the Phondrans and the Elmas, who once built ships of their own, ceased to do so and came to rely solely on our craft. Now, with the help of financing from the humans and elves, we had constructed our masterpiece—a fleet of sun-chasers, enough submersibles to carry the populations of three seamoons.

“It's been generations since we have been called on to build the sun-chasers,” stated my father. We had paused a moment to look proudly down from the steeply slanting roadway to the harbor at sea level, far below. “And never a fleet this big, designed to carry so many. This is a historic occasion, one that will be long remembered.”

“And such an honor for Grundle,” said my mother, smiling at me.

I returned my mother's smile, but said nothing. We dwarves are not noted for our sense of humor, but I am considered serious-minded and sober even for a dwarf and my thoughts today were concentrated on my duties. I have an extremely practical nature, not a shred of sentimentality or romance (as Sabia used to comment sadly).

“I wish your friends were here to see you today,” my mother added. “We invited them, but, of course, they are extremely busy among their own people, preparing for the Sun Chase.”

“Yes, Mother,” I agreed. “It would have been nice if they could have come.”

I would not alter dwarven life-style for the trapping of the seasun, but I could not help envying the respect accorded Alake by the Phondrans or the love and reverence shown Sabia by the Elmas. Among my people I am, most of the time, just another dwarf maiden. I comforted myself with the knowledge that I would be able to tell my friends all about it and (I must be honest) with the knowledge that neither would have a lock of
her
hair on the bow of a sun-chaser!

We reached the harbor, where the gigantic submersibles floated at anchor. Now that I was near them, I was overawed by the immensity of the ships, the amount of work that had gone into creating them.

The sun-chasers had been built to resemble black whales, their prows smooth and made of the dry wood of Phondra, so-called because it is covered with a type of natural resin that protects it from water damage. Windows studded the hull, shining like jewels in the seasun. And the size! I couldn't believe it! Each sun-chaser, and there were ten of them, was nearly eight stadion
⁶
in length. I marveled at the size, but then, I reminded myself, they have to carry the populations of three realms.

The sea breeze rose. I smoothed my whiskers, my mother patted my hair into place. The crowd of dwarves gathered at the wharf made way good-naturedly for us. The Gargans, though excited, were orderly and disciplined, none of the
boisterous shoving and pushing that one would have seen in a similar gathering of humans.

We walked among them, nodding to left and right. The dwarven men put their hands to their forelocks, a sign of formal respect, suitable to the solemnity of the occasion. The women curtsied and prodded their offspring, who were staring openmouthed at the great submersibles and who could not be made to turn their attention from these wonders to such an everyday sight as their king.

I walked beside my mother, the proper place for an unmarried young dwarf maid. I looked straight ahead, endeavoring to keep my eyes modestly lowered, my mind on what I was supposed to do. But I had difficulty preventing my glance from straying to the two long rows of leather-armored, clean-shaven young men standing at attention at the end of the wharf.

All dwarven males, at the Time of Seeking, are expected to serve in the military. The best had been chosen to act as honor guard for the Vater and his family this day. It was one of the these young men who, more than likely, would win the privilege of being my husband. It wasn't really proper for me to have favorites, but I knew Hartmut would be able to easily defeat all comers.

He caught me looking at him and gave me a smile that made me go all warm inside. He is so good-looking! His russet hair is long and thick, his side whiskers are auburn, and his beard, when he is allowed to grow it after his marriage, will most certainly match. He has already attained the rank of fourclan master, a high honor for an unmarried dwarf.
⁷

The soldiers, at a word from their marshall, brought their arms—axes, the favored weapon—up in salute, whirled them around, and thudded the axheads on the ground.

I noted that Hartmut handled his ax with far greater dexterity than any other dwarf in his clan. This boded well for the future since ax-throwing, chopping, and ducking determine the winner of the marriage contest.