Elbar Goldfist Strikes the Earth!
One of the Myths of Ixonia
'What do you mean, NO!?' Elbar Goldfist bellowed up at the Lom Consortium panel. He craned his neck up just to see the bulge of their noses over the desk's parapet.
'This panel has assessed the need for further mining companies and determined we don't require one. You are welcome to re-apply in 6 months,' the snivelling bureaucrat said. Her glasses perched on the end of her nose with a pearl chain keeping them fastened to her lapels.
'This is the fifth time you've said no! I have contacts up in the clouds and in the Airship Guild clamouring for Lom Crystals and you say NO! What do I have to do? Climb up Torin's Column and take a piss from his nose into an ale mug below? Or is it gold you want? Or perhaps I should come back there and get down on my knees? Every damn 'I' was dotted and 'T' crossed.'
The bureaucrat pursed her lips, the men either side of her turning crimson, 'Nothing quite so rude, or illegal,' she leaned over the bench with narrowed eyes. 'We simply don't require another mine shaft in the Great Lom, that is all.'
'Moluc muck!'
The bureaucrat gasped and removed her glasses, 'I'm sorry. You need to leave. Re-apply in 6 months if you wish and we will consider your application along with all the others.'
'You'll have to force me out! I want a proper answer! None of this paperwork rigmarole. None of this greased palms and backroom deals twaddle!'
Elbar Goldfist landed with a crunch on the steps of Lom Consortium Hall. The four security guards dusted their hands and retreated up the stairs cursing all the way. One held a handkerchief to his nose while another snapped his pinky back into place. 'Waste of time. Do everything right and some rubberneck tells you to do one,' he dusted himself off. 'Then they smile and make you say thank you while they piss on your chips. Sod them.'
'I take it they said no?' his nephew, Tharun, said. He leaned against a tree munching a fillet of fried fish wrapped in yesterday's newspaper. Crumbs littered his moustache in flecks of white and golden brown.
'Aye, they said no.'
'Now what?'
Elbar sat on the step, head in his hands. A voice, perhaps his own, perhaps some celestial, whispered in his mind, do it anyway. He looked up, the smell of fried fish, well peppered and spiced, making his stomach rumble. 'Let's go home and tap a keg.'
'Afternoon drinking? You must have a wild idea, uncle.'
'Run and get me a fish and chips would ya. Make it two,' Elbar grumbled and tossed his nephew a gold shield, enough to buy twenty-four portions. 'Give the change to you know where.'
'Aye, will do,' the kid, near twenty summers, sauntered off towards Salty Towers for his uncle's dinner.
Elbar ate the chips with his fingers straight from the bag. His nephew's empty wrappings lay on the table, slick with grease and crusted with salt, pepper, and chilli flakes. The fire roared and spat long shadows up the walls and curtains. Elbar hadn't opened the drapes since his wife had died and didn't wish for the sunlight to reveal any hidden secrets, or the years of dust.
Soon his nephew appeared from the cellar, a keg under each arm. 'Got a dark brew, claims to have been made down in the old country though I don't remember the last time we traded with that lot,' he set the twenty pinter on the stand in the table. 'This is a light beer, easy drinking, with a tang, from Losgnar on the River Lom.'
'You drink the river piss and I'll drink the proper stuff,' Elbar Goldfist leaned over, wiped his greasy fingers on yesterday's newspaper, and filled his barren mug with the dark stout from Sprinjel. Even the froth was a dull brown. He gave it a sniff, caramel and plums, with a harsh bitter note. He quaffed the first mug in three gulps and refilled. Reaching for his second fried fish a headline caught his eye.
GOLD AND GEMS IN HILLS NEAR SERAPHINE MOUNTAINS
His nephew gingerly sipped on his pisswater, 'What's your big idea?'
Elbar read the few words not smudged by grease. He poured his chips out on the table and unfolded his own paper.
'What the hell? You full up or something?' Tharun rescued his beer from having a chip plopped in it.
CRYSTALS IN DISTANT HILLSIDE?
'Empty as a spinster's bedroom. What do ya think of this?' He spun the two headlines to his nephew and grabbed a fist full of chips afterward. The grease added a slickness to the table.
His nephew read, his lips moving in vague approximations of the words. 'Nothing new. They've been saying this for years. First it was the Tail, then it was the Drifting Sea, last year it was claimed our ancestors down under had crystals all along. Bogus. Bait to take out competition. What's your plan?'
Elbar didn't have one. Not a good one at least. Traipsing up the Great Lom and striking the earth without a license was a quick trip to Fulcrar Prison. That plan was boneheaded but he knew at least six others who'd join him and before the Consortium filled in the necessary paperwork they'd have a shaft with a vein of crystals. By law they'd be his and by law he could give them to his nephew which would generate enough funds for him to apply again or survey a couple new sites. Elbar sighed, my own plan is moluc muck.
'Hold on, this is new.' Tharun folded the greasy newspaper in half and half again before showing Elbar an article in the corner. A single paragraph without a byline.
SETTLER'S FIND NEW WEALTH
Settlers to the Drifting Sea have found precious gems at the edge of the desert, reports can confirm. Sapphires, rubies, and emeralds have all been dug up near Aberran intended as a frontier town and airship anchorage for the Corua Airship Guild. This recent find is sure to expedite the Corua family's plans, assuring Consortium approval.
'Get the lads together. Pack light, we've got mining to do,' Elbar downed his pint.
'I never signed up for no hike,' Cressen said, his beard a tangle of knots to shame a sailor. An assortment of pickaxes swung from his backpack, clanging against each other every other step.
'I pay you to walk and mine, not talk,' Elbar shifted his own pack and took a swig from a flask filled with the dark stout from days before. Only three of his six had agreed, and only then after he'd doubled their pay. Bunch of greedy oafs.
'But this is ridiculous. Shoulda got an airship.'
'And reveal my plan to everyone and their mothers? It's a long journey but it will be worth it, trust me.'
A few weeks later they'd arrived to find three Corua airships anchored overhead, all stamped with the Corua family emblem. A dozen box buildings had been thrown up too. Hundreds of dwarves busied themselves with supply crates and mining equipment all wearing either a Consortium uniform or a Corua one. Elbar Goldfist swore to himself. The hike had been too long.
'Uncle, what now?'
'We'll have to avoid the lot of them, approach the ridge from the east.'
Numel passed a gold shield to Cressen. 'You were right but I'll be getting that shield back...'
'No you won't. Corua wouldn't send an expedition this big on a rumour. May not be crystals but definitely something precious,' Cressen pocketed the coin. He yanked his hand through his beard pulling a handful of hairs out all knotted together.
'Telling you there's nothing in those hills,' Wexley sipped from a wineskin between words, his fat fingers rolling the cork over and over.
'Shh before somebody hears you,' Elbar said. 'Now we head east for a couple miles and swing back around. Should take until this evening. Tomorrow we strike the earth.'
Elbar Goldfist clambered up the rocky side of the cliff, there was a path, rocky and uneven, but it was in full view of the Corua and Consortium hirelings. He couldn't risk being spotted. Not now. Not so close to his motherlode. Only a fool made a cave on ground level. Tharun and their three regulars assailed the cliff in his wake.
'I see something!' Wexley called up. His sausage-like fingers clawing at a handgrip while his belt snagged on an old root.
'What?'
'A cave?'
'Where?' Elbar called back.
'To the right. Looks deep.'
'How would you know from down there?' Cressen chided.
Elbar began climbing rightward, navigating the ragged surface and finding a convenient boot-wide ledge to balance on. Dust and grit rolled beneath his foot. He slipped and fumbled for a handhold. His left knee slammed down onto the ledge while his right leg dangled over the edge.
'Uncle!'
'I'm alright, I'm alright,' Elbar found his left hand clamped around a thick, dead, branch. Gravel and grit cracked and fell free as he lifted himself up. Elbar gathered his thoughts and flicked the dirt from his beard. The cliff rumbled. He grabbed hold of the dead tree branch. The vertical surface became less vertical and Elbar could lean against the rock without fear of falling off.
'What was that?' Cressen asked.
'The Consortium must have begun their excavation,' Numel said.
Elbar Goldfist was unconvinced but he held his tongue and sidled towards the mouth of the cave. An explosive couldn't shift a hill, not like that.
The cliff levelled off enough for the five dwarves to stand freely and wonder at what little opening there was. As wide as them all lying head to foot in a line and just as tall but no deeper than Elbar's arm.
'Weird rock that. Black as shadow but only in that semi-circle. Ever seen anything like it before, Wexley?' asked Numel.
'Can't say I have,' Wexley scratched his greying beard. He approached the rock and scratched at a speck. The black remained. Then he licked it. 'Salt.'
'What has your tongue divined?' Elbar Goldfist said.
The older dwarf puffed up his chest, turned, considered the horizon and said, 'Nothing.'
'Fantastic, Cressen set the charge. Good a place as any to make a cave,' Elbar said.
Cressen grinned from ear to ear and delved into his pack to unpack the wires and powders. 'You're gonna want to be clear of the blast.'
'Uncle, down here,' Tharun said. He waved the company to the edge of the flat bit of cliff to a nook below.
'We won't all fit,' Numel said.
'Sure we will. Either that or be blown off the mountain. Long drop,' Elbar kicked a loose stone. It bounced and tumbled the hundreds of feet to the sodden plain below.
'Marsha's tits!' Cressen roared. He ran toward the others at full pelt. 'Get down! Get down!'
Wexley and Numel dropped down while Tharun climbed over the edge and hung from the ledge. Elbar crouched to drop down but it was too late. The fuse reached the powder and a blinding light stung his eyes, then came the deafening explosion, along with rock and Cressen. He rolled back and slipped right off the side like the stone he'd kicked. A quick yank had him floating in mid-air, his climbing harness pinching his balls. 'Could you not have caught me by my shirt?' he wheezed.
'Shall I drop you?' Numel said. 'Thought not. Three, two, one,' he heaved Elbar up and over the ledge to land onto the flat.
Elbar coughed and felt bile in his throat from a knotted nausea he knew all too well would take hours to settle. He rose to his feet, though standing upright made his legs shake. 'Alright, in we go,' he sighed.
'We ain't goin' anywhere,' Cressen said, his face black with soot and his hair singed and glowing like a wick.
The obsidian had gone. Vanished. In its place was a huge bloodshot eye, deep green and blue, with a pupil staring directly at them. The ground shifted and groaned beneath them. Elbar fell to his knees and grabbed onto the nearest rock. The horizon fell away until all he could see was the sky. Their screams resounded off the mountain raising beneath them. A roar split the sky and made Elbar's vision blur. He closed his eyes and prayed to his ancestors. What for he didn't know. Safety, they'd laugh at him. A swift death, they'd likely make it longer. To not die was enough.
The ground settled and Elbar Goldfist opened his eyes. A Corua Airship had ascended and was turning back towards the Great Lom. He crawled to the edge of the ledge and peered over. Before they were hundreds of feet above the ground but now they were easily a thousand or more. 'What have we done?'
'Get a load of this!' Tharun called. He leaned over the ledge, grasping a dead tree branch.
Elbar joined his nephew and squinted towards the rear of the hill. 'No way.' The hill was walking. A mammoth, lumbering, leg as tall as Consortium Hall rose and fell over the course of a minute. The world quaked from the impact.
'I'm dead. I've died and gone to the Everdark,' Numel cradled his knees and rocked back and forth.
'You haven't died you numpty!' Wexley slapped Numel over the back of the head. 'The Everdark's dark! No sky! Just the mountain woke up is all.'
'Woke up?' Numel whimpered.
'Yeah. Why shouldn't it?'
'Wex, you should get your head checked,' Cressen said.
Elbar Goldfist ran towards the giant eye and began to climb. Soon he was atop the hill's head, an entire plain stretching out behind it. An empty plain, slightly curved and lush with grass and heather, birch trees and raspberry bushes. 'How did we not see that from down below?' he gasped to himself. 'You lot! Up here. NOW!'
Wexley, Cressen, Numel, and Tharun clambered up around the eye of the hill. 'What we lookin' at?' Wexley scratched his chin.
'My kingdom.'
'Your what?' Cressen gawped.
'Look at it,' Elbar swept a hand across the view. 'Fertile soil. Plenty of space. Whatever it is seems to be made of rock. We can settle this moving mountain.'
'What if it decides to take a dip? Or wanders up into the desert and we all croak from dehydration?' Cressen scowled.
Elbar brushed his concerns away. 'Minor issues. I'll map out where it goes, where it doesn't, and that'll be that.'
'You're insane,' Cressen said.
'They said the same about Albrit Corua and look at his family now,' Elbar Goldfist pointed to the two airships anchored below and the third sailing away. 'Tharun! Let's get on the back of this thing. Make camp. We have work to do!'
'Aye, uncle! Thought of a name?'
Elbar scanned the horizon as it gently tilted left then right, 'Torkatoth.'
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