Chapter 1: Bear and Boy
One warm spring day in Valing, a large, fat bear sunned himself on the gray stone of
the Neck. His russet coat gleamed, sleek as a nokken’s: he didn’t seem to have
been bothered at all by the long mountain winter. Half-asleep or half-awake, he lay
comfortably between the orchard and the top of the cliff, where the scent of the apple
blossoms was almost as lovely as the hum of the bees. Behind him the lake
glistened a deep and sparkling blue. Except for a long plume of spray from the falls
to the west, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Beyond the orchard, however, the Manor was much more active. It was First Feast
that night and everyone was busy with three more tasks than usual. The kitchen was
filled with the bustle of crockery and cooking; men and women darted like bats on a
summer evening across the long porches that looked out over the orchard. In the
schoolroom, the children squirmed hopefully as tantalizing smells drifted in through
the open windows from the scullery below.
From his seat at the window Avender watched as one of the undercooks rolled a
barrel of slops out into the yard. The pigs in the pen next door poked eager snouts
through the fence and grunted at the fresh stains on the undercook’s apron. But,
when Tinnet returned to the kitchen without feeding the hogs, Avender switched his
attention back to the front of the schoolroom. Nolo was seated on the desk before
the class that morning, instead of their regular teacher, and Avender was paying
complete attention. He always listened when Nolo spoke, no matter how many times
he had heard the story. That was because Nolo was a Dwarf, and Avender, along
with everyone else in Valing, was always interested in anything having to do with
Dwarves.
Bright sunshine streamed through the windows, brightening even the dull iron circlet
Nolo used to hold back his wild gray hair. The younger children in the front row, not
used to seeing the Dwarf so closely, stared at his broad, bare feet. Each toe looked
like a knob of gnarled stone. But they were still quite clearly toes because every
once in a while Nolo wiggled and stretched them; or, if he had an itch, scratched
between them with his equally stony fingers.
“Then what happened?” asked little Atty Peaks from the front row. Avender knew the
younger boy was very much in awe of the Dwarf’s toes, because that was how he had
felt at Atty’s age. Probably Atty had heard that Nolo could squeeze pebbles to dust
between them, and was desperate to see him do it.
Nolo glowered good-naturedly at the small boy. “If you’d pay attention, lad,” he said,
“and stop asking so many questions, you might hear what I’m saying.”
Half-smothered laughter swept through Atty’s classmates. The Dwarf looked up.
Raising his heavy eyebrows at the older students in the back of the room, he warned,
“None of that, now. Atty’s doing the best he can. He’s not heard the tale before.
What he knows about Mennon or Wizards wouldn’t half fill an ore car.”
The younger children, safe in the schoolroom on a bright spring day, shivered
delightedly at the mention of Wizards. Avender and the older ones pretended not to
care.
Away in the orchard the bear lifted his snout to sniff the breeze. Something much
more delightful than apple blossoms was now drifting his way. His black nose
wiggled. His small eyes opened. He heaved himself up from his comfortable rock
and began sniffing the air with real interest.
“Of course,” Nolo was saying back in the classroom, “Mennon was very interested in
Issinlough when he woke. Only we Bryddin had ever seen our shining city before, or
the Abyss, for that matter. When Mennon first learned to speak he went with Uhle to
the bottom of the lowest tower in the city and pointed at the blackness below. ‘What’s
that?’ he asked. ‘Why, that’s the Abyss,’ Uhle answered. ‘How far is it to the
bottom?’ Mennon wanted to know. ‘There is no bottom,’ said Uhle.”
“Is there really no bottom?” asked Atty.
Nolo shook his head. “No, lad, no bottom. Issinlough hangs on the underside of the
world, and beyond Issinlough there’s nothing. Whatever’s left of Brydds himself
might lie down there in the deep dark, but there’s no bottom to the Abyss.”
“And no sky, either?”
“No, no sky either. We Bryddin never knew about the sky till Mennon told us, nor
about the sun and moon. But once Uhle heard about them, nothing could keep him
from finding the surface. ‘Brighter than the brightest of your lamps,’ was the way
Mennon described the sun to us. ‘Brighter than all your lamps rolled into one.’” Nolo
stroked his long beard thoughtfully for a moment before he went on.
“Uhle had always dreamed of such a light. He and I searched for it for years. But
once he knew it existed, he knew right away how to reach it. We might not have been
able to go up the way Mennon had come down, but we could certainly dig our way to
the surface once we knew it was there. As all of you know, we Bryddin are very good
at digging.” He wiggled his fingers and stubby toes. Atty’s eyes widened.
“Was that the Sun Road?” asked a girl Avender’s age from the back of the class.
Avender rolled his eyes, knowing she already knew the answer as well as he did.
“That’s what it is now, Ferris,” answered Nolo. “But when we first built it, it was hardly
more than a long tunnel. We were in a hurry, at least those of us who took up the
work. There are still some in Issinlough who wonder what we need with the sun and
moon, let alone trees and flowers.”
“Or ale, right Nolo?” teased a boy who sat to Avender’s left. Avender grinned.
Teasing their regular teacher would have been unthinkable, but Nolo was a much
easier master. The Dwarf himself laughed at the joke, his beard rolling in little waves
across his chest.
“That’s right, lad. Mennon hadn’t told us a thing about ale yet. Perhaps if he had, we’
d have dug a lot quicker.”
The whole class laughed. While they were laughing, a lumbering shape appeared in
the yard below. The bear, following the scent he had sniffed out on the back of the
breeze, had found his way from the orchard to the side of the sty. The pigs rushed
back to the fence as soon as they saw him, to snort and squeal at their old foe. They
knew what he was up to as soon as he appeared. The bear, however, ignored the
pigs completely.
But their squealing did attract the notice of the students closest to the windows above
the yard. There was a quiet rustling among the desks as they shuffled about for
better views. Avender poked his neighbor with his foot.
“Reiffen,” he whispered, nodding toward the window. “Redburr’s at the slops again.”
The other boy’s eyebrows rose with interest. Carefully he stretched across the desks
for a better view.
At the front of the room Nolo continued his tale, completely unaware of the activity at
the windows. “Can anyone tell me,” he asked, “where we Bryddin were when we
finally broke out onto the surface? No, not you Ferris. You can’t answer every
question. Let’s hear from one of the younger lads or lasses who haven’t heard the
tale before. All right, Nell, why don’t you tell us.”
Nell stood up straight and tall at her desk beside Atty, very proud of her opportunity.
“Um, was it Grangore?” she asked.
“Absolutely correct!” Nolo slapped his thigh hard, almost causing the legs on the
desk to give out below him. Nell beamed.
At the pigsty, the great bear rested his forepaws on the rim of the slops barrel and
stuffed his heavy head inside. The barrel wobbled, but didn’t fall. On the other side
of the fence the angry pigs began digging furiously as they tried to get at the thief
beyond the railing. Contented grunts echoed from inside the wooden barrel.
“It was a beautiful evening,” the Dwarf was saying to the class, “the first evening I
ever saw. We came out on the middle slopes of Aloslocin, and the sun was just
beginning to set behind Ivismundra. Uhle came out first, but it was a while before he
returned for the rest of us. We were afraid of coming up beneath a lake or a river,
you see, and had dammed off the upper end of the tunnel. Then we had to take
another minute after Uhle pulled down the dam to put on our goggles, just in case the
sun was too bright for our eyes. Here, I brought mine in to class today so everyone
could have a look. Cut the lenses from a large topaz, I did.”
He handed a pair of heavy goggles to Atty, who dropped them, he was so
overwhelmed by the honor. Meanwhile the bear had snuffled down all the easy
pickings at the top of the barrel and had twisted around on his hind legs to improve
his leverage into the tub. Several times he came close to losing his balance, but
each time he shifted to the side at the last second and caught himself before the
barrel tipped.
“That’s real batwing.” Nolo pointed out the goggle straps, while those pupils still
paying attention to him carefully handed them around the classroom. “Very soft and
strong, batwing. No lighter leather to be found, under sun or ground. There’s a little
stretch in it too, so they fit tight around your head. Say, what are you all looking at
out the window there? Avender? Reiffen?”
Nolo had finally noticed that most of the class was gathered around the windows and
no longer even pretending to pay attention to him. Not wanting to miss out on
whatever was happening in the yard below, he hopped off the desk and hurried
across the room to the nearest window.
“Not again.” He groaned when he saw the backside of the bear sticking up out of the
barrel. Leaning out over the sill on his tiptoes, he called down to the alley, “Hey
there! Redburr! Get out of there, you overgrown raccoon! You know better than
that!”
By this time the bear had climbed all the way up onto the top of the barrel, his head
and shoulders crammed greedily inside. He was in no position to hear anyone’s
scolding. The barrel was very strong, but the bear was very heavy. Both rocked
back and forth precariously as the bear shoveled through the dainties within. But
that balancing act was too delicate to last more than a moment. The tub teetered,
then toppled with a crash. Several smaller barrels nearby were also smashed as
Redburr was thrown crashing on top them and through the fence around the sty. A
pair of fish heads and half a moldy cabbage flew high into the air. Shining in the sun,
they floated for a moment right in front of the schoolroom windows; then splashed
back down in the dirty alley below.
Briefly the bear lay stunned in a pile of slops, barrel staves, and fencing. Flecks of
broccoli and yesterday’s gravy speckled his ruddy coat. Then the pigs were upon
him. He rose up with half an old cheese in his mouth and clubbed a few of the more
vicious sows with a swing from each of his heavy forepaws. Piglets squealed as they
streamed through the hole in the fence. The alley was filled with guzzling hogs and
slippery bear, all fighting over the same hunks of grease and filthy vegetables. They
careened back and forth in the buttery mess, bashing fresh holes in the fence and
sending the rain barrel at the corner of the kitchen flying. The water sluiced out
across the ground beneath them; everything was soon churned to mud by their
scuffling.
The door to the kitchen flew open. Hern herself stormed out, her stoutest broom in
hand. Her first shout brought Redburr immediately to his senses. Hastily he
scrambled to his feet and shouldered the heaviest sow aside. Then he took off back
down the alley toward the orchard with all the speed he could muster, a rotten
pumpkin bumping on his backside, his prize cheese still dripping from his mouth.
“That’s right!” called Nolo from the window, barely able to contain his laughter. “You
run away! As if we haven’t all seen you at your work already!”
Hern shook her broom and shouted in turn, “You great fat rug! I’ve told you a
hundred times to keep out of the slops! How’re we supposed to get any bacon! I’m
going to ban you from the feast tonight, I am!”
She turned and stared at the rest of the kitchen staff, who had come out behind her
to enjoy the show.
“And what are you all gaping at?” she demanded. She stood with hands on hips,
even though she was still holding her broom. “Get these pigs back in the pen! We’
re behind as it is! We’ll never be ready for tonight! And which one of you put that
cheese in with the rest of the garbage? Was that you, Tinnet? You know that fool of
a bear can’t control himself when he gets a whiff of spoiled cheese! You’d better get
to work cleaning up this mess before I really lose my temper!”
She turned and plowed straight into the middle of the hogs, kicking left and right and
batting at them with both ends of her broom. The sows fled in terror, grunting as
they scrambled back to the safety of their pen, but a few of the piglets managed to
escape. They tore off into the orchard with the kitchen staff chasing behind. The
children cheered them on.
Hern looked up towards the schoolroom. Her eyes narrowed. Every student in sight
ducked back inside before she could light into any of them in turn. Nolo wisely
followed their example.
He retrieved his goggles from where they had been dropped on the floor and said, “I
guess that’s the end of this lesson.” The students gave a cheer. “Maybe you should
all report downstairs to Hern. I think she’s going to need all the help she can get
catching those pigs.”
Another cheer went up, louder than the first, especially from the younger children.
Much as everyone liked hearing the Dwarf tell them stories of the Stoneways,
chasing pigs was even better. No one waited to be dismissed; they fled through the
desks and out the door in a clatter of shoes and shouts of glee.
Avender, however, wasn’t so lucky. Nolo caught his arm as he was on his way out
the door. Reiffen and Ferris saw it all, and ducked away before they were stopped
as well.
“I need you,” said the Dwarf.
