DWARF IN A HOLE

Soaked and splayed, the dwarf, dripping, groaned. A few feet beside, Doctor Mallow rose from the muck with clear disgust.

“I never knew such ill timing could be possible.”

Wiping at itself in vain, the funguay leaned against rock. The dwarf, meanwhile, could not bring himself to move, continuing a lay in filth. The strenuous exercising of his pickaxe had wrought great consequences. At some point he noticed the doctor’s observing of his wounded, pocked arms. It spoke:

“You’ve certainly been to work. The path to the steeple is open, then?”

The dwarf could hardly process what was asked of him, much less its connection to reality. One moment he’d been freeing the way to his hole and the next he rode a torrential wave of mud to the back of the cavern, joining the rest of his immortalized race. Their great laughing jaws and beards did not accurately convey what the dwarf felt. And he was not really especially proud of having dug the path--it was necessary, like rising in the morning to tend to the animals, like dealing with crops in all the ways they required. In effect, the dwarf’s father could have ordered him to make the tunnel and he’d have done it the same, ended his task feeling no different. Obviously pain coursed through every vein he knew, but the dwarf’s mind reeled in response to several obstacles: his work was incomplete--the hole would need to be crawled into, inspected--would he need dig further?And the matter of ascending after presented difficulties--could Waspig be called upon again? The dwarf considered the thought of lifting any limb, purple or pocked, and recoiled as if he had. What distance could be crossed? Doctor Mallow’s thin frame could shove, but what use was dragging? No, in order to enter his hole yet again, he’d need to put either foot or hand in front of the other, and the dwarf cringed.

“Are you still with us, dwarf?’

He was, but the dwarf’s energy waned. He’d spent the last of what he had on the last of the rock and dirt necessary, rewarded with filth and a bed of it as well. He felt a suction beneath his limbs, each constrained to the muck, though he dared not confirm the elasticity of each grip. A cold, burning sensation in the dwarf’s palms scolded their owner. He apologized to himself.

“Dwarf?”

The dwarf’s glazed eyes drifted to meet Mallow’s.

“You look pathetic,” he observed. The dwarf offered no rebuttal. “Were you not content enough with your crippled mobility?” it asked. “You should have rested. You’ve only rushed to soak us in mud... There is solution I may be able to find. But you’ll, unfortunately, be waiting in the dark until I return. I’ll try for food as well. And one more thing, dwarf, understand I assist out of curiosity to meet my son. You must still dig the way.” And the dwarf watched it evaporate above emerald.

A full day of mining having had passed, what little offerings the sun made through fissures in the cavern’s walls and ceilings since subsided, and the dwarf lay in darkness. Only the runes, few and far, offered dim reprieve. A stiffness settling into his arms and legs forced the dwarf to wriggle the former free--the latter proved impossible, and the former not without agony. The dwarf felt he tasted the embers of Hell his aching limbs burned without reprieve, no position possible to bestow relief. He shifted his arms fruitlessly, placing his legs around by hand in vain. His mind, meanwhile, hardly detached itself from the nerve endings it persisted in abusing, but the dwarf did dwell on the actions of the doctor. Mallow had returned after all, though no pillow materialized. Whether it’d undergone a change of heart or always intended on keeping its word, the dwarf did not think he’d know. But, if it came back, it intended likely on creating the potion he swore to brew--that which would grant The Ponderous One a brief return to its senses. In truth, the dwarf could not be certain as to what would transpire after administering. The tree would die just as it had in a previous lifetime, though in a more compassionate execution. Before, would advantage would its lucidity bring? Could it stop Locust? Could it save Doetrieve? Was he even alive?

The dwarf’s racing mind would undoubtedly have continued were it not for the sudden rattling of chains. Iron scraping and clinking off the same material, shifting echoes escaped the maws of the stone dwarfs, and the dwarf of flesh turned cold. It was only on his return to isolation the cowardly noise had dared return, the dwarf sneered. It hid within the impacts of his pickaxe and the night that blot cracks and crevices, and he thought less of the rattling for it--this was his method of coping with the fact the dwarf was very much afraid.

Like the mist that emanated from the relocator, a visible haze grew within the cave, vision of blackness only slightly softened. The dwarf felt a distinct drop in the temperature, though his limbs’ having soaked so long gave no favors. His teeth chattered and ground. He wished he was above ground, with or without Waspig--anywhere but the hole. A hole twice escaped, the dwarf’s misery grew at his being seemingly bound. And now it had seen fit to scare him. Insulted, the hole demanded more from the dwarf--he would be forced to part with his sanity. These twisted concepts played evil on the dwarf’s mind and, only wishing for rest, the dwarf groaned at his being unable. Physically, the cries of his limbs had barely relented. Emotionally, the dwarf was distraught--though the cooperation of Doctor Mallow did aid. It was the chains that seeked to dismantle the dwarf mentally. He conjured up what their cause could be, what relation could be had to the mist. Eventually the dwarf did relent. There did not have to be any connection, and the chains did not have to have any direction to them. The relocated funguay had said it itself: this was a ruin. If chains bellowed in abandoned halls, the dwarf would need accept it. It meant nothing.

A heartbeat slightly lowered, the dwarf cursed at its sudden lurch in response to shrill scrapes. Worse, the chains continued and reverberated in less distance. There could be no doubt: these strange noises behind stone beards were growing. The dwarf refused to accept madness: these sounds were real--loud and very real. The dwarf, paralyzed in pain and fear, wished he were dead--wished he’d never attempted to escape his hanging. His extreme gesture of foolishness had sent him to a terrifying black pit. There was nothing more to gain this life--he’d need to try again. But he could be sure of Doetrieve’s reliability now, at least--this information without doubt. The dwarf was certain he himself would return on death, and if he would not, nothing was preferred to the terror that gripped his stout body. The overlapping noises grew noticeably louder, shrill cacophony of metal at a fever pitch, and the dwarf was in disbelief at being so hopelessly cornered. He thought to weaponize his voice and belt a begging for help from his pet--but he just as well did not wish to alert that wish only drew nearer.

Frozen, the dwarf swallowed a full lung’s worth of cavern air. It tasted icy.

A sudden clear face of stretched, decayed skin and exposed bone materialized inches before the dwarf’s. It shrieked. The dwarf hollered. Chains whipped around beneath his beard and seized the throat, the dwarf’s breaths instantly hushed. Rising up from filth, the dwarf sailed across the cave and fell in a pool of muddied water yet to soak into the earth. His arms took on new life, flailing in desperation to surface the dwarf. In fact, it soon dawned on the dwarf he was being held below--his neck chains had tightened around exposed rock. Unable to free himself, his face whipped wildly, cheeks hardly filled. Bubbles began loosening themselves rapidly from the dwarf’s lips, and his already terrible lack of sight only slightly aided by what little runes glowed could not be counted upon whatsoever. Thus, rendered completely submissive to his fate of which he could rely on no sense to make sense of, the dwarf’s body went limp in morbid anticipation.

Several hands gripped the back of the dwarf from bald to bottom. He rose from the pool nearly his murderer and collapsed onto rocks heaving and gagging water. Eventually falling onto his back, the dwarf faced a partially lit Doctor Mallow.

“ARE YOU MAD?”