Umber

Umber

Umber Tales: Of Dorves and Hunds

August 24th, 2007

“Tonight is a story about dorves,” says Opa Skarp. The day was unseasonably cool – the temperature barely broke 100 degrees at its peak – so energy is high despite a long day of tending to the crops. And the kretis, more sluggish in the cool, were easier to manage, too.

When Skarp is feeling strong by day’s end, he tends to imbibe a little more than usual. And when he’s just drunk enough – but not so drunk as to slur or forget himself – well, that’s when you hear the good stories, the true stories. Not the fairy tales like usual. But dorves are just more fairly tales. It’s hard to not be disappointed.

But Opa Skarp has the collected wisdom of over fifty summers and has known you his entire life, and he reads your expression. “Now, I know what you’re thinking,” he says, “but this isn’t like last week’s story about hunds. You and I know that no animal would survive but five minutes in the sun if it was covered all over in hair but that wa’n’t the point. The point was that even a fairy creature, if it lives a long life of loyalty and honor, and truly dedicates itself to its master with all its heart, and risks its own self by snatching that master out from under the wheels of a mekillot wagon, will still get shot in the head if it breaks a leg doing something that stupid.

“No, this is a story about dorves and no matter what you think, real they be. Not like the hunds. Dorves, well they have no hair at all, anywhere. Like a newborn babe they are, not countin’ the cryin’ all the time. Ever. Serious folk they are. Though they might do that when they actually are newborn, I wouldn’t know.

“You see, the thing to know about dorves is that once they get an idea to do something, well, they go do it. No getting’ sidetracked about anything. And livin’ two or three times as long as one of us, that amounts to a lot of doin’.

“Now, there was this one dorve. I’ll call him Lyanius because I don’t know what his real name was. Well, he got it into his head that he wanted to fly like one of them pterocs. Thought that from up in the air, he’d be able to see water, game, maybe even cross the mountains themselves, flying right over the wee folk that are said to guard them.

“So he did some thinking. Then he took apart some pterocs, looked at ‘em real close, you see? Then he did some more thinking. He climbed up the mountains, looking for who knows what, and came back down. Did even more thinking. He climbed up again and again, until he found just the right spot – a long place to run and a sharp cliff at its end. Then he started collecting things. He boiled bones. He scraped leather thin. Hardest of all to find were long straight stretches of wood, and of those few he found he kept only the lightest, and strongest, and most flexible. When he had all of the pieces he needed – and many years it took – he started building, boiling vats of glue, sharpening piles of obsidian along the way.

“And when it was done, it was a marvel. Light as a feather and moved by the lightest breath of wind it was. Before dawn the very next morning – dorves are not ones to dawdle – Lyanius started climbing up to that cliff he had surveyed all those years before, forgetting not a step along the way. When he got to the top he strapped himself to it, ran, and jumped.

“The people from his village saw him fall for a hundred yards, two hundred. Faster and faster he went, and they were sure that he would break his bones on the rocks below. But he didn’t, did he? No, because he’d thought the problem all the way through, hadn’t he? Slowly, he leveled out, and flew out across the valley. Then, to the amazement of his village, Lyanius started to climb. Higher and higher he went, higher than the highest bird they had ever seen.

“And they never saw him again.”

Opa Skarp takes a long pull on his flask of caska, closes his eyes, and leans back. “So what happened then?” you ask. “Why, nothin,’” he responds, cracking one eyelid open. “That’s the end of the story.”

“But,” you ask, “what was the point of all that?”

Skarp is obviously exasperated. “The point, you nugglehead, is to remember where you’re at and who you are. Too much thinkin’ will get you killed just as sure as being a hund with a broken leg. Also, leave the flyin’ to thems with wings. Now, get some sleep.”

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