Kirlian Cycle: Essence of Fire, Chapter 1

Helga is a young dwerger girl about to experience her first trip from the family home high in the mountains down into the flatlands of humanity.

The stubby fingers of a dwerger hand traced the rune of fire etched into a stone wall. Drawing Essence, the raw power of magic, to the complex shape, Helga Thunderdragon smiled as a nearby lamp sputtered. Light blossomed into being, and vibrant colors replaced the shifting patterns of red, orange, and black of her underground vision. Her large oval eyes blinked at the sudden change in illumination.

"Better not let father see you do that." The voice belonged to a spindly dwerger youth, her brother Dieter, still struggling to grow his beard. He leaned against the granite wall of the adjoining companionway with a frown.   

"It's my room," Helga said. "As humans go, I'm old enough to make my own choices."

"But, you're not human any more than I am," Dieter said and looked down at the floor. "We are Dwerger, people of stone..."

"I'm twice the age of a married human with children of her own," Helga said and spun back around with her hands on her hips.

"Better not let father hear you say that. You know how he dislikes them."

Helga turned back around with a sigh. "He doesn't dislike them. He just doesn't trust people who make nothing that lasts." 

"Are you ready?" Dieter asked. His voice had a dry tone with a hint of contempt. "Uncle will be here soon."

"Yes," Helga said and ran her hands over the tunic made of elfin flax. Her mother had given it to her for her first trip down the mountain, and in the magic light, it appeared as blue as the open sky. "These trouser things feel funny. I prefer a skirt."

"Going down is a rough and hard journey. A skirt isn't practical." 

"How would you know?" Helga said. "This would have been your first trip too."

Dieter looked down at his ankle held in place by long sticks and wrapped with a cloth. "Bah," he said and sounded like their father. 

Helga pushed a folded blanket into a leather rucksack. After securing the copper buckles, she spun away and walked to shelves made from perfectly cut stone slabs and blocks. The shelf below her chin held a collection of jewelry and three stones with intricate runes etched on the surface. Helga picked up the palm-sized stones and put them in a pouch on her hip. She then picked up a set of earrings with small ruby stones held in a swirling lattice of shining copper. 

"You know father doesn't like you wearing Elfin jewelry," Dieter said and limped into Helga's room. 

"I don't care. I'm old enough to make my own choices now. 

"We are people of stone," Dieter repeated. 

"You sound too much like him," Helga snarled.

"HELGA!" a deep voice boomed through the caverns. "DIETER!"

"You're in trouble now," Dieter said with his voice above a whisper. 

"Am not." 

Dieter turned around and limped down the hall. The wood splints on his leg from above the knee to his ankle prevented him from moving quickly. With his crutch, he made an odd click-thump pattern of sound Helga found amusing. When he fell down the stairs last week, Helga had to turn away from the comical site of him covered in his food. She did love her brother. She just liked tormenting him now and then.

Helga continued to admire her collection of dwerger, elfin, and even human jewelry. She liked the elfin ones the best. Their swirling patterns were a match for the rune symbol of fire she etched into the wall. 

"HELGA!" Her father yelled again. This time his voice was louder and contained an edge that told her this time he meant business.

She snatched up her first choice of copper lattice with rubies and placed them in the tiny holes in her lobes. Her father had screamed for a week after she found a visiting elf to pierce them. 

Her choice made, she grabbed the rucksack of the bed and ran down the central hall. She quickly caught up to the slow-moving Dieter. He struggled to increase his pace, and Helga slowed down with a smile. Flickering light from tiller torches in adjoining passages made their shadows twitch almost independent of their owner's movements. The smokeless flames were a staple of life under the mountain, but Helga hated the smell. The acrid fumes made her eyes water. She preferred the soft light created by rune magic, but, like her ear piercings, Rudiger of clan Thunderdragon hated having elfin items in his home. 

"Yes, Father," the two siblings said in unison as they entered the great hall. 

"You're late," Rudiger Thunderdragon said. "I called you twice." The arched roof over forty handspans above the main hall transformed his voice into a great bellow. 

"Sorry, father," Dieter said. His eyes cast down to stare at the ornate patterns cut into the stone slabs beneath his feet. 

Helga held her head high and looked into her father's narrowed eyes. She could feel his disdain as if it had a tangible substance. 

"Are you still demanding to go?" Rudiger asked through gritted teeth.

"Yes," Helga said and continued to glare into her father's eyes. 

"Are those...you still have those damn elfin holes in your ears. No daughter of this clan..."

"...is going to look like some elfin wandought." Helga finished.

Rudiger's face twitched as it fought between a scowl and a sneer. "Must you be so...defiant," he growled. His daughter was so much like him with the same haughty independence.  He wanted to smile but dare not.

"Yes."

The two stood motionless without blinking, each waiting for the other to speak or move. The sounds of the outside world flowed into the space and cracked the silence. The chirping of birds, the rustle of leaves in the wind, and even the creak of wood filled the Thunderdragon homestead with sounds absent in the underground dwerger world of stone tunnels and chambers. 

The senior Thunderdragon closed his eyes with a sigh. "Your uncle is here."

Helga smiled and spun around. 

"I didn't dismiss...," she heard her father scream as she bolted away and through the tunnels without waiting for the traditional leave. The orange cast of tiller light on the walls became gray as sunlight pushed its way into the Thunderdragon home.  

A dark silhouette framed by blue sky stood at the top of the stone stairs leading to the outside. 

"Helga!" A cheery voice exclaimed. "How are you this day?"

Helga ran into the arms of her uncle. "Wonderful now that you are here."

"How is stuffy-beard doing?" Kurt Thunderdragon asked. His dark eyes crinkling with amusement.  

"Same," Helga mumbled. 

"So this is the year huh," Kurt turned around and stepped into the outside world. "You're still set in joining us?"

"I've been waiting twenty years for it."

"That long," Kurt said with a hint of amusement and teasing the corners of his mouth. "I was in my thirties on my first trip. Soon you'll be looking to get married." 

Helga followed her uncle outside. "I'll be thirty-two this summer. I have another eighteen years before I'm old enough."

Kurt chuckled. "Humans are often married before they see twenty and dead by sixty."

Outside the Thunderdragon home, large blocks of identical stone extended along a ridge above lake Kurdarim and twisted out the southern end of the Therndihm valley. Along the length of this road, ornate porches, gateways, balconies, pillars, and arches were cut into the mountains while steps switched back and forth to higher elevations. As a metalsmithing clan, the Thunderdragon's social rank afforded them a homestead right off the road. Other families were not so fortunate.  According to tradition, clans who created items of less permanency had homes higher on the hillside and to trudge up and down the mountain or use the internal passageways to move through the city. 

A line of three wooden carts with wheels taller than Helga by several handspans blocked her view of the central lake. Each of the wagons had a team of two large mules who twitched their ears as Helga approached. "They're so big," she said. 

"The carts or the mules?" Kurt asked. 

"Both. Is everything humans make so big?"

"You should see a flatlander horse," Kurt said and patted one of the mules. "Almost twice this size."

"And if Dieter hadn't broken his leg, you wouldn't," Rudiger said, huffing his way up the stairs. "This isn't a day-trip across the lake. This is dangerous, hard work..."

Helga rolled her eyes up at hearing the same lecture every day for weeks. "...and no place for the likes of me," she said in a monotone voice. "A girl," she added in a hushed tone. 

Rudiger gritted his teeth and pinched his eyes shut. "If we didn't need..."

"We could just go with two carts, brother," Kurt said and winked at Helga. 

Rudiger let out a snort. "And do what with the rest?"

"Wait for the next moot," Kurt said. "It won't go to waste."

Rudiger just shook his head and moved to inspect the wagons. He checked every sinch, buckle, tie, and strap. When he checked each cart three times, he glared into Helga's eyes. "You. You will take the supply cart. Just follow along behind, and if you feel or even think there is any slippage, you pull this," he tapped a large lever. "That will lock the wheels. Kurt and I will then check."

"I know," Helga sighed. 

"Must you be such a fussfit?" Kurt asked with a broad smile and sounded more like his brother. "You make it sound like it is some dangerous slope. The road has a minor grade. A cart isn't going to go racing down the mountainside. Everything is going to be fine".

Rudiger groaned then mumbled something Helga couldn't make out. 

"What was that, brother? I couldn't hear over your grumbling."

"And no dipping off," Rudiger said and wagged a finger at his daughter. "No magic. No elfin dillydads. You keep your mind focused on that cart, understand?"

"Yes, father," Helga said. 

"You're too hard on her," Kurt whispered. "We were younger than her on our first trip."

"A trip where you nearly fell off the cliffs near Pruhen falls."

"She's a lot wiser than I was,"

"Pebbles to boulders!" Rudiger swore. "You spoil her constantly. What type of wife will she make with you giving in all the time."

"A damn fine one," Kurt shouted. "She isn't some Coboli thrall, Rudiger. You can't keep ordering her."

"I can and I will," Rudiger shouted even louder. 

"The way you shelter her, I'm surprised you even let her learn the Forge."

"No child of mine, boy or girl, is not going to carry on the Clan craft."

Two of the king's guards passed by wearing bronze breastplates reflecting the early morning sun. "Thunderdragon," one said with a nod. Helga noticed they stepped to the far side of the road as they passed the carts. "Sorry to hear about your son."

"Thank you," Rudiger said and returned the nod. 

"I hear you're taking your daughter down," the second guard said. 

"I'm not happy about it, but I must," Rudiger said and inspected the wheel of a cart for the fourth time. "It's either that or leave a cart behind for next year."

"Keep her close," said the original guard. "The flatlands are dangerous, and humans even more so."

Dieter hobbled out the door. "Father, I should still go. Helga is just a girl. Even with a broken leg, I'm still better than she is."

Helga sucked in her lips. Before she could unleash a torrent of verbal beratement at her brother, the mule near him drew his lips back, exposing large square teeth and snapped its jaws at Dieter as if to say "leave me be.  I know what I'm doing better than you." Deiter waved a hand to slap the creature's muzzle away. They connected on an outstretched finger getting too close to the exposed teeth.  

Deiter howled in pain, and blood oozed down his arm. 

"Dieter!" Rudiger yelled. "What did you..."

The attacking mule struggled in its harness, which made the attached wagon creak with movement. 

"Stand still, you fool," Rudiger ordered and moved to his son.

"Mmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyy hand," Dieter screamed.

"Helga, do something useful. Go fetch some cloth now!" Rudiger shouted.

She'd never seen anything like that. She flung her rucksack to a wagon and bolted back into the family steed. Her footfalls landed heavily on the stone as she raced through the Thunderdragon stead. "Mother!" she screamed. 

"What is all the shouting?" Sigrid Thunderdragon asked.

"Dieter got hurt," Helga said. "I think a mule bit off his finger." 

"Oh, no! There is cheesecloth in the pantry. Bottom shelf." 

Helga bolted down the central hall. "I've got a better idea," she mumbled. Instead of turning right and heading to the kitchen, she turned left toward her room. She snatched up an elm rod slightly longer than one span resting in an ornately carved wooden cup. 

Dieter sat on the ground with tears of pain leaking from his closed eyes, both his hands covered in blood.  

"Well?" Rudiger questioned. "Did you bring something to staunch?"

Helga ignored him and moved to Dieter. She placed the wand on the wound. 

"Not more of that!" her father said and grabbed the branch from Helga's hand.

Helga snatched it back. "Will you just shut up for a moment!" she barked. 

Drawing Essence to the life rune etched on the elm branch, the oozing blood to ceased.

"How's that?" Helga asked Dieter. 

"You should have done as you were told," Rudiger growled. 

"Brother," Kurt said. "Calm down."

"I will not! I told you to get some cloth, and you come back with THAT!" He pointed a finger of the wand in her hand.

"Dieter is..."

"Shut up! SHUT...UP!" Rudiger closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. "How is he?"

"All there," Sigrid said and wiggled each of her son's fingers. 

Rudiger turned his gaze to Helga. "Go get your things; then, I want you in that seat until I say you can get down."

Helga's eyes welled up. "Yes, father," she mumbled and shuffled back inside.  

"And you," Rudiger screeched as he spun to face his brother. "Not one word. Not one."

Kurt Thunderdragon's face pulled together in a silent scowl. The two dwergers stood there, unmoving. Kurt let out the breath he'd been holding and climbed up to the middle wagon.