The Emerald Atlas

by John Stephens

  “I always knew,” Michael murmured. “I mean, I didn’t know, I just … hoped.” He stared about dreamily, repeating, “… Dwarves …”

  One of the troop stepped away from the others. He was stocky (though they were all stocky to some degree) and had a weathered face and a long reddish beard that was braided into neat plaits. He knelt before the children, setting his helmet on the floor with a light clank, and cleared his throat. “Now then”—it was his voice that had been giving orders—“let’s have it.”

  Kate was confused. “Have what, sir?”

  “Your story,” he said, pulling off his mace gloves. “How you came to be knocking about our territory. Trespassing the like.”

  At the word “trespassing,” there was general harrumphing among the dwarves.

  “We weren’t trespassing,” Kate said. “We—”

  “You’re a dwarf!” Michael blurted out.

  The red-bearded dwarf glanced at Michael. He took in the boy’s wide, goofy grin and dazed expression and apparently decided to ignore this rather obvious remark. He turned back to Kate. “Oh, you weren’t, were you? So you had permission? Let’s see it, then. You have a letter of passage, I assume.”

  “Well, no, we don’t—”

  “No letter of passage.”

  “No.”

  “No visa? Transit papers? No magical golden ring given your ancestors centuries ago by a dwarfish king granting you rights of access to all dwarfish lands?”

  “Um … no.”

  “Then that, my girl, means you was trespassing!”

  This second, more forceful “trespassing” was followed by even more harrumphing from the others.

  “Now,” the dwarf said with an air of satisfaction, “as we’ve settled that you’re a pair of lowly trespassers—”

  “You’re dwarves!” Michael exclaimed. “All of you!”

  The red-bearded dwarf cocked an eyebrow and nodded at Michael. “He simple or something?”

  “No,” Kate said. “He’s fine. He …” She hesitated saying that Michael just really liked dwarves. She had a feeling this red-bearded dwarf might find it condescending. He seemed a little prickly. “He’s … never met a dwarf before.”

  “Well,” the dwarf said, smoothing down his beard, “then it’s a great day for him, ain’t it? So, what business did you have, trespassing in our lands?”

  There were echoes of “Aye, aye, what business indeed, ye trespassers!”

  “We weren’t trespassing!” Kate protested. “We were lost!”

  “You hear that, boys?” the dwarf called over his shoulder. “It’s the old ‘we were lost’ story! A couple of lost little lambs we got here!”

  The dwarves roared with laughter.

  The red-bearded dwarf shook his head. “Oh, you’ll have to do better than that, my girl, much better indeed. The last fellow who was so-called lost found his way well enough. ’At’s right! Found his way to the edge of my ax!”

  At this, the dwarf leapt up, whipped his ax from his belt, and swung it in a wide arc just above the children’s heads, so close that Kate and Michael both felt the wash of air as the blade passed over them. Kate had no idea what her and Michael’s faces looked like following this, but it was enough to send the dwarves off into more peals of knee-slapping laughter.

  It occurred to Kate that this was not at all the behavior she would’ve expected from dwarves.

  “Stop laughing!” she demanded. “It’s not funny.” Which of course just made them laugh the more. “There were Screechers after us!”

  Silence. The red-bearded dwarf, his face serious, leaned in close.

  “Screechers, you say? In dwarfish land?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Let’s have this cock-’n’-bull story, then. But be quick, and try not to tell too many lies.”

  “It’s not a lie,” Kate said, aware even as she said it that she was planning on a few strategic omissions. She told him that they’d been prisoners of the Countess and had managed to escape. She said that as they were fleeing, they’d stumbled into an old mining tunnel. A band of Screechers had come after them, chasing them across the rope bridge and into the maze (that was the term Michael had used and it seemed to fit). In the maze, they’d been separated from their little sister. Kate did not mention Gabriel or the book or that they were from the future.

  “Your sister,” said the dwarf. “So there’s another a’ you.”

  “Yes. She’s the youngest. You have to let us go find her!”

  “Well, your story’s full of lies and omissions; that much is apparent. But I can’t argue that a child shouldn’t be wandering out there alone, even a low-down criminal trespassing child. Better off in our dungeons. No doubt the salmac-tar have gotten her by now.”

  “The salmac-tar,” Kate said, remembering the creatures Gabriel had told them about, the ones with no eyes and large, bat-like ears, the ones with claws that could slice through bone. “I thought … they lived deeper down.”

  “They’ve been growing bold of late. Pushing up into our territory. That’s why we’ve been out on patrol.” The dwarf’s face seemed to cloud over. “It’s her fault. The witch’s. Disgraceful it is, the whole miserable …” He trailed off, muttering a string of unintelligible words, of which Kate could only pick out “king” and “witch” and “misbegotten.”

  “My lord”—Michael was suddenly struggling to his knees—“I fear we have not properly introduced ourselves; my name is Michael P. This is my sister Katherine. We are alone and in great danger, and in the name of King Ingmar the Kind, we humbly throw ourselves on your mercy and beseech your help in this, our hour of need.”

  The dwarves all stopped and looked at him. Kate was equally amazed. And then, as one, the dwarves burst out laughing again.

  “Did you hear him?” called the red-bearded dwarf to the others, who were really too busy laughing to hear much of anything. “In the name of King Ingmar the Kind?” he mimicked, shaking his head and appearing to wipe away a tear. “Aye, it’s too good! It’s too good!”

  Michael looked confused and a little wounded.

  “Now, now,” said the red-bearded dwarf, placing a stubby hand on his shoulder. “We’re just having fun. What you said was very fairly spoken and in all the correct forms of address, if a bit out of the mode, perhaps. It was just a shock, it coming from a little human lad like yourself. So you know something about our history, then?”

  “Ye-yes,” Michael stammered. “Your history. Your traditions. I know what to bring when you go to a dwarf’s house for dinner. I can tell you how dwarf inheritance law works. I’ve memorized the lyrics to seventeen different dwarf drinking songs. I know everything there is to know about dwarves.”

  “Do you now?” The dwarf brought his face close to Michael’s. “Then tell me, lad, what’s the one thing we value above all else?”

  Kate was expecting Michael to say hard work or craftsmanship or devotion to duty or any of the qualities he was always going on about. But he said something she’d never once heard him mention. And when he spoke, his voice was very quiet.

  “I can tell you that. It’s the thing I like best about dwarves. The most important thing to you … is family.”

  Kate felt as if the floor had disappeared.

  “The clan,” he went on, “the family, is the basis of dwarf society. You look out for each other. Once someone’s a part of your clan, they’re in it for life. You never … you never leave him. Ever.”

  Kate could feel tears coming to her eyes. All these years, all Michael’s talk about dwarves, and she finally understood. A family that would never leave you. Had her hands not been tied, she would’ve put her arms around him and told him that he had that family in her and Emma and he always would.

  “You’ve struck the mark,” the dwarf said. Kate could see the other dwarves nodding in the background. “But how do you know so much about us? You’re a little on the short side, perhaps, but I don’t see anything particularly dwarfish about you.”<
br />
  “Oh … if you look in my bag …” Michael wiggled about to bring his bag forward, and the dwarf reached in and pulled out a small, thick book that Kate recognized immediately.

  “The Dwarf Omnibus, by G. G. Greenleaf!” exclaimed their red-bearded captor. “I remember this well enough. Old G.G. was quite the clever dwarf.”

  “Wait! You mean”—Michael was nearly beside himself—“G. G. Greenleaf was a dwarf?! My book was written by an actual dwarf?!”

  “Was G. G. Greenleaf a dwarf? Listen to ’im! Course he was a dwarf! Why, this is every dwarf child’s required reading! But how did a human lad like you come upon it?”

  “It was my dad’s. He left it to me. The only thing he left me.” The tunnel had suddenly become very quiet. “Truth is, I don’t really remember him. Not really. That book’s all I know about him.”

  It was a long moment before the red-bearded dwarf spoke, and his voice was gentle. “Must’ve been an interesting man, your father. I’m beginning to think you’re not a moron child after all. Last question, how do you feel about elves?”

  Kate saw the dwarves all lean slightly forward, watching Michael.

  “Well, to be honest,” Michael said, “I think they’re kind of … silly.”

  A great cry went up among the dwarves, and the red-bearded dwarf, followed by six or seven others, came forward and slapped him hard on the shoulder. “ ‘Silly’ is exactly the word for them!” cried the red-bearded dwarf. “Little show ponies they are!” A few of the dwarves were now imitating elves, pretending to comb their hair or tease their eyebrows or batting their eyelashes and prancing about on their tiptoes.

  Kate was beginning to think that as silly as elves might be, dwarves had to be even sillier.

  “You’re a good lad,” said the dwarf. “My name is Robbie McLaur; I extend you my hand in friendship. Oh, your hands are tied, aren’t they? Well …,” and he clapped Michael on the shoulder again.

  “So,” Kate said, “will you let us go, then?”

  “Oh no, lass. I can’t do that, I’m afraid. You see, the King has issued a decree. All trespassers are to be captured and thrown in the dungeon until he can interrogate them himself.”

  “But,” Michael said, “we’re not dangerous. And we’re only trespassers because we got lost.”

  “True,” said the dwarf Robbie McLaur. “Or perhaps not true. Now, you say you started at the swinging bridge and then went into the maze. Well, ’twas a maze indeed you came through. Built by the greatest dwarf architects centuries ago. Why, you could travel your whole life in there, ten lives, and never find your way out! But the two of you went in one end and came bang up against our secret door. Do you know what the chances a’ that are? I wouldn’t give a wooden galleon for the odds. And yet, you somehow managed it. How is that, then?”

  Kate shrugged. “We just got lucky.”

  The dwarf shook a stubby finger. “No, girl. You’re hiding something.” Kate started to protest, but he held up his hand. “Now, I’ve no love for the witch and her Screechers and think all alliances with such creatures are a betrayal of the great dwarfish tradition—”

  “Wait!” Kate broke in. “An alliance? You’re working for the witch? How could—”

  The red-bearded dwarf raised his ax and slammed down the hilt with such force that it cracked the stone floor. The children felt the impact through their legs, and the dwarves who’d been talking fell silent as the sound echoed away down the tunnel.

  “I’ll say this once,” growled Robbie McLaur. “I. DO. NOT. WORK. FOR. THE. WITCH.” His eyes were dark with anger, and for a moment Kate was terrified. But then, just as quickly, the fury seemed to leave him, and he looked off, sighing. “However … she and the King have … an understanding of sorts.”

  “He’s letting her dig, isn’t he?” Michael said. “For the … the thing she’s looking for. He’s letting her dig in your lands.”

  The dwarf nodded. “Aye.”

  “So you have to let us go!” Kate said. “You know it’s wrong!”

  The dwarf shook his head, lowering his voice so that only Kate and Michael could hear. “No, lass. For though I may not personally agree with the King’s policies and even think him to be a drunk and disaster and the greatest tragedy to befall the dwarfish nation for a thousand years, his orders are his orders, and I will not be the dwarf that disobeys his king, no, I will not.”

  “But”—Kate was pleading now—“can’t you at least send some of your men to look for our sister! If those salmac-whatever things really are out there, she shouldn’t be alone!”

  “You’re right enough there. But I can’t send my soldiers on a rescue mission for some trespasser. What would happen if two or three of them ran into a horde of salmac-tar? It would be dwarf kebab for those monsters. Could never defend that to a board of review. I’m sorry, but your sister will have to take her chances.”

  Kate was furious. She could feel hot tears streaming down her face. “How can you say you care about family? You don’t care about family at all!”

  “Oh, but I do, lass. I care about my own.”

  Then he tucked the Omnibus into Michael’s bag and, pulling on his mace gloves, nodded to two dwarves, who heaved the children onto their shoulders. The troop marched down the tunnel and around the corner into a large chamber, at the end of which were a pair of iron doors and two dwarves standing sentry. Craning her neck around the dwarf who was carrying her, Kate could see that the doors were inlaid with an intricate carving of a very good-looking dwarf with a flowing beard that sparkled in the torchlight. As they got closer, Kate could see the sparkling came from hundreds of perfect diamonds.

  Without stopping, the red-bearded dwarf called out, “Captain Robbie McLaur returning with two captives for King Hamish,” and the sentry dwarves rapped the butts of their spears on the ground, and the great doors swung open, and Kate saw another chamber and, at the far end of that, another set of iron doors swinging open and, past that, another chamber also with iron doors swinging open and, past that, another and another, all the doors swinging open (and all of them engraved with the same handsome, diamond-bearded dwarf). She and Michael were carried through chamber after chamber as the sentries stood at attention next to spears twice their size and saluted Captain Robbie McLaur. Each set of doors was shut and locked behind them, and when the troop passed through the final pair, Kate saw they had arrived at a great stone bridge fronted by twenty-foot statues of fierce, ax-wielding dwarves. The bridge arched over a huge chasm, and brilliant white light emanated from below, illuminating everything around them.

  “Captain,” Michael called, his voice coming out in huffs as he was bounced along, “where’s that light coming from?”

  “King Hamish’s palace,” said the dwarf. “The entire roof is inlaid with diamonds. His own addition and design, I’ll have you know.” He said this as if he did not fully approve of diamond-inlaid roofs. “You’ll see it closer when he questions you. I imagine he’ll get around to it in fifty or so years.”

  “What?!” Kate exclaimed.

  “Dwarves live hundreds of years,” Michael said. “They think about time differently than us.”

  “Great,” Kate said. “That’s just great.”

  At the other end of the bridge, they entered another tunnel and were carried down a steep stairway that seemed to go on and on and on, Kate feeling every step through the mail-clad shoulder of her captor, till finally they reached a stone corridor lit by torches fixed in the wall. The dwarves they passed here were not like the cheerful dwarves of Robbie McLaur’s troop. They wore cloaks that covered their faces and they stared at the ground, and even Robbie McLaur’s dwarves seemed to avoid contact with them.

  “Jailer,” she heard Robbie McLaur’s voice, “I have two trespassing prisoners for the King.”

  “Cell 198 is free,” replied the jailer. “The occupant died this morning. Or perhaps it was last week. We just noticed the smell.”

  “Hmm, the body is still in there, I s
uppose.”

  “Aye. But I can get it removed in the next few days. Till then, I doubt he’ll trouble your prisoners much,” the jailer said, cackling gleefully.

  Kate glanced at Michael. When they were alone, she was going to tell him in no uncertain terms exactly what she thought of dwarves.

  “And why not put them in cell 47?” Robbie McLaur suggested.

  “There’s already an occupant in cell 47. A highly dangerous occupant. Your captives look a little tender to me.”

  “No, it’s cell 47 I want, Jailer. Yes, yes, that’s the one for them. If this fellow tenderizes them a little, so much the better. It’ll be that much easier when the interrogation comes.”

  “Of course, Captain. This way.”

  Kate heard a key turn in a lock, and then she and Michael were carried through a low doorway, passing Robbie McLaur, who was leaning over a table, signing an official-looking document.

  “Captain, please!” Kate called. “We’ll take cell 198! Please!” But Robbie McLaur didn’t look up, and then they were through the door and it was shut behind them.

  The jailer led them along a dank, torchlit corridor. Kate and Michael could see iron doors on either side and hear pounding and scraping and growling from inside the cells. They went down a flight of steps, around a corner, down more steps, along an even narrower passage, and then stopped.

  “Here,” the jailer said. “Cell 47.”

  The two dwarves set Kate and Michael on the floor and cut the ropes tying their hands and feet. The jailer banged on the door with a club.

  “You in there! Stay back and don’t try anything! There’s two that’s coming in!”

  The jailer waited, but there was only silence. He fit the key in the lock, then with a quick motion turned it, swung open the door, and hissed, “Now!” The two dwarves pushed Kate and Michael into the room and slammed the door shut behind them. Kate heard the key turn and the bolt shoot into place.