abstract
| - Dwarves bent down and clutched the ground. They squeezed until their knuckles turned white from the strain and almost crawled across the mountainside refusing to let go with both hands at once. One group sat huddled beneath a rocky outcropping, as if trying to evade a storm, though the day was sunny and beautiful. Palais Adien stood just outside the tunnel entrance and stared into the sky. He slowly began to sway, then collapsed and vomited all over the ground. His brothers rushed to him, all careful not to look up. Arturus watched his kin struggle. A wild hare stopped briefly to look at the odd dwarves before hopping away. The dwarves were as equally confused by the bouncing rabbit as it was by the slinking dwarves. "Look out across the plains," Arturus shouted and then he waited for all the dwarves to do as he commanded. From here he could see the green and browns of distant hills, the blues of the inland lakes and the rich yellows of the fertile valleys. Once the dwarves were all looking, Arturus continued. "The mountain does not move. Even as the wind strikes it, as storms rage against it, the mountain does not move. With the open sky above and the underhome below, as ages pass, as empires and gods battle, the mountain does not move." At this point Arturus was standing in the open. He could see the fear in his clansmen's eyes as they looked at him. With only his feet touching the earth, it seemed as if he would be sucked off into the unknown. But he remained solid and determined. "We will be as the mountain. We will build the first Khazad surface cities here since the Age of Magic. And though we may face the dangers of this world, though creatures or the empires of men may attack, we, like the mountain, will not move." One by one the dwarves stood, then together they walked down the mountainside toward the site of their first city.
|