Margaret Weis: Serpent Mage

And Alake and Sabia were good enough to put up with my blunt honesty, a trait of my people. (I would like to think it is a good one, but it can be carried to extremes!) A dwarf will always tell the truth, no matter how little anyone else is prepared to hear it. We can also be very stubborn, and once we dig in our heels we stay put and rarely budge. An unusually stubborn human is said to have “feet like a dwarf.”

In addition, I learned how to speak and write fluent human and elven (though our poor governess was always offended by the awkward way I held my pen). I studied the histories of their seamoons and their differing versions of the history of our world, Chelestra. But what I truly learned was affection for my dear sister-friends and, through them, their races.

We used to plan what we would do to bring our people even closer together when we at last came to rule, each of us on our own seamoon.

Never to be. We none of us will live that long.

I suppose I had better tell what happened.

It all began the day I was to bless the sun-chaser. My day. My wonderful day. I could not sleep for excitement. Hurriedly I dressed myself in my best clothes—a long-sleeved blouse of plain and serviceable fabric (we have no use for frills), an overdress laced behind, and stout, thick boots. Standing before the looking glass in my bedroom in my father’s house, I began the day’s most important task: brushing and curling my hair and side whiskers. The time seemed all too short before I heard my father calling for me. I made believe I hadn’t heard him, stood looking at myself with a critical eye, wondering if I was fit to be seen in public. You mustn’t think that such attention to my appearance was all for vanity’s sake. As heir to the Gargan throne, I’m expected to both look and act the part.

I had to admit—I was pretty.

I cleared away the pots of oil, imported from the elves of Elmas, and replaced the curling tongs carefully in their stand by the grate. Sabia, who has servants falling all over her (and who has never once brushed her own long blonde hair), can’t get over the fact that I not only dress myself, but clean up afterward. We Gargan are a proud and self-sufficient people and would never dream of waiting on each other in a menial capacity. Our Vater chops his own fire wood; our Muter does her own laundry and sweeps her own floor. I curl my own hair. The only mark of distinction the royal family receives above all other Gargan is that we are expected to work twice as hard as anyone else. Today, however, our family was to have one of the rewards for services rendered to the people. The fleet of sun-chasers had been completed. My father would ask the blessing of the One upon them, and I would have the honor of nailing a lock of my hair to the bow of the flagship.

My father yelled again. Swiftly, I left my room, hurried out into the hall.

“Where is the lass?” I heard my father demand of my mother. “The seasun will have passed us by. We’ll be frozen solid by the time she’s ready.”

“This is her big day,” said my mother soothingly. “You want her to look well. All her suitors will be there.”

“Bah!” Father grumbled. “She’s far too young to be thinking of such things.”

“Perhaps. But what catches the eye now catches the head later,” said my mother, quoting a dwarven proverb. [9] Dwarves make several stages of progression through life, beginning with the Time of Weaning, proceeding through the Time of Seeking, and advancing into the Time of Sense. Dwarves are not permitted to marry until they reach the Time of Sense, when it is considered that the hot blood of the Seeking time has cooled into the common sense of adulthood. This is equivalent in human terms to about fifty years of age. After the Time of Sense, at approximately the age of two hundred, dwarves pass into the Time of Wisdom.

“Hunh!” My father snorted.

But, when he caught sight of me, his stomach puffed out with pride, and he said nothing more about my being late.

Father, I miss you so! Oh, how hard it is! How hard.

We left our house that is more like a cave bored straight into the mountain. All our homes and businesses are built inside the mountain, unlike human and elven structures that are built on the mountain slopes. It took me a long time to get used to living in the Elmas coral castle that seemed, in my mind, to cling precariously to the rock. I had dreams about its tumbling down the mountainside, carrying me with it!

The morning was beautiful. The rays of the seasun shimmered up through the waves [10] The seasun’s position relative to the seamoons makes it appear, to those standing on these particular moons, as if the sun is in the water beneath them. Light shines from the water, therefore, not the sky. The sky itself often appears a turquoise color that comes from mosses growing on the surface of the air-caverns of the seamoon. . The sparse clouds that floated over the warren caught the sun’s glow. My family joined the throngs of dwarves walking down the steeply sloping path to the shore of the Goodsea. Our neighbors called out to my father, more than a few coming up to slap him on his broad stomach—a typical dwarven form of greeting—and invite him to join them in the tavern after the ceremony. My father slapped stomachs in return, and we continued down the mountainside. When on land, the Gargan travel everywhere on their own two feet. Carts are meant to haul potatoes, not people. And although we dwarves have grown accustomed to the sight of elves riding around in carriages and humans using beasts to bear their burdens, most Gargans consider such laziness to be a symbol of the weakness inherent in the other two races.

The only vehicle we dwarves use are our famous submersibles—ships designed to sail the Goodsea. Such ships—the dwarves’ pride—were developed out of necessity since we have an unfortunate tendency to sink like stones in the water. The dwarf has not been born who can swim.

We Gargans are such clever shipbuilders that the Phondrans and the Elmas, who once built ships of their own, ceased to do so and came to rely solely on our craft. Now, with the help of financing from the humans and elves, we had constructed our masterpiece—a fleet of sun-chasers, enough submersibles to carry the populations of three seamoons.

“It’s been generations since we have been called on to build the sun-chasers,” stated my father. We had paused a moment to look proudly down from the steeply slanting roadway to the harbor at sea level, far below. “And never a fleet this big, designed to carry so many. This is a historic occasion, one that will be long remembered.”

“And such an honor for Grundle,” said my mother, smiling at me. I returned my mother’s smile, but said nothing. We dwarves are not noted for our sense of humor, but I am considered serious-minded and sober even for a dwarf and my thoughts today were concentrated on my duties. I have an extremely practical nature, not a shred of sentimentality or romance (as Sabia used to comment sadly).

“I wish your friends were here to see you today,” my mother added. “We invited them, but, of course, they are extremely busy among their own people, preparing for the Sun Chase.”

“Yes, Mother,” I agreed. “It would have been nice if they could have come.” I would not alter dwarven life-style for the trapping of the seasun, but I could not help envying the respect accorded Alake by the Phondrans or the love and reverence shown Sabia by the Elmas. Among my people I am, most of the time, just another dwarf maiden. I comforted myself with the knowledge that I would be able to tell my friends all about it and (I must be honest) with the knowledge that neither would have a lock of her hair on the bow of a sun-chaser!