Dan Parkinson: The Gully Dwarves

It was all very confusing, but somehow, it seemed, little Lidda had kept that bunch of uglies in line.

“Lidda might keep Highbulp in line, too,” Gandy told himself now. “Keep lizard-things in line, keep anybody in line. Real good choice.”

Thoughtfully, he looked back at the Highbulp, who was reveling in being the center of attention. Glitch sat straight and proud atop his brand-new throne, his crown slightly askew, the expression on his homely face a study in self-importance. He grandly permitted those who cared to, a chance to come close and admire him.

Beneath him, warmed by the regal bottom as well as by the radiance of nearby stew fires, the throne seemed to be just as happy as he was. It glowed cheerily with a radiant, greenish light.

Lidda found something else with which to occupy herself. High on one wall of the ancient chamber the combined clans had claimed as their home, was a mosaic of carvings surrounded by a framework of dark marble shelving set into gray stone. In some forgotten time, artisans had worked the stone within that frame, shaping forms and sculptures-a grand, intertwined mosaic of figures of all kinds, people, animals, vines and flowers interwoven with strange symbols, all sculpted in the stone.

In the very center of it all was a circle of faces. Had Lidda-or anyone else around-been able to count past two, they would have known that there were nine visages staring from the cold stone of the wall there. Each stood out in stark relief from the surface of an oval plaque. The nine “faces” were not really faces, exactly-certainly they were like no faces any gully dwarf had ever seen-but seemed images of things far beyond understanding.

Everybody knew the stone mosaic was there. It was in plain sight, and everyone had glanced at it from time to time, but it had no more meaning to most of them than any other unexplainable thing in their world. They didn’t know what it was, or why it was there any more than they knew why some areas of the ancient ruin to which they had come were full of water, or why the largest of the covered corridors leading away and upward from their living area sometimes whined and wept with distant winds that drifted through the halls of the Pitt and made stew fires flicker.

Lidda had been noticing the mosaic on the wall a lot lately. Somehow, it seemed to her, it looked different than when she first saw it, and it puzzled her why it should.

Now, with nothing better to do, she went to look at it again, squinting upward in puzzlement as she walked back and forth beneath the sculpture. Then she saw it. One of the faces was tilted slightly outward, as though the plaque on which it rested had partially separated from the stone of the surrounding mosaic.

Curious, Lidda found handholds and toeholds in the surface of the wall and began to climb.

It took some time and effort to get there. The entire mosaic extended from just above the floor-eye-level to Lidda-into the shadows high in the great chamber. And even though the circle of faces was only halfway up, that still was more than twenty feet above the floor. But once set on a course, she tended to follow it, and eventually she was high on the wall, clinging to chiseled stone vines with the tilted oval plaque just above her.

It was larger than she had guessed-as wide as she was tall. The face on it seemed to be a representation of a bearded man with a string of beads across his forehead and jutting mustaches that came to sharp points at each side. Then again, it might have been a sculpture of one of the lizard-like creatures who had occupied the Pitt until recently or something else, entirely. It was hard to tell.

It wasn’t the art, though, that held Lidda’s attention.

It was the crack behind the plaque. The oval, seen closely, turned out to be old, tarnished metal rather than stone, and she stuck out her tongue to taste it. It was iron. Each of the plaques in the circle was made of metal of a different sort, and each had a hinge at the bottom and a catch at the top. The one she was exploring was separated from the wall because its catch had rusted.

Leaning close to peer into the crack, she saw that there was a hole in the stone behind it.

“What this?” Lidda muttered to herself. “Maybe somethin’ good inside?”

With visions of treasure-nests full of forgotten eggs, piles of pretty rocks hidden away, maybe shoe buckles-dancing in her mind, Lidda grasped her handhold, braced herself against the sculpted stone, wrapped strong little fingers around the nearest edge of the loosened oval, and pulled.

For a moment, the rusted catch held. Then it gave way and the entire plaque swung downward, shaking Lidda loose from her precarious perch. She clung to the falling edge of the oval and glanced upward as something shot from the exposed hole over her head-something long, dark and very fast that whistled in the air as it shot past her.

The plaque clanged against stone and quivered. Lidda hung from its lower edge with one hand, high above the floor of the great chamber, shouting for help. And somewhere across the chamber, in shadows at the far side, something big crashed against stone, throwing sparks and skittering off into the main corridor.

Below was a babble of surprised voices: “Here, now! What goin’ on?” “What that flew past?” “Somethin’ noisy in tunnel.” “Look! Somebody up on wall!”

Clinging desperately to the now-inverted oval shield, high above the floor of This Place, Lidda chirped and chattered in panic, trying not to fall.

“Who that up there?” someone below asked.

“Lidda? That you?” someone else wanted to know.

“Me!” she shouted. “Somebody help!”

“What goin’ on?” The Highbulp’s voice sounded irritated. “Who that up there?”

“Lidda,” someone said.

“Lidda come down!” the Highbulp demanded.

A female voice echoed him. The Lady Bruze put her hands on her hips and stamped a foot. “Lidda! Get down from there!”

“Can’t!” she shrieked. “Barely holdin’ on!”

“Then turn loose!” the Lady Bruze insisted.

Directly below her, old Gandy’s voice called, “No, don’ turn loose! Swing feet!”

Since that sounded like a better idea than the one immediately prior, Lidda kept her grip on the metal rim and swung her feet. Her toe touched the carved wall, slipped away, and she swung again, this time finding a toehold in the mosaic surface. She clung for a moment, getting her breath, then eased herself beneath the hanging shield and found a handhold. Within seconds she was scurrying down the sheer wall, sighing with relief.

A few gathered to watch her descent, but with the crisis past, most of the gully dwarves had turned their attentions to the far side of the great chamber where something had entered the main corridor at great speed, thrown a mighty shower of sparks, and disappeared up the tunnel.

When Lidda reached the floor again, only the Lady Bruze was there to face her. Hands on hips, she leaned toward the younger female and snapped, “Lidda stay off wall! Got no business climb wall!”

“Checkin’ out hole …” Lidda pointed upward, trying to explain.

“Bad Lidda!” Bruze’s words bored in. “Why you always do dumb stuff? Like bring us back green thing ‘stead of hunt mushroom an’ … like … like … dumb stuff!”

The lady’s tone was so severe that Lidda backed away a step.

“Now mess up wall stuff!” Bruze chided, glancing upward. “Prob’ly broke somethin’. Dumb Lidda!”

Lidda had taken all she was going to. With her own hands on her own hips, she stomped her foot and thrust a pugnacious face forward, nose-to-nose with Bruze. “Shut up, Lady Bruze! Got no right talk on me that way!”

Bruze recoiled for an instant, surprised, then straightened her back, stuck her nose in the air and turned away. “Dumb Lidda,” she snorted. “An’ sassy, too.” With a sniff of disdain, she stalked off, leaving Lidda to fume and sputter.