Ник О'Донохью - Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes

Someone—Palin had the vague impression it was Sturm—was pounding him on the back and, at last, he was able to gasp for air.

“I do enjoy seeing a man enjoy his liquor,” said Dougan seriously. “My turn now. A drink to the young mage!” Putting his mug to his lips, the dwarf tilted his head back and drained it in one long swallow. When he reappeared, his eyes were watery and his large, bulbous nose bright red. “Ahhh!” he breathed, blinking back his tears and wiping his mouth with the end of his beard.

“Hear, hear,” cried both Sturm and Tanin, raising their mugs. “A drink to our brother, the mage!” They, too, drained their mugs, not quite as fast as the dwarf, but without stopping for breath.

“Thank you,” said Palin, deeply moved. Cautiously, he took another gulp. The effect wasn’t so awful the second time. In fact, it was pleasurable. Palin took another drink, then another, and finally drained the mug. Setting it down on the table amid cheers from his brothers and Dougan, the young man felt warm and good all over. His blood tingled in his veins. Tanin was looking at him with approval and pride, Sturm was filling his mug again. Dougan downed two more mugs in a row, Sturm and Tanin drank theirs, and then it was Palin’s turn. He lifted the mug to his lips ...

Palin was smiling and he couldn’t quit smiling. He loved Tanin and Sturm better than anyone else in the world, and he told them so, until he broke down and cried on Sturm’s broad shoulder. But no! There was someone else he loved—that was the dwarf. He staggered to his feet and went round the table to shake the dwarfs hand. He even made a speech. Fast friends ... firm friends, like his father and his father’s friend ... old Flint, the dwarf ... He went back to his chair, only there seemed to be four chairs now, instead of just one. Picking one, Palin sat down, missed and would have ended up on the floor if Tanin hadn’t caught him. He drank another mug, watching his brothers and his new friend with tears of affection streaming down his face.

“I tell you, lads”—Dougan’s voice seemed to Palin to come from a long distance away—“I love you like my own sons. And I must say I think you’ve had a wee bit more to drink than you can handle.”

“Naw!” Sturm cried indignantly, pounding his hand on the table.

“We can keep up with you,” Tanin muttered, breathing heavily, his face beefy red.

“Damnrigh’,” said Palin, striking the table—or he would have if the table hadn’t suddenly and unaccountably leaped out of the way.

And then Palin was lying on the floor, thinking this was an interesting place to be, much safer than up there in four chairs, with tables jumping ... Glancing around blearily, he saw his staff on the floor beside him. Reaching out, he caressed it lovingly.

“Shirak!” he slurred, and the crystal atop the staff burst into light. He heard some commotion at this; high, shrill voices jabbering and chattering somewhere in the background. Palin giggled and couldn’t quit giggling.

From somewhere up above, he heard Dougan’s voice come floating down to him. “Here’s to our beds,” said the dwarf, “and a sound night’s sleep!” And if there was a sinister note in the gruff voice or more than a trace of triumphant laughter, Palin discounted it. The dwarf was his friend, a brother to him. He loved him like a brother, his dear brothers ...

Palin laid his head on the floor, resting his cheek on the staff’s cool wood. Shutting his eyes, he slipped away into another world—a world of small creatures in brown robes, who lifted him up and ran away with him ...

The world heaved and shivered, and Palin’s stomach heaved and his skin shivered in agreement, misery loving company. Rolling over on his side, he was violently sick, and he wondered as he lay on whatever it was he was lying on—he couldn’t open his eyes to see, they felt all gummed together—how long it would take him to die and end this suffering.

When he could be sick no more and when it seemed that his insides might actually stay inside, Palin lay back with a groan. His head was beginning to clear a little, and he realized suddenly, when he tried to move, that his hands were tied behind his back. Fear shot through his muzzy brain, its cold surge blowing away the mists of the dwarf spirits. He couldn’t feel his feet, and he dimly knew that cords tied around his ankles had cut off his circulation. Gritting his teeth, he shifted his position slightly and wiggled his toes inside his soft leather boots, wincing as he felt the tingling of returning blood.

He was lying on a wooden plank, he noticed, feeling it beneath him with his hands. And there was a peculiar motion to the plank, it was rocking back and forth in a manner most unsettling to Palin’s aching head and churning stomach. There were strange noises and smells, too—wood creaking, an odd whooshing and gurgling, and, every so often, a tremendous roaring and thudding and flapping above his head that sounded like a stampede of horses or, Palin thought with a catch in his throat, his father’s description of attacking dragons. Cautiously, the young mage opened his eyes. Almost instantly, he shut them again. Sunlight streaming through a small, round window pierced his brain like an arrow, sending white-hot pain bouncing around the backs of his eyeballs. The plank rocked him this way and that, and Palin was sick again.

When he recovered sufficiently to think he might not die in the next ten seconds—a matter of extreme regret—Palin braced himself to open his eyes and keep them open.

He managed, but at the cost of being sick again. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was nothing left inside him to lose, and it wasn’t long before he was able to look around. He was lying on a wooden plank, as he had surmised. The plank had been built into a curved wooden wall of a small room and was obviously intended as a crude bed. Several other planks lined the walls of the oddly shaped room and Palin saw his two brothers lying unconscious on these, bound hand and foot as he was. There was no other furniture in the room, nothing but a few wooden chests, which were sliding along the wooden floor.

Palin had only to look out the small, round window on the wall across from him to confirm his worst fears. At first, he saw nothing but blue sky and white clouds and bright sunlight. Then the plank on which he was lying dropped—it seemed—into a chasm. The wooden chests scraped across the floor, running away past him. Blue sky and clouds vanished, to be replaced by green water.

Shutting his eyes once more, Palin rolled over to ease his cramped muscles, pressing his aching head against the cool, damp wood of the crude bed.

Or perhaps he should say “berth.” That’s the nautical term, isn’t it? he said to himself bitterly. That’s what you call a bed on a ship. And what will they call us on the ship? Palin asked himself in despair. Galley slaves? Chained to the oars, subject to the overmaster

with his whip, flaying the flesh from their backs ... The motion of the ship changed, the sea chests skittered along the floor in the opposite direction, sky and clouds leaped back into the window, and Palin knew he was going to be sick again.

“Palin ... Palin, are you all right?”

There was an anguished tone in the voice that brought Palin to consciousness. Painfully, he once again opened his eyes. He must have slept, he realized, though how he could have done so with this throbbing in his head and the queasy state of his stomach he had no idea.

“Palin!” The voice was urgent.

“Yes,” said Palin thickly. It took an effort to talk, his tongue felt and tasted as though gully dwarves had taken up residence in his mouth. The thought made his stomach lurch, and he abandoned it hurriedly. “Yes,” he said again, “I’m ... all right ...”