Read Online Watersmeet by Ellen Jensen Abbott - Free Book Online Page A

feel better, but not in the way Hoysta expected. One day, the old dwarf returned from tending her flocks with a nasty badger bite on one of her fingers. Abisina sat by the fire sewing pelts into a sleeping roll and watched as Hoysta put some cobwebs on the wound to staunch the bleeding before she returned to sewing.
    “I’d put some feverfew on that,” Abisina suggested as Hoysta picked up her needle with her injured hand and winced.
    “On a badger bite?”
    “It’ll bring down the swelling and ease the pain.”
    “A tea will do that?” Hoysta said doubtfully.
    “Not a tea. A tincture.” Abisina sewed a few stitches and added, “I’ll make one for you, if you like.”
    “Where would you learn something like that?”
    “I’m the daughter of a healer,” Abisina answered, her chest aching. But later, as she collected the dried feverfew from Hoysta’s herbs, she recalled the bunches hung from the eaves in the hut in Vranille—and she felt the tiniest easing of her pain. Through her, someone would benefit from her mother’s gift.
    Abisina enjoyed the work she did with Hoysta. The dwarf’s constant stream of conversation kept her thoughts busy, and through Hoysta’s stories, Abisina began to understand Haret’s intense interest in Watersmeet. Hoysta spoke of the dwarves’ ancestors living in a vast city built into the roots of the Obrun Mountains—the same mountains Sina had mentioned that last night in Vranille. The Obrun City was rich and cultured, complete with palaces and plazas, underground rivers, broad avenues, spacious halls, canals, tier upon tier of dwellings, and libraries.
    “Libraries?” Abisina asked incredulously. “Dwarves can read ?”
    “Of course, dearie! Can’t you?”
    “Well, yes, but we had to hide that my mother was teaching me. Women aren’t allowed to read in Vranille, and most men can’t either.”
    “Women can’t—? Humans!” Hoysta shook her head and gave Abisina a pitying look before resuming her story.
    The wealth of the Obrun City came from the Obrium Lode—a vein of the wondrous metal that Sina’s necklace was made of. The Lode ran through the earth right underneath the city, giving it and the mountains their name. “Dwarves never name mountains! We’ve no use for them—poking into the sky.” Hoysta chuckled. “But other creatures do.”
    The stories of Obrium astounded Abisina almost as much as the libraries—a metal as flexible as gold but stronger than diamond. According to Hoysta, even a thin sheet could protect the wearer from an axe blow or an arrow shot by a centaur’s longbow. The only known source was the Obrium Lode, and dwarves alone knew how to mine the metal and work it.
    Abisina presumed that most of what Hoysta told her about the Obrun City was legend. Dwarves, who now lived in holes in the earth, covered in dirt, used to live in luxury beyond what the Elders enjoyed? But Hoysta spoke with such detail, such reverence, that Abisina got caught up in the stories, just as she got caught up in the fanciful stories of long ago that her mother used to tell.
    “You haven’t told me what happened to the city,” she said one day, as they sat by the fire sewing skins into a cloak for Haret.
    Hoysta’s face changed; her voice became raspier and lower. “The city was destroyed by the Great Earthquake. Till that time, the Obrun Mountains were nothing but hills. Dwarves and other creatures moved easily over them to the north and the south. Even the Mountains Eternal were smaller. My grandfather spoke of seeing the summit of one of the lower ones!” Hoysta shivered at the thought. “But after the Earthquake, all that changed. The Mountains Eternal shot up into the clouds. And the Obrun Mountains doubled in size. The Obrun City was destroyed. Only a handful made it out. Tried to tunnel back to see if anyone or any part of the city survived, but met a wall of rock that they couldn’t break without their Obrium tools buried behind it. Couldn’t find a