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

way to cross the mountains either. Wanted to see if there were any other Obrun dwarves who had made it out on the northern side. Heard they did. Somehow the word ‘Watersmeet’ reached them. They began to believe that this was where the survivors had fled to. But they gave up trying to cross. Had to. Set up their own communities. Mixed with the woodsy dwarves living south of the mountains.
    “So much lost!” Hoysta lamented. “Riches, know-how, city-building. Most of the dwarves think it’s a legend, a tale to tell the young by the fire of an evening. But my son and his bride, Haret’s parents, believed the stories. And my father, and his mother.” Hoysta sighed. “Went off to find the Mines, all of them. Obriumlust, it’s called, this maddening desire to dig for the metal. Done all I can to hammer it out of Haret. Won’t lose another! Then you came—with Obrium and the word ‘Watersmeet’ on your lips—and the madness is building in him.”
    Abisina thought of Haret pacing the great room after supper—and the sound of his feet tramping, tramping as she lay awake on her cot.
    Hoysta plucked her needle out of a pelt in agitation. “I was beginning to think Watersmeet was a legend myself, till we met you. But now the Mines pull Haret like a lodestone—like they pulled his parents.” She looked up at Abisina. “All these years, we’ve searched. Can anything be worth the suffering?”
    As time passed, the cave became more and more suffocating to Abisina—the air stale, hot, and heavy with the smell of smoked mole. With no sunrise or sunset, she lost track of day and night. She longed for one breath of fresh air. And finally, she got her wish.
    Hoysta had just finished untying her arm, carefully flexing the elbow to work out the stiffness. Then she led Abisina to the tunnel at the far end of the main room—the way out! A heavy curtain of animal pelts covered the tunnel to keep the warm air of the room from escaping. Abisina had longed to lift it and breathe the fresher air of the tunnel, but the first time she put out a hand to the curtain, Haret’s bellow told her that he was sure she would run away if given the chance.
    Now Hoysta, torch in one hand, basket in the other, told Abisina to pull it back. “We’re off to collect some roots!” she said with a grin.
    Abisina stepped into the tunnel and drew in her first breath of fresh air in months. She followed Hoysta up the steep incline, brushing her head on the low ceiling. Within twenty paces, they came to a fork, and Hoysta went right, onto the steeper of the two pathways. They continued to climb another two hundred paces before the tunnel leveled off and opened into a long, low room. Abisina entered, stooping, and walked into Hoysta, who had stopped and set down the basket.
    “Now let’s see.” Hoysta leaned back to survey the roof of the cave.
    Abisina twisted her neck to look along the ceiling. In the torchlight, veins of white fretted the dark earth, some more slender than strands of hair. Hoysta reached up and probed the ceiling with her sharp fingernails until she found what she was looking for. She dug farther in, clumps of dirt falling onto her head, and then she pulled something out and held it up to Abisina.
    “Supper!” Hoysta held a gnarled white root, caked in soil, between her thumb and forefinger.
    “Aren’t we—aren’t we going—out?” Abisina stammered, dread tickling her scalp.
    Hoysta shivered. “Out? My, no! This is close enough for me! Give me walls of Earth above, below, and around. Don’t see how Haret stands it, crawling on the surface of things. You don’t mind it, of course, being a creature of the surface. But not me. I was made to be underground.”
    “But I must go out! I must see the sun, even for a moment! Please, Hoysta!” Abisina grabbed the dwarf by the shoulders.
    “Don’t hurt me!” Hoysta cried.
    Startled, Abisina let go. Hoysta’s frightened face reminded Abisina of her own reaction when she