Eldred's Precarious Journey to Find the Sun

“Can you hear them, son?”

Eldred focused on trying to hear them with all his might.

“They’re all around you. They’ve been there your entire life, and they’ll be there after you’re gone. They’ve seen untold ages and the lives that have come before us. They are our guide, and they are our history. All you have to do is close your eyes and listen. You’ll hear them. Trust me.”

This time Eldred closed his eyes. He didn’t know how many times he tried to hear their voices, but time after time, he had only received silence in return.

And this time? Well, this time was no different.

Eldred cursed. Honestly, he didn’t even know why he tried.

No, he thought with an exasperated breath as he placed his hand against the ancient stone. You know exactly why you’re here. Nothing is holding you back now.

Eldred opened his eyes to a world enveloped in darkness. The only light provided was the lone torch he had brought with him on his journey. His father had often brought him here when he was a child. It was where his forefathers had come to hear the guidance of the stones.

Aesthetically, Eldred understood why.

It was far away from the kingdom of Dhumrum, whose caverns echoed throughout the day with the bellows of the furnaces and the loud clattering of hammers.

If Eldred moved his fingers slightly, he could feel the remnants of where his ancestors had dug into the wall with their pickaxes, their sweat, tears, and blood as they had carved the land they would eventually call home.

It was no wonder why his father loved it here, and for that matter, why he loved it himself.

However, there had always been one problem for Eldred, and that was when his father’s words echoed in his mind once again.

“Can you hear them, son?”

Eldred frowned deeply and whispered, although no one would’ve heard him if he had yelled, “No, father. I can’t, and I doubt I ever will.”

When his father had passed, Eldred had wondered if his voice had joined with the mountain, if his father tried to talk to him, and if he were simply deaf to his voice. Eldred traced his hand along the stone to the crack he had discovered only a month ago. He waited for a moment until he felt a cold breeze brush against his fingers.

Eldred’s face hardened, and he clenched his hand into a fist, gave the wall one last glance, and turned his back to them. “Hearing that, Father…I pray that you understand why I’m doing this. Even if you can’t, know that I do it because I think it’s for the best.”

---

We are given birth in the mountain, and we all die in its embrace.

Every dwarven babe learned these words when they become old enough to forge words of their own.

The dwarven people had an odd affinity with their home. It was told that the mountain communicated with every dwarf. It guided them through its caverns so they never lost their way. The mountain also provided them with the treasure that every dwarven heart desired.

Metal for forging.

Gems for catalysts.

And the one thing that topped them all: gold.

Given that the mountain provided dwarves with everything they needed, there was absolutely no reason to leave it. Eldred and his people hadn’t left it in untold generations. They had spent their lives carving a home for themselves within the old stone, using the bounties they uncovered for blade crafting, gunsmithing, mechanicians that improved their daily lives, and wealth. Their people flourished under its protection. There was never any reason to ask for anything more, or at least, not for the typical dwarf.

Eldred had believed this truth when he was a wee lad, but as he had gained more years under his belt, he had noticed that he was slightly different from other dwarves.

It turned out that he had the habit of getting lost, which was strange because no dwarf ever got lost within the mountain. For Eldred, though, it was nearly a daily occurrence. Finally, on one of these days, within the smothering darkness of the cavern, Eldred realized he couldn’t hear the voice of the mountain.

No matter how hard he tried to hear the stones, he only received silence in return, and it was then that he heard the whispers of his people.

What kind of dwarf can’t hear the stones?

His father tried to shield Eldred from them, but what he couldn’t hide was the look in his eyes. Though his father never said it in words, Eldred knew he was disappointed with him. How many times had he taken Eldred deep within the caverns to hear the stones, only to receive the same result every time?

Eldred had lost count after the fiftieth attempt.

Luckily, not hearing the stones didn’t make Eldred a complete failure as a dwarf. He excelled in crafting and shaping metal and found himself a job at a local forge, and after five years of being an apprentice, he opened a smithy of his own. He didn’t like to brag, but there was a smithy on nearly every corner of Dhumrum, yet his was the only one with a line that stretched down the street.

Guns or swords, Eldred could craft anything with his hands.

However, Eldred didn’t limit himself to being a mere smith. If he couldn’t hear the history of his people from the stones, then he’d dive himself in the literature of his people and learn it for himself.

There wasn’t much to Dhumrum’s history.

The dwarves had spent their entire lives in the mountain. Their history mostly consisted of the accounts of kings and the schematics of inventors. Eldred often felt like taking a nap after a good hour of reading.

One day, in the dustiest corner of the library, and the fiction section to boot, Eldred found a rather interesting book. It told of something called the sun. Apparently, the sun shone brighter than the strongest flame, yet instead of burning the skin, it provided a warmth that no blanket could ever dare to copy.

What piqued Eldred’s interest the most was that this so-called sun existed outside the mountain.

At first, he thought the story was a myth. It was far too fantastical to be true. Although this didn’t stop him from being intrigued, and he continued reading the book to completion.

The book also talked about this blue thing called a sky and white fluffy things, called clouds, that randomly dropped water, and it mentioned a peculiar thing called wind. Similar to a dwarf’s breath, wind was apparently produced naturally, and although it was mostly tame, it somehow had the strength to move boulders.

Eldred considered the book's contents to be nothing but a fairy tale until the day his father died during a mining accident. It didn’t happen often, but some slow-witted dwarf wasn’t paying much attention and dug where he shouldn’t have, causing a cave-in that took the life of everyone on the crew.

It was one of the hardest days of Eldred’s life.

He didn’t even go to his father’s funeral. Instead, wanting to make his father proud, he decided to go to the spot of their forefathers. He hoped he would finally hear the mountain’s voice, but instead, he only stood in darkness as his tears slid down his face. He pounded his fists against the walls, demanding the mountain talk to him, only to receive the same silence that he had been acquainted with his entire life.

And that’s when he felt it.

It felt like some weirdo was blowing against his fingers.

He traced his fingers against the wall until he found a small crack. Then he felt it once more. He knew deep within his heart that it was the wind, and if wind existed, then did clouds exist? Or maybe even the sun?

With his father gone, and unable to hear the voices of the stone, Eldred could no longer call the mountain his home. Instead, he decided that he would be the dwarf who discovered the sun.

---

“So, let me get this straight,” Kara said skeptically as she eyed the pack Eldred had readied for his journey. “You’re going outside…like outside Dhumrum? Don’t you do that every day anyway?”

Eldred took a sip of his ale, trying to drown out his annoyance with his longtime friend. How many times within the last month had he spoken with Kara of his plans to leave the mountain? 

He was opening his mouth to repeat himself when he heard an animated scoff behind him, followed by the words, “Babyface Eldred and his wild tales again. Everyone better run home and hide your babes before the goblin horde comes for them.”

There was one other oddity about Eldred that made him stick out like a sore thumb. It was the minor fact that he religiously shaved his beard every morning before he started the day.

“A dwarf’s beard is his pride,” his father’s voice repeated in his head. “The longer a man’s beard, the bigger his brain, as it tells you how long he has lived and the amount of wisdom he’s picked up along the way.”

It wasn’t like Eldred hated beards. The darn thing just constantly got in the way while he worked the forge. How could he show off how big his brain was if the thing kept on catching fire?

He brushed off the comment. He had long become accustomed to shrugging off other people’s pigheadedness. However, Kara was another matter altogether.

“Excuse me, Vorrath,” Kara said, staring daggers at the man. She stood and leaned forward as if she were about to pounce on the man. “Do you care to repeat that?”

“I said—”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were that dense,” Kara said, interrupting him with a pitying expression on her face. “I thought you would pick up on my nuance that if you insulted my friend again, you wouldn’t be going home with the same number of teeth that you walked in here with. Now…I’ll repeat myself, and this time think hard before you answer.”

Kara cleared her throat, gave him the most frightening grin that Eldred had ever seen, and growled menacingly, “Do you care to repeat that?”

Vorrath’s head slumped, and he pointedly turned his attention elsewhere.

Kara sat and beamed at Eldred. “Now, you were saying something about leaving town for a couple of days. Oh, that’s right! You said you were going outside, right?”

Eldred often forgot that his friend Kara was one of the most notorious warriors in the king’s army. She was dead sound with a blade and rose quickly up in the ranks as she completed most of her missions with ease despite her young age. Some people might have found her imposing, with her face and neck exposing a good deal of scars from her many battles, but her peridot-colored eyes reflected the kindness of the small girl who had remained a friend to a small boy that not even the stones would speak to.

 Eldred finished his ale. It was his third one already, and he had half a mind that Kara was just trying to stall him until he gave up on his outlandish idea. He traced his finger around the edge of his mug and repeated himself for the last time, “I’m leaving the mountain, Kara. I need to see if the legends are true. I need to know if there isn’t something out there besides more rocks.”

Her eyes grew serious. “And what are you going to do if you find out that there is something more? You’ve only known this mountain. It’s been your home all your life. Hell, it’s been all our homes for as long as anyone can remember. If something else is out there, why would we spend our lives trying to avoid it? It’s most likely that there isn’t anything special about this ‘outside’ that you’ve been yammering about for the past month.”

“I don’t know,” answered Eldred earnestly, “but I’ve made my decision. I’ve found a way out, and I’m going to take it.”

He stood and picked up his pack. “Goodbye, Kara. I hope I see you again.”

With one last nod of farewell, he left the tavern, but he didn’t make his way out of Dhumrum quite yet. Instead, he stopped at his smithy, where he hung up a “Closed for Business” sign. After hammering it in place, he turned to see Kara leaning against the building.

She picked up her own pack with her broadsword fastened to it. Before Eldred could even say anything, she held up her hand to silence him and said with a grin plastered on her face, “Like I’m going to let my best friend walk into this ‘outside’ all alone. You’re more likely going to be some goblin’s lunch if I leave you be. If anything, I’ll have something to lord over your head for the rest of your life when we find out this is nothing but a fairy tale.”

Eldred grunted at the smug expression on her face. “You’ll be eating those words by the end of the day.”

“Says the dwarf who’s going to be eaten by a goblin.”

The two didn’t say another word as they walked through the darkness of the caverns to the spot of Eldred’s forefathers. He didn’t hesitate as he found the crack where he’d found the wind. If he listened closely, he could hear a faint whistle as the breeze escaped through the stones. He turned to Kara with a grin and said, “It’s right here. This is how we’re going to get out.”

She frowned at the wall of stone and shook her head. “It looks like a pretty solid piece of rock to me. How long do you think it’ll take to pick your way through? I’ll be honest. I didn’t expect to be sitting on my arse for the next month, waiting for you to make a path for us.”

Eldred didn’t respond to Kara’s jab. Instead, he swung his pack to the ground and dug in his pack for the small cylinders full of black powder that he’d packed. He placed his explosives against the wall and motioned for Kara to follow him as he unwound the fuse. He brought them to the other end of a wall and then waved a piece of flint in Kara’s direction. “Would you like to do the honors?”

She took the flint with a questioning look on her face. Eldred held up the fuse. “Go on, light it already. Oh, and I’d cover your ears after you do.”

Kara hesitated for a moment and then lit the fuse, illuminating the cavern with its flickering light. Intrigued, Kara followed the flame as it ate away at the fuse, until Eldred caught her arm and held her back. “Trust me. You’ll want to stay where you are unless you want to add some more scars to that face of yours.”

Kara scowled at him, but before her rebuttal could escape her mouth, the flame reached Eldred’s explosives, and a thunderous roar bellowed throughout the cavern. The very ground beneath their feet shook, bringing them to the ground. For a split second, Eldred worried that he had miscalculated and made the blast too strong. He dreaded nothing more than dying the same way as his father – buried under a mountain of rocks, the same way he had been brought into this world.

“Gods, Eldred! The entire kingdom probably heard that!” Kara said a little louder than she might have intended. Her ears must have been ringing like his.

“Never mind that!” Eldred bellowed as he scrambled to his feet. “Did we get through it?”

Eldred nearly sprinted to see the results, but as soon as he turned the corner, his feet came to a halt.

 The explosives had indeed done their job, and from the hole that he had created, a pale light flooded the cavern. Eldred heard Kara scamper behind him, but he didn’t care. He could only whisper, “It exists. I can’t believe it, Kara. There is something beyond this mountain.”

Eldred’s feet carried him through the hole to a new cavern. However, above him…above him, a window opened to the outside world. Just beyond it, Eldred saw a pale white orb hanging in what the book called a sky. He didn’t see any clouds, but he did see a countless number of jewels scattered about. On their own, their sparkling light was weak, but together with the sun, they were simply brilliant.

Eldred chuckled to himself and said to no one in particular, “I thought I’d be brighter.”

“I can’t believe it,” Kara said at his side. “It really exists.”

They didn’t say anything for a bit, in utter amazement as they felt the wind against their skin. Kara finally broke the silence. “Well, what now?”

Eldred reached up as if trying to pluck the sun from the sky, and he stated simply, “We find our way outside this mountain and to the world that is waiting for us.”