What Others Have Forgotten

“What does ‘hardihood’ mean?” Glen’s voice carried softly through the great cave to where Steelio sat on a fur seat, dozing. 

     Steelio Windfacer hated children. He hated crying and giggling and kid-germs and everything else about them. As a rule, he wouldn’t even talk to someone unless they were old enough to grow a beard. But despite his disdain for younglings, this one was his own.

The child, Glen Copperfield-Woods, was not Steelio’s child by blood. He was the son of a young couple of musicians who lived in the village, but Steelio considered himself a sort of grandfather to the boy- though he would never admit it. The 10-year-old often spent evenings in Steelio’s cave, and today he was curled up by the fire, reading. 

     “Steelio?” the boy called again, waking the old dwarf.

“Eh?” 

“What does ‘hardihood’ mean?” Glen repeated. 

“Eh, hardihood- of course.” Steelio’s voice was deep and rough, as if it came from the earth itself. He snorted. “That word is made up. What sort of book are ye reading, anyway?”

“It’s not made up.” Glen replied, rising from his position on the stone ground and brushing his brown hair out of his eyes. “I’m reading ‘The Discovery and Settlement of North Zoso’ for school.” 

Steelio snorted again. “Bah, School. Well, everything else in that there book is made up, I don’t see why they wouldn’t go and make up a word.”

“Everything in this book is made up?” Glen questioned, looking down at the clothbound history book in his small hands. He had gotten it from the non-fiction shelves in the town library- I had to be true.

“What do you mean, Steelio?”

“I mean that the things said about the ‘Discovery and Settlement’ of NoZo is mostly garbage, lad.”

“How do you know?”

“I know folk who was there.”

Glen’s eyes widened. “You do?”

“Would I lie to ye? By the stones, boy.” the dwarf closed his eyes again, settling deeper into his chair.

“Is it true that they lived off of only mead?” Glen asked, flipping to a page in his book.

Steelio sighed deeply. “How old are ye?”

“Ten.”

“Good enough. Let me sleep and when ye come back tomorrow I’ll give ye answers.”

     Glen did not say another word. He nodded, smiling widely, then picked up his book and left the cave, leaving his friend to sleep. Only, Steelio did not sleep. As soon as he was alone in his cave, he stepped outside into the soft evening light and whistled sharply. A moment later, a dove appeared from the trees above, landing on the coat hooks by the entrance to his home.

“Hello, Moriah. I have a special job for you, my pretty lady.”

The dove cooed.

Steelio scribbled a note on a small piece of paper and gently attached it to the dove’s leg. Then he whispered something and sent her off. He watched as Moriah flew North into the fog of the mountains.

She would reach the dwarven clan by nightfall.

. . . 

     When Glen returned the next day, he did not find his friend alone in his cave. He was, instead, greeted by a dozen dwarves, all sitting around the fire with steins of steaming beverages, talking and laughing and singing. 

“Ah, ye must be Steelio’s boy!” the one closest to Glen said heartily when they noticed him, standing with his mouth slightly agape at the entrance to the cave. Glen felt a pang of comfort and pride when they referred to him as ‘Steelio’s boy’. 

“Come, come, sit with us- we have a tale to tell ye.” Another dwarf said, beckoning him over with the wave of one large, calloused hand.

     Glen sat down, obediently, and looked around at the unfamiliar faces surrounding him. Even though dwarves are small compared to every race in the planes besides perhaps halflings, they towered above the small boy. Every dwarf looked ancient; their faces looking as if they were made of stone, their beards grey and long. They all looked wise and strong as an oak tree, as if they had gotten stronger with every decade lived. Finally, Glen looked to Steelio (who suddenly seemed much younger) and tipped his head in a questioning gesture. 

     “Now you just listen, young one, and listen good, because ye’ll never get another chance to hear the truth as it should be.” Steelio said to him.

“And just go ahead and forget everything yer teachers have told ye, because they told ye wrong.” another dwarf put in.

     The dwarves proceeded to tell Glen the story of his world. 

     They spoke of being young and building great ships made of timber and sailing across unknown waters with their families, every day spent praying to their gods for protection against tempests and monsters of the sea. The elders told of the day they found land, appearing like lines of light splitting the morning mist and the joy of the people when they hit shore and began exploring the new world. Together, they told, in reverent voices that rang with emotion, of days of love and loss and life, of creation and destruction; times before Glen had even thought people could remember.

     To the soft sound of the snapping of the fire, the dwarves recalled a tale of bravery and triumph and hardships and humanity. They laughed and sighed and sang ballads and recited poems. Glen listened with everything he had, holding on to every word, making it a part of him, and resolved that he would die before he forgot it. 

     When the storytelling came to an end, Glen once again looked around and, for just a moment, saw every ancient dwarf as they once were: young and full of life. Then they where old, older than everything Glen knew, again.

      “Everything I was told was wrong.” Glen whispered, his gaze meeting Steelio’s, who was smiling- a rare sight.

“Didn’t we tell ye?” A dwarf said.

“People think they know history, but really ye can only know if ye was there, or if ye listen to the stories and remember them.”

“And tell them again without twisting the truth into tall tales.”

“And listen to the elders; they remember what others have forgotten”

     Finally, Steelio spoke. “Ye are special, Glen. Ye know the stories now, and ye care. Knowledge is truly a treasure- and now it is yer treasure, me boy. Take it, and use it well.”

. . .

     Glen Copperfield-Woods stood at the waterline and gazed out over the vast bluegreen ocean, his eyes catching the golden light of morning as it danced over the water. Somewhere out there was the old world; the world before his time, the world from which his ancestors came. He scanned the horizon, turning until he had seen it all. Then he looked down at his weathered old hands. “They remember what others have forgotten” he whispered to himself. He knew he was the last. The only one who knew the stories in their entirety; who knew the truth. The things he had heard that day as a small boy had truly become his life.

     He turned away from the water, his gaze now on the beach. The beach, and the great timber ships being built, being prepared for the journey to the next new world.