The Black Rock
A long, long time ago, before The Enlightenment had descended upon the Dwarves, in a warm pleasant cave a girl child was born. Her parents were old and her birth was a happy surprise for they had resigned themselves to childlessness many years before. Dworlik Ironfist, her father, made many expensive offerings to Brell Sirilis, King of Thieves and paradoxically Father of Dwarves, in thanks for the beautiful little baby. He made an oath to the Duke of Below to raise the child in a manner befitting a Dwarf-girl, to teach her how to stoke the fires of the great forges that burned night and day deep under the Butcherblock Mountains, to repair and maintain the monstrous bellows, to keep home for her future husband and to obey the men in all things. And in this manner, true to his word, he and his wife so did raise her.
They named her Brellstad, meaning Brell’s Gift, and watched her grow from babe to toddler, through an uneventful adolescence and finally, young womanhood. She had learned all the things Dwarf women were supposed to learn and seemed as retiring and shy as any girl was expected to be in those days. Beautiful by dwarvish standards she was much sought after as a bride by the young Dwarfs. Dworlik meant to be certain that her future husband would have much to offer in exchange for the large dowry he had saved. He would be of noble birth (as Dworlk’s family had distant relatives in the nobility), be a skilled metal worker and possessing the wealth to keep Brellstad from poverty. From several suitable candidates he finally chose the son of the Forge Master and gave his consent that they should wed. Brellstad was happy for he was a handsome and levelheaded lad and Thorl reciprocated, for she was beautiful and clever. All the community saw this match as fitting and thought the issue of their union would increase their standing among the many enclaves scattered through the tunnels and caves surrounding Kaladim.
Not long after the marriage, Thorl came home from work excited and grinning like a fool.
“Brellstad!” He shouted. “Come see what I have found!”
She came out of the kitchen where she had been preparing dinner for herself and her new husband.
“What has you in such a state?” She asked, seeing his wide grin.
“Look for yourself”, he said, pointing at a small black boulder of ore he had set down beside him. “It is Black Rock!”
“Black Rock? Where did you find it? There has never been any of that in our caves.”
“I was overseeing the digging at the new tunnel today and we broke through to a lava stream. I ordered everyone back and after seeing there was no danger of a collapse I went forward to inspect the damage. I saw this”, he put a hand on the rough rock, “floating on the liquid stone and pulled it in with a hook.”
“It did not melt in the heat of the earthblood?”
“No. As I said, it was being carried unharmed on the surface. Anyway, when I got it within reach, me and Dersat pulled it in. It was cool to the touch and so I knew what we had. We are rich, Brellstad. Look at the size of this!”
She came up to him and putting her hands up to his chest said, “We are already rich, Thorl. We have each other.” He kissed her.
“Yes, but now we also have money to last our whole lives, and our children’s lives as well. And the swords and armor I shall make from this will make me famous. Not that I care for fame, mind you”, he said with a sly wink.
The next day the ore was sent to Kaladim for smelting. Cavern Home, where Brellstad and her people lived, had no forge large enough to produce the intense heat necessary for the smelting of Black Rock. Thorl waited impatiently for the month the smelting would take to pass. Finally, the ingots arrived.
There were seven of them of different sizes and shapes. Among them a round, flat one for shaping a breastplate, one shaped like a thick walled cup for the helm and the most important ingot, a thin rectangle, perfect for a sword.
“I shall start with this,” Thorl told Brellstad, holding up the rectangular one. “I have already requisitioned time at the big forge. Will you come along and operate the bellows?”
“Of course I shall,” she replied and gathering food together for a lunch, went with him to BigMouth, the most powerful forge in Cavern Home.
Brellstad pumped the huge bellows until the coals inside grew white-hot. Thorl took up the ingot in his tongs and turned it slowly in the coals until it too radiated blue-white heat. A crowd of idlers had gathered around them to watch the rare event of Black Rock metal being stretched, folded and bent to the dwarven smithy’s will.
“It is ready, Brellstad.” He yelled over the roar of the forge.
“Make sure it is hot enough, Thorl. It can be very dangerous to strike too cool metal,” she yelled back, coming over to him to watch.
“Stand back,” he told her as he held his hammer over his shoulder, prepared to strike. He swung down at the sizzling metal lying on the anvil with all his strength. The hammer hit heavily and bounced back with all it’s speed intact, striking Thorl on the forehead. Brellstad screamed in horror as Thorl collapsed on the floor, the hammer spinning and bouncing behind her into the onlookers who scrambled away from the missile hurtling in their midst.
They buried Thorl the next day, reverently placing his body on a lava flow to be consumed and returned to the mountain. Brellstad did not speak, did not cry. Through her sadness ran an anger at the Black metal that was the cause of her widowhood. She did not attend the wake held to honor the memory of the handsome young Dwarf. Later that night, as the mourners returned home they heard a clanging and banging coming from Big Mouth. A group of them went to inspect the sounds as no work was to be done on funeral days. Coming to the great foundry they saw Brellstad, her tears falling and steaming on a black ingot, pounding resolutely at the anvil.
“What are you doing Brellstad?” One of them asked.
She looked up from her work with red rimmed eyes. She appeared insane to them and they stepped away from her. Another spoke up from his retreat.
“You musn’t wield a hammer, Brellstad. It is not right for a woman to do so.”
Her eyes blazed even redder at this and through gritted teeth she growled at them, “Is it right that this rock should make of me a widow?” Her voice rose to a scream. “I shall finish my husbands labor!” With that, she turned her back to them and continued pounding at the anvil.
No one could convince Brellstad to cease her labors and it became a shame to Cavern Home that a female Dwarf was working at the smithy. Soon, they could not sell their wares for buyers feared it might have been made by the mad female smith. The young began to leave to settle elsewhere and then even those who had lived all their lives were forced to relocate. In a few years only Brellstad remained, working long days forging and shaping her husband’s assassin into a suit of black armor, complete with black sword. Her tears had been the water that tempered the steel, for she never stopped weeping in all those long years. She grew old quickly, worn by her work and it was an old crone who finished the final piece of armor. Done with her labor, she was done with her life and she sat sadly on the floor and with a final sigh spoke her first in many years. “Thorl,” she sighed. “It is done.” And with that she died. Her bones were picked clean by the cave vermin and crumbled to dust there by the abandoned forge for no one ever returned to perform the rituals that would have sent her soul and body back to the mountain.
Tale by Friar Piernaval, Holy Hermit of Kithicor
– Fan Fiction written by the EQ Beta Test Manager