As Peridot entered the Owner’s Drift, she saw Rightauger standing in front of their stonehold door speaking with Garnet, daughter of Warmcoat. When she saw Peridot approach, Garnet smiled to her, waved, touched Rightauger’s shoulder, said sothing to him that Peridot didn’t hear, and headed further down the drift to her own family’s hold. Peridot squinted after her. She was one year past rhundal and still neither married nor apprenticed. They had all grown up together, but that hardly excused her touching him.
Rightauger turned to et Peridot, and as he did, she saw that his trousers were torn and bloody at the left knee, but she also saw at a glance that they were not otherwise dirty—not even listone dust. Once again, he had not been in the mine. No doubt, he was training with the Ridge Wardens.
“Do you think Shineboot doesn’t know you’re skipping out?” she asked. And why Thrushbeard allowed him among the wardens, she did not know.
“That isn’t your concern,” he answered.
The stonehold door was already open, and Rightauger stepped inside. Peridot followed, carrying her baskets of radishes and turnips. Her mother had kept up her gardening during the fair weather—an occupation that made wire-making a joy to Peridot by comparison—and Peridot had jumped at the chance to carry in the full baskets from the terracesrather than remain under the sun.
By the ti she had stored away the vegetables in the larder and rekindled the samovar coals, Rightauger was seated on a cushion in the reception chamber, sewing thick new patches onto his mining trousers. Even though their stonehold was beyond wealthy, it did not make sense to replace trousers each ti they were torn in mining. Instead, knees and elbows were repaired again and again with heavy, multi-layered wool patches.
“Why don’t you just obey? Your rhundal is little more than ayear away. Then at least you won’t show father such disrespect.”
“I an him no disrespect,” Rightauger answered, looking toward the inner passage. He had obviously not checked to see if others were around, but Peridot knew they were alone in the hold. “And you always think the worst of . I was not skipping. We work in shifts, you know, and tomorrow is Day of Deliverance.”
She realized her error. She had assud, and her irritation had clouded her judgnt.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her oversight irritated her more. She knew it was Day of Deliverance tomorrow. She would be up preparing for the feast for many hours and rising early again for more. The workings would actually cease the shift before Day of Deliverance, an unusual occurrence when the whole mine joined in on one schedule of waking for the sake of feasting. “But just because I’m wrong this ti doesn’t an you haven’t done it.”
Rightauger sighed but didn’t respond, focusing on his sewing. She couldn’t help but assess his stitches, but they were close and neat.
“What are you going to do after rhundal? You know father doesn’t want you with the wardens.”
“He’ll have to change his mind. I can do what I want after rhundal.”
“Father is the Irik-Rhûl. If he does not wish you to join the wardens, he can stop you.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to go.”
“Go?”
“Stake my own claim. Do sothing for myself.”
“That’s a lot of mining for soone who doesn’t want to mine.”
“I like mining.”
Peridot snorted.
“Whatever made question it?” she asked.
“Don’t you ever want to go sowhere else?”
“Why? We have a place here. It is the greatest claim there is.” She hardly even wanted to go to the surface, let alone beyond the walls. It was comforting under the stone, and the sky was disconcerting.
“So this is all you want? Making wire with mother?”
“Mother is one of the most respected—”
“—I know she is,” he interrupted. “I’m asking you.”
She didn’t like that he turned the question on her. Peridot didn’t want to work wire her whole life, not by any ans. She was excited for the break of Day of Deliverance, even with all the preparations. But she didn’t want to hand Rightauger an easy victory.
“Forget it,” he said, clearly tired of waiting for her response. “You’ll probably be a wif and raise branna and fry cave bread for the next two hundred years.”
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“And so what if I did?”
“It’s fine for you. You’re a gilna.”
“There’s enough to be done here for many lifetis, even for gilke.”
“And many still live in Deep Cut. But they left, didn’t they?”
She didn’t need to ask who they were. The Owners. Father, Uncle Sledgefist, Uncle Hobblefoot, Uncle Shineboot, Savvyarm, Warmcoat, with Uncles Greal and Khlif joining later with their mother.
“They had to. There was nothing left for them there.”
“Maybe there is nothing left for here.”
“You’re the son of the Irik-Rhûl!”
Rightauger stood abruptly.
“You don’t understand,” he said, and took his trousers, needle, and thread down the hall.
“No I don’t,” she said quietly. It wasn’t that she had wanted to argue with him. But he was infuriating, sotis. She felt sorry for having started it, but she could not linger on remorse; her mother and Iolite would be there, soon, and she had to get a head start on preparations for Day of Deliverance. It might be a shift off for the dwarves, but wifs and maids must prepare.
The hours wore on, and Gretti paced back and forth on the few feet of level stone at the sentry post. Of all the labors he had known, this was among the most unpleasant, walking back and forth to stay alert when he should be out there finding Highlodes. Keeping watch was a duty, but it felt like idleness to him. And what was an idle dwarf?
His father and uncles were leaving once more to the western drifts of Deep Cut for piecework. They were taking Gretti’s older brothers, and their mother was visiting her father’s hold, but Gretti was to stay behind. Gretti was only twelve years old, but already he practiced the use of hamr and chisel. His father led him to the rear of the Low Collier stonehold. In the sleeping chamber, shallow alcoves were cut in the stone, inset ledges covered by sheepskin hangings where the gilke slept. With a piece of chalk, Edgefiler drew a long line near the top of the sleeping chamber, tracing all four walls of the room. About two feet below that, he drew another line.
“See if you can outline this shelf while we are away,” he said. “It is wasted space, now. It will eventually be two foot inset. Watch your cuts. Inner angle, strong and sure, but careful the chipping. We will be back in two days.”
Gretti stared at the lines. He had never cut sothing so big. His father was working a triple shift—forty-eight hours of labor without a break to sleep, but when piecework was offered, they must take advantage.
“Do you understand?” his father asked.
“Ay yes,” he answered.
As soon as his father was gone, Gretti returned to the sleeping chamber. He readied his hamr and chisel. The shelf would be long, extending along all four walls, and Gretti was far from sure he could finish it. He felt a tightness in his throat. His father had never trusted him to do more than practice on slabs of rock left over in the workings, but this was their stonehold. He could not disappoint.
He began by cutting the edges, and even that took him many hours. He sharpened his chisel three tis before he finished. At one place, he chipped the upper edge badly, and he felt sick to his stomach. It was their hold, and he had chipped it.
At last, he connected both lines to his starting point with deep even grooves—apart from the chip. He was not used to holding his arms up at the level of his shoulders for so many hours, and his muscles ached, but he had not yet begun to cut out the shelf, itself. Hardly stopping to drink and certainly not to eat, he set to with his hamr and chisel, working his way into the granite. Their hold was below the level of the sandstone, making all digging far more difficult.
By the start of the second day, Gretti had hardly carved the shelf at depth over a quarter of a single wall, and the panic rose. His father had asked him to do this job, but Gretti wasn’t strong enough to break apart the stone with just his hamr and chisel. The head of the chisel had begun mushrooming, and it needed re-tempered now, but he had no way of doing so, or the skill. So he hamred harder, and he took no breaks, and the broken stone piled at his feet. He drove himself on. His palms cracked, staining the chisel and hamr-handle with blood.
Still, every mont that passed, it felt like a vice closed around his chest, and he slamd wildly with his hamr, trying to fracture the granite. When he neared the back of the shelf, he had to take care to try to smooth the surface and not pit it by fracturing too much, but his chisel was nearly worthless for fine work now. He had barely roughed out the first wall when he heard his father and brothers return. Gretti fell to his knees. He felt the tears rise at the sha of failure. What had he done so wrong, that he could not complete the task his father had set him? He tried to raise his hand to wipe his eyes, but his fingers would not unclench from the handle of the hamr.
He heard footsteps approach, and he leaned his face against the stone, hiding himself.
“Gretti,” his father said from behind, using his true na. “What are you doing?”
Gretti shook his head, not turning.
“Look at , son.”
Gretti turned, but he did not have the heart to lift his eyes to his father. Edgefiler reached down and lifted Gretti’s bloody hands.
“What have you been doing?”
“You told to cut the shelf.”
“Son, it is granite. I wanted you to cut the edges. Just the edges. I never imagined. . . There is no way you could have cut the whole shelf.” Edgefiler took the stained and mushrood chisel from Gretti’s hand. “Look at this,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” Gretti replied, and now he could not control the tears. His brothers heard the sobbing and stepped into the room, staring in wonder at the broken rock piled on the floor and the unfinished shelf above.
“I’m sorry,” Gretti said, his voice breaking.
“Look at , my son.” Edgefiler took hold of Gretti’s shoulders. Gretti shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Son!” His father’s tone carried a note of stern command. Gretti lifted his face. Edgefiler gazed at him with those clear grey eyes.
“It is enough, my son. It is more than enough.”
Gretti never wanted to feel that sha again. He had been a gilke, nothing more. He had not understood. Still, that panic had lurked deep in his heart every day since his father’s death. What if he could not finish his task? It wasn’t enough. Not yet. The shadows had deepened with the setting of the moon, making the stars stand out all the clearer. It was still many hours until dawn.
This was enough—enough standing and watching when he should be after his true purpose.
Enough.
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