Peridot and Chargrim ate the cave bread and played their first ga. Her father won handily, but not before she had broken two of his stacks with wif ingots. They spun the stone and set up another match.
“Do you rember when you said that Ingots teaches you about your opponent?” she asked.
“Ay, yes.”
“What do you an, exactly?”
“It shows you sothing of their character,” Chargrim answered. “Your brother for example. He is very aggressive, always seeking to press forward, to not let his opponent have space or rest. Your mother on the other hand, she would always defend, forcing to take all the risks, at least when I could talk her into a ga.” He laughed as if he had told a joke and popped the last bit of cavebread into his mouth.
“And who is the greatest player you have ever faced?”
“The greatest?” he asked. “Crookleg.”
“The goatherd?”
“Indeed. Goatherds often play Ingots when watching their sheep.”
“What made him so great?”
“He has a way of making the ga what he wants. He forces his opponent to move always in response, so that he decides the course of play. He is a true master.”
“Have you beaten him?”
“I have, but it is not easy.”
“It is a sha you couldn’t play a ga with One-Ear.”
Chargrim looked up from the Ingots stone and hesitated.
“An interesting idea.”
Peridot moved an ingot forward.
“He is your greatest enemy, after all.”
Her father ignored her move, watching her instead.
“Is he?” he asked after a mont.
“Who else?”
“Soone I respect once told sothing. He told , ‘we battle most ourselves for those we love.’”
“Who was it?”
“His na was Tonkil.”
“A Nad of Strength?”
Chargrim inclined his head.
“Sothing like that.” He moved laterally into a stack. “Many believe that strength lies in defeating your opponents in battle, or lifting a great rock. But what is easier, to release anger or to restrain it?” It was clear from his expectant expression that he wanted her to answer.
“To restrain.”
“To indulge in passions or to refrain?”
“Refrain.”
He nodded.
“Iron shackles will hold your foe, but what shackles can you place on your own heart? Do not trust the boastful dwarf who proclaims the strength of his body and the defeat of his foes. Whenever self-control is exercised, an enemy is defeated. Trust the one who shows restraint, for he is the dwarf worthy of honor. These are things you must keep in mind, after your rhundal.”
Peridot didn’t know how to respond to that, and so she made another forward move, realizing only after that she had exposed one of the approaches. Her father pressed forward with an ingot, and she countered.
“What about ? How do I play?”
“That is what intrigues to ,” her father answered, rubbing his bad leg absently. “Each ga we’ve played, you’ve done sothing a little differently. Granted, your strategies are not very sophisticated yet, but sotis you defend, sotis attack, sotis mirror, sotis switch after a few turns. I cannot anticipate it.” He moved an ingot that clearly showed he had anticipated her plan.
“And what does that say?” she asked. “About ?”
“It’s like you’re searching for yourself on the stone. I enjoy watching.”
The observation unnerved Peridot, and so she grasped for a change of subject. She tapped a fingernail upon the Ingots stone.
“Bronze,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“It is called the stone, but it is made of bronze.” Of course, she suspected it was called “the stone” as a reference to the movents between the hollows, ant to represent drifts in a mine—or at least, that’s how she’d always thought of it. She’d never asked.
“They used to be made of stone, many many years ago.” Her father took a finishing drink of his mug of Honeysteam, tapping the bottom of the vessel as if he was loath to waste a single drop.
“Why did it change?” she asked.
He shrugged.
“Why does anything change?”
Peridot moved an ingot back again. This dance had continued for three turns, now. She was rely stalling.
“You didn’t give an answer,” he said.
“What?” She looked up.
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“Why does anything change?”
“Oh,” she said. She had figured it was not a question ant for an answer, but apparently she was wrong. “Because sothing is better?”
“Perhaps.” This ti her father advanced an ingot directly toward her center adit. “Why else?”
She thought for a while, half distracted by the move.
“I’m not sure.”
“What about easier?”
“Isn’t that better?”
“You are not that foolish.”
She took a breath before nodding.
“A hard rock serves best, for wear and scuffing,” Chargrim went on, “but it is remarkably difficult to make the hollows of an Ingots stone while also making the stone thin. Anyone but a master would shatter it. Even the selection of the raw stone is difficult. But bronze can be cast in a mold, a ga-stone churned out in a matter of hours.”
“I would think a polished granite stone would be far more pleasing, though.”
“And yet many things are done because they are easier.” Her father turned in his chair and rose slowly, testing his leg as she had seen him do many tis before. She knew it troubled him, and yet he still went to visit the goatherds, the mine workings, the terraces, and many another place, often walking for miles at a ti beneath or above the stone. This ti, he did not go to a wall cubby but to a kist sitting against the back wall of the chamber. It had no lock, but the lid was clearly heavy, judging by the way his forearms flexed as he opened it. A cloth lay atop whatever the kist contained, and he folded part of the cloth away and lifted sothing from within.
It was an Ingots stone. He held it carefully in both hands and brought it to the table.
“Move the platter,” he said.
Peridot quickly removed the now-empty cavebread platter. Her father gently laid the stone on the table. It was carved wonderfully thin, more compact in design than her father’s bronze stone, the hollows spaced closely together, and at a glance she saw there were fewer hollows. It was made of a rock she had not seen before.
“Is that. . ? What is that?”
“You do not recognize the stone? I am not surprised. It is schist. There is no schist in the Red Ridges. None that I have seen, at least.”
“So that is schist.” She reached out a hand and hesitated. Chargrim inclined his head, and she stroked the surface of the schist with her fingertips. The edges of the stone were nicked and dulled, but a few places in the center retained the luster it must have once had entire. The glossy finish of those places reflected the Miner’s Eye above. The stone was dark in color, with swirls of greens and specks of white.
“There are few like it, today,” Chargrim said.
“Is it very ancient?”
“The wif who traded it claid it was an heirloom of her late husband’s stonehold, from before the founding of Deep Cut, carried in the days of the caravans. Maybe as far back as the Kara-Indal.”
“Do you believe that.”
Chargrim shrugged.
“I believe it is old. Notice there are 16 hollows in this board. I believe that is how it used to be played.”
“But wouldn’t that make it. . .” She paused, trying to think through the implications.
“Harder, perhaps,” Chargrim said. “I have thought about it at length.”
“It seems like draws would be common, or stalemates.”
“As they are in life.”
“Why do you think the ga changed?”
“My best guess is that it changed during the diaspora, or around the founding of Deep Cut. Many things were lost in those years, or changed. If you are casting the stone, it is easier to make more hollows. Perhaps it is a strange marriage of the ease of manufacture and the complexity of strategy.”
“I like the look of this one, though,” she said, touching the old stone again. “Shall we play a ga on it?” She only half hoped he would forget about her disastrous strategy on the other stone.
“By all ans.”
“Were any of the rules different?”
Chargrim shrugged.
“I do not know if anyone alive could tell us.”
“How awful, for things to be forgotten.”
“Indeed.” He went to the cubby where he had kept the bronze stone and brought out a bag. He upended the contents onto the table.
“Are these the original ingots?” she asked. They were smaller than the other set.
“No, no. I had these made. I imagine any tal of value would have been traded to the humans or taken during the diaspora. But the stone itself would have value only to our folk.”
They filled the sixteen hollows with ingots. It was Peridot’s initiative, and she stared at the stone, trying to grasp the implications of the different hollows.
“What else is in the kist?” she asked, stalling.
“A few artifacts. Mostly inscriptions and baurithna.” Baurithna were a sort of book inscribed on thin tal plates instead of paper. It was a common ans of preserving knowledge ant for long-keeping, rather than short-term records.
“What about?”
“History. Our history. For many years, now, I have sought records of the history of our folk.”
Peridot ventured a move, then looked around the chamber. She knew that not all of the books stacked in the walls were re ledgers and records. She knew, for example, that her father purchased books from Laith and Senland and employed a human-language translator.
“The older I get, the more it interests ,” he said, advancing an ingot. “I like to think about what was lost in the Kara-Indal, and what changed. I guess it’s why I bought this old Ingots stone.”
“Has much really changed? Besides Ingots, I an.”
“There were things known in the Kara-Indal that we don’t know, now. No physical records survived the diaspora, unless you count Auntie Tourmaline’s amulet map.”
“Then how do we know so much?”
“I said no physical records. Before she passed, Auntie Tourmaline caused all her stories and songs to be written and kept, copied and re-copied, and she called on all who rembered songs and stories to co and sing and tell, that they be recorded.”
“The Book of Tourmaline,” Peridot said.Chargrim ensured that all his children were taught to read and write, and the Book of Tourmaline served as their prir, or at least, certain volus of it. She had always loved the stories of Auntie Tourmaline best, and of Queen Jade.
“Ay yes. She established the great lore trove of our folk. It fills an entire chamber in Deep Cut. The Hall of mory. Many are iterations of the sa tales.” Chargrim motioned to the rear wall of the chamber. “I have assembled a collection here, though it has taken effort. I am not a favorite of the Council. ”
“But how can you trust songs and stories to be true?”
“Why not? Dwarf-wifs from separate caravans across both Laith and Senland sang versions of the sa songs, telling the sa tales with only slight variations. That tells us they have a shared history, a history which changed little in substance, if not detail. It is easy to believe a thing false, but isn’t it more likely to be true? Auntie Tourmaline herself proved the reports of Ice-Cloak.”
“So she said.”
Her father squinted and frowned.
“Do you have reason to doubt, or do you lightly call her a liar?”
“I’m sorry.” She had heard others call the stories into question, but she could see it upset him.
He nodded.
“Your move.”
She withdrew an ingot.
“Rember,” he said. “It was not just she who went to Ice-Cloak.”
“I know.”
His tone and expression lightened as he changed the subject:
“Do you know we use so human words because of the diaspora?”
“We do?”
“Dog for example. That word cos from the human tongue. I know no dhar word for dog. Wolf, yes, but not dog.”
“That word always sounded strange to .”
“For good cause.”
He stacked an ingot on the left, and Peridot realized she had to advance or be overpowered. She moved forward on the right.
“There are many things about the past I am curious about,” she said. “But not so long ago.”
“Such as?”
“You ntioned Savvyarm earlier.”
“Ay, yes.” His brows drew together.
“I’d like to know more.”
“It is not necessary to know the details of a dwarf’s death.”
“I do not an his death. What was he like in life? I never got to et him.”
“He was. . . cheerful,” Chargrim said. “And open. It was he who first t by the river when I arrived at the claim. He never complained, Savvyarm. I never heard him complain, even when he had reason.”
“It sounds like he was a good dwarf. I’m sorry you lost him.”
“We all lost him. Sotis life takes the plum and spares the crooked.”
“You’re still here.”
“A valuable support for my point, thank you.” He moved another ingot laterally to form a stack. Peridot sighed. She was beaten.
“It was your first ti playing with sixteen hollows,” he said.
“We’ll see how the second ti goes.”
He smiled and began to scoop the ingots back into place.
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