CHAPTER ONE

Dwarfs enjoy holes. Pull a dwarf off the side of the streets of Thumper and set to them the question--”Hole?” Some may answer straightforwardly--others will, smirk in their beard, mention donuts of frost and flesh. Yet it is a near guarantee their answer won’t arrive negative (unless one complains of the hole in their coin purse). The answer to “Why?” is simple: dwarfs enjoy holes. But exceptions can always be carved from the stoniest of the stout. Once, one exception mistakenly fell far through the earth. Concluding his unexpected journey to the bottom of a pit of dirt and stone, he stewed. The dwarf hated the hole. But the mystery of this strange and unnatural hatred is no difficult solve.

Simply: this dwarf was not always dwarf.

Not by extinction nor eradication--simply never being offered the chance--dwarfs do not exist in all planes of reality. In one, a dwarf stewed. In another, he was once a boy. In the former, the fabric of reality is ruled by EXP. In the latter, he worked on the family farm: tilling its soil, milking its cows. In the plane of dwarf, milk markets at two gold a jar. In the other, the boy chiseled a sturdy, weary back. He gained respect for the earth and most its creatures, but the same could not be said for his own. Childhood observed his free time sapped, teenaged hands telling a similar story. Before the boy knew it, he was a man. He knew his palms by their callouses, fingernails by the dirt caked under each and every one. He developed a slight hunch. He grew into the clothes of his father who had himself grown unable to plow the fields. This task, like all others, fell into his son’s worn hands.

The son swung the scythe against grain on grain until he could barber no more. Soon the field of yellow fell into itself ready to be swept into shocks. This task, like all others, fell into his hands.

The sun set itself against the hills, dark beginning its infection. The son sat in the shade of his barn, close enough to hear muffled moos and hen flapping. Light slipped from sight, but the son remained. His father would be out to call on him soon, he knew, but a hatred for the patriarch of the farm had grown so far, the son wasn’t sure he cared. And time spent outside was time alone--preferable. But the dark around him grew darker, and he watched the porch light flicker alive above his father, his son’s name echoed. Instead of returning the call, that son stood up from the earth and fled into the forest. The farther he ran, the less the voice carried. Dreary green blurred on both sides. Skidding against rocks, the son fast became aware of the imposing nature surrounding. His sense of direction did not travel with him. But he did not feel fear--annoyance, potentially, having no doubt disturbed the critters who called these woods home. His hysteria frustrated him, and he turned round, as best a guess as to what round was, to trudge back towards farm and father.

Little light offered the son home. It could have been dead of night. He bumped into a tree and tapped it lightly after. He hit another and gave a frown. It was the third collision that caused a cracking, the man lost to his rage soon kicking and chipping his victim with wild anger. Catching himself moments later, he fell to the ground in a heap. He clenched his fists in repeated cycles until the strength in them gave out. Moonlight now slipping past holes in the canopy of leaves above, the man stared at the glinting off his ravaged fingernails. A chill overcame him. He continued to look upon caked dirt, unaware of the branches that sagged and hovered above. And then his feet lost the ground as wood limbs snatched the son into the air. Struggling, he fought with a strength the bark disregarded, bark that twisted and chipped away to reveal a face of contempt.

“YOU WOULD DARE... SHOW SUCH DISREGARD... FOR WE WHO RENDER AIR PURE...?”

The son stared back in disbelief. He wished to protest against the accusation but could not find the words nor energy necessary.

“AND YOU WOULD DARE... DISREGARD MY GREETING... DISRESPECT TREEKIND THIS WAY...?”

The son shook his head weakly.

“SPEAK UP, BOY... SPEAK WHEN ADDRESSED...” the tree demanded. But the son could not acquiesce.

“PERHAPS... YOUR ACTIONS HAVE SPAKE ENOUGH... AND I WILL REWARD YOU IN KIND.”

At once, the ground beneath the son gave way to a great fissure, dirt whipped into the wind by wild, thrashing roots. He glanced below in horror, for the only dark darker than the dark around him was that directly under. Mercifully the son could not contemplate the horror of the situation long, branches once wrapped round giving slack, the man plunging into the abyss. His color soon faded from sight, and the hole became wholly dark once more.