I will never forget my first view of the city on the cliff. It was a castle really, as it wasn’t nearly big enough to be a city. We were hoisted (after a long wait) up an elevator. For many of the other emigrants it was their first ride on an elevator, but not for me. We Dwarves rode elevators all the time.
Arriving at the top, I walked into bedlam. It was not as crowded as the Fisher quarters had been; merely wall to wall tents everywhere there wasn’t a building, but much more mixed race; Trolls, Elves, Marshmen, Fishermen, Dwarves, Farmers--everyone but Horsemen and Spearmen. I had never seen a Spearman, but knew that I soon would. They inhabited the forts of the plains on the road from here to our new city.
Children were everywhere. On ship the children had tended to stay in their separate groups, but here they were running everywhere. We had just been given our tent, and I had left it so that Mother and my Sisters could get it ready. I turned the corner and encountered a flying Farmer boy. I barely had time to duck my head.
I was not knocked off my feet, of course. It takes a lot to knock a Dwarf off his feet. The poor boy, on the other hand, was quite bowled over. He had taken my head in the pit of his stomach, and lay on the ground gasping. His antagonist, a Farmer boy who had been chasing him, ran up. “Greg, Greg, are you all right?”
“He…he…he has a hard head,” the boy finally managed.
“I am a Dwarf,” I commented.
The other boy and I stood watching Greg for a minute, then he stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, my name is Meical, what’s yours?”
“Heinrich,” I replied, taking the proffered hand.
He must have seen the confusion in my face in reaction to his very non-Farmer name, for he followed up with, “I am an Elf by birth. I only recently transformed into Farmer. It is very practical for the trip--Farmers can travel by foot much better than Elves. My transformation is not as complete as some, since we Elves have learned how to transform to another body while keeping much of our mind and culture intact. It is most useful.”
I was surprised. I had never really met anyone who had transformed before, although I had heard of it. I was shocked at how like a Farmer boy he looked and at how much like a Farmer boy he acted! I could see him watching me and enjoying my discomfiture.
Before I could be too embarrassed, however, the boy on the ground started to make motions of getting up. We both bent down to help him. When he was up, he too reached out his hand, boldly saying, “My name is Greg, and you have a hard head.”
“I am a Dwarf. We have very hard heads.”
“Do you want to play?” Greg continued, changing the subject.
This wasn’t a hard decision. My Father would be pleased to see me mixing with the other races, as per the Elders’ decision. My Mother and Sisters would be glad I wasn’t underfoot. Besides, I was bored.
“Sure. What game are you playing?”
“Count coup.”
I had heard of that game. One player named some series of things, and then everyone had to touch those things and come back to base. The first person to do so won.
Greg continued, “I had called out ‘five leather objects’. This moron touched four and then started chasing me for my belt. That’s how I ran into you.”
“You shouldn’t have called out something you were wearing.” The Elf/Farmer boy was right, of course. You weren’t allowed to count anything that you were wearing, or yourself (such as ‘five boys’ or some such thing as that) so Greg had put himself at a disadvantage.
“You’re new, so your turn,” Greg decided. “We’ll use this tent peg as base, since you don’t know where our other one is, and I can’t be bothered going back there. What do you choose?”
The bewildering array of people came back to my mind, and so I said, “Boys from five races,” and prepared to go galloping off. To my surprise, however, Meical tagged me before I could go, tagged Greg, and tagged the base.
“I win!”
“Hey!” said Greg, “that’s not fair.”
“How can you win?” I asked. “You only tagged the two of us.”
“Tell him, Greg,” The Elf/Farmer boy said, with a grin.
“I don’t think it is fair, but I know what he is thinking. He is an Elf turned Farmer. I am… well, nobody knows what I am. I was conceived as a Horseboy by two people who grew up as Farmers. I am a Fisherboy on board ship, a Troll on the plains, a Horseboy on horseback, and an Elf in the woods. I haven’t been a Dwarf yet, and my folks won’t let me try Spearman. I don’t know why.”
“Don’t think this is the normal thing,” Meical said, “Even here most people have never transformed. Greg is rather unusual.”
“I’m the first first-cropper,” Greg boasted. “Now, choose something else!”
So I chose five beards, which I won easily. All Dwarf men have beards, and I had known where several were. I had known also to pick the youngest men, who would be pleased rather than annoyed to have me ask to touch their beards for a game. When you wait all those years to get a beard, it is nice when someone notices that it is there.
We went round a couple of times, and then Greg picked ‘five pictures.’ I felt this was rather unfair, as none of our people had brought any pictures with them, but he obviously knew his way around the castle. I tagged along with him. I knew I couldn’t run back to the base before him, but it was better than just standing there.
Apparently even the castle wasn’t rich in pictures, because we had to go all over it. We had reached four and suddenly raced together into a room where a Farmer and Farmwife were sitting together. Two Farmsiblings were playing quietly on the floor in the corner, and the wife was nursing a baby. They looked up at our hurried arrival.
“Quietly Greg,” the man said, “your Mother is trying to get the baby to go to sleep. Who is your friend?”
“Oh, this is Heinrich. He’s a Dwarf-for-real, and he came on the most recent ship. I have to go--we are playing ‘count coup,’ and I am winning.”
With that he touched a picture on the wall and raced off, leaving me standing awkwardly in front of the man. He frowned at his Son, started to say something, then stopped, looked at me, smiled, held out his hand, and said, “Hello Heinrich. Welcome to ‘The Day’. I am glad to meet you. I hope you had a nice trip. My name is Seth, and this is my wife Hadassah. These are my children--”
I missed the rest of the introductions as my mind was whirling. “Seth?” “Hadassah?” When he finished, I bowed, and stammered out, “My Lord Prince, My Lady…” but the Prince stopped me.
“If we meet in public I am willing to be ‘my Lord Prince’. But when you come racing in here with my oldest Son, I would prefer that you just think of me as ‘Greg’s Father.’ And in that light, I have a favor to ask you. When you see my Son again, could you ask him to come back here for a minute? It won’t take long; he will be back to play soon.”
Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
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Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books include:
The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid
and
Arthur also has a substack, and a website.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von