Chapter 17 Long Way Down

01:07

It was Debbie’s idea to climb down the steepest valleys of the mines to get to the bottom. She approached the climb as one of her tasks, very reasonably and in cold blood descended step by step, holding on rocks, chains, and slippery stones. When she was down, she sat on a little stone stool and waited for the remaining participants of the excursion. She even managed to wash her face in the underground lake and eat a packet of biscuits she brought with her. Relaxed, she stretched her legs and took off her shoes.

For Johnny and Stevie, it was an existential experience. They were terrified when looking down into the dark abyss below them. They clang to chains and stepped on steep stones, praying to Mother Nature to save them from the sure death. They were certain that, due to Debbie’s idea, they were about to die and it was going to be a painful and excruciating death.

‘Never again!’ they sighed when they finally came down. ‘That was the scariest experience of my life.’ said Johnny, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his shaky hands.

Debbie looked at them in disbelief. She didn’t even take into account that the whole venture was scary.

‘And how do you think we are supposed to go back?’ she asked, looking at their pathetic trembles, ‘There’s only one tunnel which goes outside, but it takes a day to walk it. We have to climb back up.’

Johnny looked at Stevie, Stevie looked at Johnny.

‘We will take the tunnel!’, they agreed without much consideration.

Debbie rolled her eyes. Men, she thought, they couldn’t even climb down a rock.

‘It’s supposed to be somewhere here. My mentor Cornel Scribe told me about this place when I was taking my journalism training. There should be some sort of a chronicle.’

‘Are we looking for a book, Debbie?’

‘Don’t be silly, Stevie. We’re looking for the indestructible.’

Stevie and Johnny didn’t know what to make of it. Debbie was running from one place to another, lighting candles. The more candles she stuck on little metal candle holders protruding from the rock, the more they were sure that they were standing in a wide enclosed space.

‘Books can be burned, digital data can also be destroyed. The only way to make sure that a text is going to be preserved is to make many copies of it and hope that at least one will survive wars, floods, hurricanes, and famines. Ancient dwarfs didn’t use our devices. But they managed to preserve a lot.’

She finally lit the last candle and looked up at the ceiling. Johnny and Stevie followed her example. They were standing at the bottom of an enormous cave, the ceiling of which consisted of thousands of square meters of stories carved in ancient dwarfs’ language, accompanied with pictures and engravings. The whole million years’ history of dwarfs was there in one place, covering not only one cave but many more caves connected by the labyrinth of corridors. Johnny and Stevie looked at the letters, which were so familiar to them since they meticulously translated articles to this language published in Out of the Box.

‘What are we looking for, Debbie?’

‘We are looking for answers, Stevie. Look up, there’s all that happened before we were born. Dwarf wars, all Highest Dwarfs, all rules established and abolished. There are all names that were significant in our undertakings and all events that we can use to...’, Debbie walked past the corridor and lit pictures and scenes painted with unfading colors of nature, which dwarfs used for centuries.

‘For what?’

‘Johnny, don’t be an idiot. I look for an excuse. Look, Fearful Phillip used to spear dwarfs who didn’t pay him respect, Giant Gregory stepped on infant dwarf boys afraid of his title taken away from him, Titus the Tyrant burnt dwarfs alive for following human gods and eating human-made foods.’

‘Fine, Ginger George is just one of the tyrants. The history proves that he is not the first one, and probably not the last one we will have.’

‘Yes, Johnny. But do you know what happened to Fearful Phillip? He was stabbed by his own family. And Giant Gregory? Run over by his own best friend driving a mining cart. And why don’t you ask me about Titus the Tyrant? Any suggestions? He was actually burnt alive for eating human-made foods. He was punished for breaking his own rule. What does it prove?’

‘That if you are a tyrant, you should suffer the same death which you give to your dwarfs?’

‘Well, to some extent. It means that there is a limit for dwarfs’ patience. Even the Highest Dwarf can be stopped by his servants. I’m just looking for an excuse...’

‘An excuse to kill Ginger George?’, Stevie asked.

‘Or to allow him to die.’

Debbie effortlessly climbed up the rock, Stevie and Johnny decided to take the tunnel. They agreed on one thing: Debbie was twice as strong and twice as smart as they had ever been.

‘Wait a moment, Johnny’, Stevie didn’t want to head straight back home.

‘What are you planning to do?’

‘I need to pop in my office. I have to arrange a thing or two.’

‘Fine. But be back before it gets dark. Billy Strong Fist can mug you. He’s patrolling the mines. He and his little pathetic friends.’

Stevie smiled mischievously.

‘I’ve heard that he is missing, I wouldn’t worry about him.’

‘Missing? And your wife? I thought he tried to attack her...’

‘She managed, Johnny. She just closed the door and hid in the wardrobe. We live in dangerous times, Johnny, really dangerous...’

Johnny wanted to say something, but Stevie disappeared, which left Johnny alone. It was tiring to walk for such a long time, especially because he didn’t have all his toes, so he decided to sit down and rest. He dozed off on a piece of rock to be woken in the middle of the night by somebody’s footsteps.

‘Johnny Cutie? Why are you sleeping here?’

‘I... I was just...,’ Johnny didn’t entirely wake up and wasn’t sure if it was just a dream.

‘Coming back from the dwarfs’ chronicle?’

‘How do you know?’

The dwarf used his torch to lit his face.

‘Frank!’, Johnny exclaimed ‘I’m actually glad to see you!’

‘I’m glad to see you too, Johnny. There are only two ways to get to the chronicle: this tunnel and quite a steep rock. Don’t be offended, Johnny, but you don’t look like a climber. I’m really glad to see you alive, though.’

‘I’m surprised to hear that. I thought that you hated me. I slept with your sister, Frank.’

Frank laughed.

‘I think you believe I am a prude. It’s not your fault that female dwarfs are attracted to you. It was also her idea. Besides, I think that you paid for what you’ve done,’ he pointed at Johnny’s toes, ‘Personally, I think it’s a ridiculous idea to implement body reduction for an affair. We have a lot of old rules which don’t make sense. But that’s not really surprising, taking into account how many Highest Dwarfs had been there and how many of them were crazy.’

‘Yes, Frank, I read the chronicle. And it’s terrible to die because of a few idiots.’

‘But, Johnny, everybody is an idiot when he gets the power to change rules. Power changes a dwarf. When Ginger George wasn’t the Highest Dwarf, he trembled at the loss of his job. He was a bully at school, but as an adult, he lost the fight with consequence and hard work. Now he just kills those who make him afraid.’

‘And we don’t like this, Frank. We don’t want him anymore.’

‘But you cannot kill the Highest Dwarf. There’s a rule. Unless...’

‘Unless what, Frank?’

‘No, nothing...’

‘Frank, please!’

‘Unless you kill him in a way that will look as if he did it himself.’