Dainn sat atop a perfect cube of stone ascending the
elevator shaft. For lighter objects, the pulley system is usually only powered
by hand. For heavier objects, the dwarves harness the power of a large water
wheel outside the tower. The power produced by the water wheel was constantly
even, making Dainn’s ascent through the tower smooth and without the
herky-jerky motion provided by hand power.
Dainn smoked from his pipe as he waited out his ride to the top of the tower, passing each level’s access door in the curved stone wall. The dwarf exhaled a jet of smoke from his mouth, observing that the cloud of smoke was ascending through the air as fast as he was, making the smoke appear relatively stationary as it expanded. A sudden downdraft of air caused the smoke cloud to whorl in dancing, hypnotic circles.
Dainn held onto a taught rope in his right hand, while his left held his pipe. The dwarf looked up at the approaching circle of night sky. When he got to the top, his spotter Sindri would have to disengage the elevator’s clutch from the water wheel while simultaneously locking the pulley system in place.
The open circle of night sky got wider and wider as Dainn approached the top of the tower. Meanwhile, the cloud of smoke encircling him got denser and harder to see through. Dainn was about 30 feet from the top of the elevator shaft when he called down to Sindri.
“I’m getting close!” Dainn called.
Sindri, down in the fabrication shop, was standing by with one hand on the clutch’s lever arm.
Looking up the elevator shaft, Sindri could not hear Dainn over the din of metalworking, and he also couldn’t see past the ascending cloud of smoke.
There were seven or eight feet left on the elevator ascent when Dainn called again to Sindri.
“I’m at the top!” Dainn yelled.
The knotting that fixed the stone cube to the elevator system got caught in the pulley’s uppermost tackle. Dainn’s ascent had halted at the top of the tower, but the pulley system was still engaged to the water wheel’s powertrain. Sindri hadn’t yet disengaged the elevator’s clutch, and tension was subsequently building up in the elevator’s cables.
Dainn could just barely see over the tower’s roof, where three of his coworkers were arranging stone blocks. The dwarves at the top of the tower stopped their work as they heard the elevator’s chords tightening from strain against the tackle. The thin, grinding sound of cables being pulled near their limit was not only heard by all, but the sound transferred through the taught cables, one of which Dainn held onto for dear life. Dainn could feel in his spine and the base of his skull the tickling sound of the tightening cables. His eyes widened, and the cable snapped.
* * *
Seamus and Patrick were together in their jail cell, Dirk standing over them.
“You won’t get a month to recover,” Dirk said, “Lugosi will be done with us before then.”
Seamus swallowed the knot in his throat.
“What happens then?” Seamus asked, fearing the response.
“I-” Dirk began, but stopped.
*CRACK*
Dirk, Seamus, and Patrick heard the sound of the elevator’s cable snapping, and a dwarf shouting from a distance fast approaching, falling to his death.
* * *
Brokk had just reset the emptied ceramic crucible over the bed of coals when he heard Dainn’s shouts as he plummeted down the elevator shaft. Thanks to the Doppler Effect, Dainn’s howling grew louder and higher as he neared, like the sound of a whistle on a fast approaching train (though none of the dwarves knew of this experience).
BLAAAAANG!!!ANG!ANG!ANG!ang-ang-ang…
The stone block that Dainn was riding had smashed into the heavy iron disc set into the floor at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Dainn had hit the ground at the same time as the stone. Both the fallen stone and the dwarf had been blasted into millions of tiny parts that showered the pipe shop in little bits of stone and bone and blood.
The elves in their engraving booths and the dwarves at work shaping metal halted their labors to see what had happened.
The iron manhole in the bottom of the elevator had been warped from the stone’s impact. It’d been coated in a limestone gray powder from the pulverized stone cube, as well as blood from Dainn’s splattermark.
The echo of a heavy iron door opening resounded through the tower. Eamonn’s door.
Sindri still stood at the elevator’s clutch lever, coated in dust, gravel, and dotted with flecks of blood.
The door to the pipeshop opened, and instead of Eamonn, Lugosi walked through the door.
The vampire had bags under his eyes, and had a haggard look that was beyond his usual undead.
Lugosi was hungover.
With his usual measured steps, Lugosi advanced toward the trembling dwarf, Sindri.
“Incompetent dvergger!” Lugosi muttered as he picked Sindri up by the neck.
Sindri let out a stifled yelp as the vampire had closed his iron grip around his neck.
Lugosi bit into the dwarf’s hairy neck and drank his fill of non-alcoholic blood.
The vampire drank, and drank, and dank, until he felt the dwarf’s heart stop and the blood no longer flowed.
Sindri went limp, dying in the vampire’s embrace.
Lugosi tossed the dwarf aside like a ragdoll against the shop’s back wall.
The vampire looked to the workers in the shop with steely eyes.
“There will be no more mistakes,” Lugosi said, then left.
The dwarves went back to work.
* * *
Seamus sat atop the completed tower. The clouds near the eastern horizon began to redden, there were less stars out now. Until that moment, he hadn’t seen the outside world in … he couldn’t remember how long it’d been. A month at the very least, and now, apparently, he had less than a month to live.
Seamus surveyed the predawn landscape. Pastureland and forests stretching for miles. The nearby mountains. The lake he’d seen when he’d tried to escape. The river that fed into the lake had also swung near the tower. Seamus didn’t dare to look so steeply downward, but simply felt safe to imagine the water wheel that provided the tower with a steady supply of mechanical power.
The world far below had begun to change color, from the inky black of night to a creamy pink, as Dirk made his way up the spiral staircase and met Seamus at the top of the tower. The two knew the precarious positions they took to enjoy the view. Not only could they fall off the outside of the tower to their death, there was still the circular opening in the roof that provided access to the elevator shaft.
Earlier, Seamus had looked down the elevator shaft from the top just to see firsthand what kind of fatal drop that the dwarf had taken that evening. It was like looking down a very, very deep well. Only wells were normally pitch black at the bottom. There was torchlight at the bottom of this well which increased the visibility of its distance.
Looking down the incredibly tall elevator shaft, Seamus became dizzy and was nearly overcome with vertigo. Phobic of falling in, Seamus got away from the elevator shaft. The fear of falling in reminded Seamus of Lugosi, and that falling in feeling he got from being near that particular vampire.
“You see something in him, don’t you?” Dirk said to Seamus.
Seamus, sitting, looked up at Dirk who was standing against his crutches, watching the horizon.
“Don’t you?” Seamus asked Dirk.
Dirk let out a little grin.
“Like you, Seamus, I can read souls,” Dirk explained, “but with the vampires, for me, there’s nothing there to see. But when you’re near Lugosi, I can see your reaction to him… What do you see?”
“A hole…” Seamus started, “a long, dark hole that threatens to pull me in, that I might fall into it forever.”
“I thought that was what I saw in you,” Dirk said, “I just wanted you to say it aloud.”
“What is it?” Seamus asked, “Why can I see it, and where does it go?”
“Hel, probably,” Dirk replied.
“Hel?” Seamus asked.
“Annwyn, Hell, Hades, Tartaros…” Dirk said, “it has been called many things.”
“How come I can see it and nobody else can?” Seamus asked.
“I don’t know. But Lugosi seems to think you’re special. He said so last night, remember?”
Seamus thought it a queer and completely unnerving thought, that he and his vampire overlord both saw something special deep inside each other.
Seamus thought of Lugosi, how he’d taken his and the other leprechauns’ gold. How he continues to take their blood and store it. How they are all manufacturing and sterilizing golden pipework for the vampire. How the upper portion of the tower was now complete. But what was it all for?
The burning, golden ball of sun had just crested over the horizon, and Dirk smiled hearing Seamus’s question.
“What is it all for, Dirk?”
Dirk looked away from the horizon to look Seamus in the face.
“What are we building?” Seamus asked again.
Dirk, considering all that had just run through Seamus’s mind, had only then come to the conclusion;
“We’re building a portal,” Dirk said.
Morning had broken, and Seamus had a very new, very real fear of Hell.
Dainn smoked from his pipe as he waited out his ride to the top of the tower, passing each level’s access door in the curved stone wall. The dwarf exhaled a jet of smoke from his mouth, observing that the cloud of smoke was ascending through the air as fast as he was, making the smoke appear relatively stationary as it expanded. A sudden downdraft of air caused the smoke cloud to whorl in dancing, hypnotic circles.
Dainn held onto a taught rope in his right hand, while his left held his pipe. The dwarf looked up at the approaching circle of night sky. When he got to the top, his spotter Sindri would have to disengage the elevator’s clutch from the water wheel while simultaneously locking the pulley system in place.
The open circle of night sky got wider and wider as Dainn approached the top of the tower. Meanwhile, the cloud of smoke encircling him got denser and harder to see through. Dainn was about 30 feet from the top of the elevator shaft when he called down to Sindri.
“I’m getting close!” Dainn called.
Sindri, down in the fabrication shop, was standing by with one hand on the clutch’s lever arm.
Looking up the elevator shaft, Sindri could not hear Dainn over the din of metalworking, and he also couldn’t see past the ascending cloud of smoke.
There were seven or eight feet left on the elevator ascent when Dainn called again to Sindri.
“I’m at the top!” Dainn yelled.
The knotting that fixed the stone cube to the elevator system got caught in the pulley’s uppermost tackle. Dainn’s ascent had halted at the top of the tower, but the pulley system was still engaged to the water wheel’s powertrain. Sindri hadn’t yet disengaged the elevator’s clutch, and tension was subsequently building up in the elevator’s cables.
Dainn could just barely see over the tower’s roof, where three of his coworkers were arranging stone blocks. The dwarves at the top of the tower stopped their work as they heard the elevator’s chords tightening from strain against the tackle. The thin, grinding sound of cables being pulled near their limit was not only heard by all, but the sound transferred through the taught cables, one of which Dainn held onto for dear life. Dainn could feel in his spine and the base of his skull the tickling sound of the tightening cables. His eyes widened, and the cable snapped.
* * *
Seamus and Patrick were together in their jail cell, Dirk standing over them.
“You won’t get a month to recover,” Dirk said, “Lugosi will be done with us before then.”
Seamus swallowed the knot in his throat.
“What happens then?” Seamus asked, fearing the response.
“I-” Dirk began, but stopped.
*CRACK*
Dirk, Seamus, and Patrick heard the sound of the elevator’s cable snapping, and a dwarf shouting from a distance fast approaching, falling to his death.
* * *
Brokk had just reset the emptied ceramic crucible over the bed of coals when he heard Dainn’s shouts as he plummeted down the elevator shaft. Thanks to the Doppler Effect, Dainn’s howling grew louder and higher as he neared, like the sound of a whistle on a fast approaching train (though none of the dwarves knew of this experience).
BLAAAAANG!!!ANG!ANG!ANG!ang-ang-ang…
The stone block that Dainn was riding had smashed into the heavy iron disc set into the floor at the bottom of the elevator shaft. Dainn had hit the ground at the same time as the stone. Both the fallen stone and the dwarf had been blasted into millions of tiny parts that showered the pipe shop in little bits of stone and bone and blood.
The elves in their engraving booths and the dwarves at work shaping metal halted their labors to see what had happened.
The iron manhole in the bottom of the elevator had been warped from the stone’s impact. It’d been coated in a limestone gray powder from the pulverized stone cube, as well as blood from Dainn’s splattermark.
The echo of a heavy iron door opening resounded through the tower. Eamonn’s door.
Sindri still stood at the elevator’s clutch lever, coated in dust, gravel, and dotted with flecks of blood.
The door to the pipeshop opened, and instead of Eamonn, Lugosi walked through the door.
The vampire had bags under his eyes, and had a haggard look that was beyond his usual undead.
Lugosi was hungover.
With his usual measured steps, Lugosi advanced toward the trembling dwarf, Sindri.
“Incompetent dvergger!” Lugosi muttered as he picked Sindri up by the neck.
Sindri let out a stifled yelp as the vampire had closed his iron grip around his neck.
Lugosi bit into the dwarf’s hairy neck and drank his fill of non-alcoholic blood.
The vampire drank, and drank, and dank, until he felt the dwarf’s heart stop and the blood no longer flowed.
Sindri went limp, dying in the vampire’s embrace.
Lugosi tossed the dwarf aside like a ragdoll against the shop’s back wall.
The vampire looked to the workers in the shop with steely eyes.
“There will be no more mistakes,” Lugosi said, then left.
The dwarves went back to work.
* * *
Seamus sat atop the completed tower. The clouds near the eastern horizon began to redden, there were less stars out now. Until that moment, he hadn’t seen the outside world in … he couldn’t remember how long it’d been. A month at the very least, and now, apparently, he had less than a month to live.
Seamus surveyed the predawn landscape. Pastureland and forests stretching for miles. The nearby mountains. The lake he’d seen when he’d tried to escape. The river that fed into the lake had also swung near the tower. Seamus didn’t dare to look so steeply downward, but simply felt safe to imagine the water wheel that provided the tower with a steady supply of mechanical power.
The world far below had begun to change color, from the inky black of night to a creamy pink, as Dirk made his way up the spiral staircase and met Seamus at the top of the tower. The two knew the precarious positions they took to enjoy the view. Not only could they fall off the outside of the tower to their death, there was still the circular opening in the roof that provided access to the elevator shaft.
Earlier, Seamus had looked down the elevator shaft from the top just to see firsthand what kind of fatal drop that the dwarf had taken that evening. It was like looking down a very, very deep well. Only wells were normally pitch black at the bottom. There was torchlight at the bottom of this well which increased the visibility of its distance.
Looking down the incredibly tall elevator shaft, Seamus became dizzy and was nearly overcome with vertigo. Phobic of falling in, Seamus got away from the elevator shaft. The fear of falling in reminded Seamus of Lugosi, and that falling in feeling he got from being near that particular vampire.
“You see something in him, don’t you?” Dirk said to Seamus.
Seamus, sitting, looked up at Dirk who was standing against his crutches, watching the horizon.
“Don’t you?” Seamus asked Dirk.
Dirk let out a little grin.
“Like you, Seamus, I can read souls,” Dirk explained, “but with the vampires, for me, there’s nothing there to see. But when you’re near Lugosi, I can see your reaction to him… What do you see?”
“A hole…” Seamus started, “a long, dark hole that threatens to pull me in, that I might fall into it forever.”
“I thought that was what I saw in you,” Dirk said, “I just wanted you to say it aloud.”
“What is it?” Seamus asked, “Why can I see it, and where does it go?”
“Hel, probably,” Dirk replied.
“Hel?” Seamus asked.
“Annwyn, Hell, Hades, Tartaros…” Dirk said, “it has been called many things.”
“How come I can see it and nobody else can?” Seamus asked.
“I don’t know. But Lugosi seems to think you’re special. He said so last night, remember?”
Seamus thought it a queer and completely unnerving thought, that he and his vampire overlord both saw something special deep inside each other.
Seamus thought of Lugosi, how he’d taken his and the other leprechauns’ gold. How he continues to take their blood and store it. How they are all manufacturing and sterilizing golden pipework for the vampire. How the upper portion of the tower was now complete. But what was it all for?
The burning, golden ball of sun had just crested over the horizon, and Dirk smiled hearing Seamus’s question.
“What is it all for, Dirk?”
Dirk looked away from the horizon to look Seamus in the face.
“What are we building?” Seamus asked again.
Dirk, considering all that had just run through Seamus’s mind, had only then come to the conclusion;
“We’re building a portal,” Dirk said.
Morning had broken, and Seamus had a very new, very real fear of Hell.
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