Those Who Make Us by Kelsi Morris & Tremblay Morris

Author:Kelsi Morris & Tremblay Morris [Morris, Kelsi & Tremblay, Kaitlin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Exile Editions
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A DOOR IN THE ROCK

CHADWICK GINTHER

There had been an “accident” with a troll from the mine.

It was the talk of Svarta Mining, that troll, and how it wouldn’t return to any dwarf ’s call. Brunna Sindradóttir volunteered to try one last time, before it was destroyed, because her parents had crafted more rock trolls for the Company than all other dvergar together – and this rogue troll happened to be one of theirs. She’d been promised right of travel if she succeeded. She’d make the troll recognize her blood.

So far the Company had kept the Flin Flon RCMP out of their business. Locals listened to the Company. Veiled by the illusion of a jackknifed tanker trailer, was a maimed and angry rock troll, wailing over its dead handler and not allowing anyone near the body.

Brunna didn’t know why they’d bothered with a cover story at all. Let the Northern Miner put the troll on its front page. Invite the damned CBC. Her uncle Andvari wanted the dvergar to return to the days of old, crafting legends. How could that happen when mortals turned a blind eye to what happened around them? If humans never saw magic, how would they know to seek out dwarves for weapons to fight monsters? How would they forge new legends?

How would they even know there were dwarves?

On the road leading to the troll, she could see the smokestack from the Company’s smelter – taller than the Eiffel Tower – standing out from the rock like a giant’s middle finger directed at her. There was nowhere in town that she couldn’t see that stack, or its trail of smoke, venting waste from the Company’s mortal and magical labours.

Flin Flon, dubbed “The City Built on Rock,” was about 800 kilometres north of the provincial capital of Winnipeg. It was a border town, straddling the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the same way it bordered the magic and mundane. Not large as cities go – six thousand souls, give or take. But it had been a perfect place for the dvergar to settle, carved out of the Canadian Shield as it was. And the ancient volcanic belt had been a shield indeed, in the days after Ragnarök.

They say that happened. God fought god. Monsters ate the sun and moon. Winter never ended. The dead walked. The very sky shattered. Brunna hadn’t seen it, but it was recorded in Sögusalur the History Hall, that the Nine Worlds had ended. But here we are. Still living.

If one could call being in this tiny town living.

Her wayward troll waited near a path leading to the lake; she hoped it hadn’t rambled. If it had, she’d hunt it through the residential streets, where magic was myth and dwarves were naught but a story.

Which would complicate things.

But that story was changing. Magic was returning to Midgard.

Which meant soon, humans would come to dvergar again. For weapons. For charms. For jewels. And they would pay, in gold or favours. Humans would always pay for glory.

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