What would make a Dibru seek the forbidden, when their lives are already longer than most? Hatred of the world? No... sometimes... the love of a mother for a child...

It was cold that winter. Much colder than others she could remember, and she could remember many. She had warned her son not to go out in the blizzards, where a dwarf couldn't even see the beard on her face, the snow was falling so fast. But her son, always looking for a rabbit or something else for the stew, didn't listen to his mother's warnings. Awww... its only a short distance from the caves... I saw the tracks....

That was before the snow though. The snow buries much. The rabbit tracks. Young Dwarves who venture too far in a blizzard. She called, and called. Her husband prayed to Kertigen for their sons return. But Kertigen must have not been listening that winter. Nor did Damaris.

For when she finally could see to search - she found him - frozen in a nearby glacier... still with his axe in hand.

NO! It could not be. Their young son, cut down from life before his time... She cursed the gods. But when the local priest came visiting, she didn't let him bury their son. "No. I shall bury him myself... That area of ice didn't melt in the spring thaw. They lived far up in the mountains, and there were many areas that stayed frozen year-round. There she did not bury him, but put his favorite things near his body, including his axe, then surrounded it with ice, which her husband helped with - he having learned a trick or two from the warrior mages about making ice invulnerable to animals.

Time came... Time went. Many years went by. But the couple did not have any more children. The father eventually died, having reached a ripe old age of 800. The mother, only nearing 250, continued to visit the place in the ice every week. She did not forget. When new roads came traders, new jobs for the products of the mines in the mountain. Also rumors... of a way to live forever... that did not depend on the gods.

Most Dwarves remembered when the Elven minions of Sidhot had warred against their ancestors, and thought of this new rumor as merely more of the same. But for this Dwarf, she listened, and felt, for the first time... hope.

She went, that last day in her cave, after gathering a few chosen possessions - she was as frugal as most dwarves and didn't have anything not deemed useful... but she swore an oath - not by the gods, but before the body of her dead son...

"The gods did not spare you, my son. But I will find a way to bring you back. I promise you that".


After much travel, and work deemed hard by many, but easy for a Dwarf used to toil all her life, she found herself standing in front of the strange man with the piercing grey eyes.... the one named Book.



<<The real thing DR needs is to get out there to the kids who actually read books.>>