Many feet above their home fortress would already be dawn. Activity would start a little before the faint sun would make itself seen, with the impotence of the last centuries. Now the bakers would be working with their meager raw materials and the patrols would be eager for relief. If he found even a tiny hole that connected with the ground he once called his world, he would try to warn the others, no matter the work and the shame; but he was not so lucky.


    The path went on and on, only the candle on his forehead gave him hope, only it allowed him to follow Mim''s trail. Clearly, he had been dragged on, to an unknown and nameless depth.


    As courage faded, as hope failed, but the inertia of his decisions impelled Beleg not to stop, at least until he knew the whereabouts of Mim the bricklayer. He did not know exactly in which direction that dismal passageway would move, but perhaps, he thought, he would already be under the city, not too far below its stony foundations. In all that solitary journey, only one element caught his attention, something that didn''t quite fit.


    Sometimes, over the marks left by Mim''s dragged body, there was a shiny dust, as if scattered or scraped from some surface, perhaps spilled by a bag, but very irregularly, found only sporadically.


    Then thought the, likely former, waiter, “a trace left by my friend perhaps, though I don''t recall him carrying a bag with him, much less one carrying such a precious and tiny treasure. It looks like diamond dust, perhaps the remains of another singular stone.”


    Beyond Mim having decided to strike it rich, buy the most expensive glittering powder he could find and take it to those depths in the time he took the materials for the ill-fated descent, he couldn''t think of many possibilities. “He said something about some opals, precious gems in the dark.”


    For the good of Beleg''s back the path began to rise and widen, and at last he was able to walk upright, as if he had undergone an express evolution, from snake to dwarf. However, Mim''s trail was still as before, so it was deducible that the poor fellow would not have gotten up even in this stretch, dragged surely by the kidnapping beast.


    There Beleg remained, following the glittering dust and churned gravel, now feeling nostalgic for the safety of the narrow path overcome, for he could no longer see the walls to his sides well, and was still somewhat crouched so that his candle would illuminate the only clue to his companion''s whereabouts.


    In the meantime, I think we''d better change the scene, let''s see what his adventurous brother was doing, after two claws, hard as rock and black as the abyss they had tried to descend, grabbed him by the armpits and pulled him mercilessly.


    That abyssal monster was pulling him, but the blue opals he had seen, symmetrical twins, were always at the same distance from him. If they were it’s eyes it did not take them off his person and thus he was galloping at full speed without looking where, perhaps he knew the way by heart… or it had more eyes. By the time they had reached the widening, Mim had his eyes closed tightly, almost as tightly as his teeth, resigned to whatever fate awaited him.


    After all he had lost her just as he was about to lose his soul in an indecent crime a few hours ago. Surely whatever happened was a just end, perhaps even ordered by the Father of All for his moral transgressions. Definitely that demon from the depths, whose body he could not decipher in the gloom, would have nothing good in store for him.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    For a while, which Mim could not determine, he had been incapacitated, losing all perspective of time and space, perhaps after becoming unconscious while debating his few alternatives. The blackness of the underworld had no difficulty in merging with the blackness of nightmares and soon the worker awoke to an unexpected scene.


    The first thing he saw were all the colors of the rainbow, blurred in an infinite number of dots and randomly scattered throughout his field of view. Then he ducked his head, which was suffering from its own weight, and he saw his body, of which he was beginning to regain control, sitting on a chair, with his arms on his legs, which did not reach the glowing floor.


    When his eyes adjusted to the colors he was receiving, he could better understand where he was: nothing more and nothing less than a huge geode, the size of a home or a den, depending on its occupant. Its seat was no less particular, for it was like a black stone, obsidian for sure, but carved very finely and without leaving it too sharp. He looked left and right and there was nothing but gems on the walls emitting mesmerizing lights.


    He could see some furniture, also dark and of refined finish. Even a tower clock, with its pendulum wobbling and emitting its particular and monotonous sound, except that in the round end gleamed a titanic ruby.


    Such observations confirmed the worst assumptions, he was sitting in the home of a demon. The cousins, on the surface, spoke on many occasions of demons, but they referred to those of their stratum, beings with pointed tails, eyes and claws. The demons of the lower stratum had no wings, no red skin. They were pure black rock, as any dwarf with a decent education would know.


    They did overlap in some respects, they lived for corruption, obsession and vice. But perhaps most importantly they were ancient beings, perhaps immortal.


    Although Mim was never very fond of reading, in the main library of the fortress there were some documents that spoke of these beings. You will be interested to know the hypothesis of Nimoth the Younger: “...the antediluvian horror of the mountain, a sullen and cruel creature, could well be the progeny of the mountain itself, created in a bloody attempt, but fortunately so far useless, to wipe out our race”.


    If so, it is up to each one to decide whether they are black aberrations or the guardian angels of the stone itself. One last piece of information from the same author, which will undoubtedly be of value to you: “...they spend their lives without time, in the caverns beneath the caverns, where the wealth of the earth is most abundant, planning the individual corruption of each dwarf on the face of existence”.


    The bricklayer''s only relief was this, he could neither see nor hear anyone else keeping him company. But he could not help think that his kidnapper was behind him, in the blind spot of his vision, and that he was not making the slightest noise because he was not breathing, for he had no lungs but stone inside.


    “Good morning, it''s dawning already!” he heard behind, confirming again the worst possibility. The voice was melodious and of good intonation, it could belong to any good-looking dwarf, all rather grave and gentle.


    “Friend, you don''t know how long I''ve been waiting for a visit in this barren neighborhood, I was about to start talking to the rocks, me!”, Mim was paying close attention to the words of the well-mannered beast, though he couldn''t see it yet and was beginning to think it would be worthwhile to start praying for his immortal soul.


    “Now, why don''t we introduce ourselves while your friend arrives.”