The hard, racking cough shook the elf’s body in several restless convulsions. Hardly a few minutes passed from the last such attack, and now a thin sheen of perspiration glistened on the smooth, pale forehead. Beneath the frail and sickly features of his face, something else hid – a small glimpse of noble, ancient outlines. High cheekbones, flowing, smooth lines of his face, and slender ears – everything pointed towards the elegant features of an Elf. But the sickness threatened to diminish all the beauty. Another fit of dry coughing deepened the feverish grimace.
“Not good…” murmured a short, shadowed figure in the corner of the small room. “Not good at all.”
The elf seemed oblivious to the deep, rasping voice, and shook his head as if in some sickly dream.
From the shadowed corner, a faint glow of a pipe stuck out – like a tiny orange torch in the darkness, it drew the eye. With a long exhale, the figure let out a billowing cloud of smoke and stepped closer towards the bed. The sickly elf seemed to frown and sigh when the smoke-cloud reached him, yet his unlikely caretaker seemed oblivious to the dense layer of smoky fog that enveloped the tiny room.
And this unlikely caretaker was the complete opposite from his noble patient. Unlike the slender and elegant features of the elf, the stout, bearded figure was full of rough and wild details. For this strange caretaker was…a dwarf.
He stood a mere half a meter taller from the bed, and obviously couldn’t take a good look at the lying elf. A small, crude iron helmet was perched on top of his head, and in its center – a small candle. The faint glow cast deep shadows on the patient’s face. A long, thick, and awfully tangled beard covered most of the dwarf’s face, and fell down in great waves almost to his crotch. He scratched it as he took another deep puff from the pipe, followed by another smoky exhale.
“Not good at all!”, he repeated for the third time, his voice drenched in a mix of agitation and cluelessness. “If I don’t do it, the elf is lost!”
As if suspecting the dwarf’s words, the sickly elf let out a drawn out murmur, but his bearded little caretaker paid no heed. The very next moment he was bent over in the corner, busily flicking the yellowed pages of a large, dusty tome. Each page was covered in short, angular signs that the dwarves called runes, and here and there an image popped up – an ugly and crude drawing of a frightening figure. Whenever the images appeared, the dwarf stopped flicking, reading the runes which he traced with his finger. As he muttered the words, which sounded strange and wild, the dwarf seemed awfully nervous. Great beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and every move he made was more and more restless.
“By Durin’s beard, how did it get this bad?” he muttered through his beard, “It was only a cold, a simple cold.”
He shot a quick glance at the muttering, feverish elf, and then turned back to the book.
“I told him, didn’t I?” he asked no one in particular, “Don’t drink from the Moria keg, Findu, I said to him. And did he listen?”
The flicking of the pages became increasingly hectic, until at last, the dwarf found the page he was looking for. He let out a small sigh.
Shooting another glance at the elf, he mumbled: “You’ll owe me for this…”
The recital was a quick affair. He read the runes out loud, each new sound strange and savage, and as he uttered the final word, a sudden gust of air swept through the room. The small flickering light in his helmet was quickly snuffed out.
A moment of complete silence settled on the room, until it was abruptly cut short by a loud knock on the door. Taken unawares, the dwarf jumped upwards and smacked his helmeted head square into the shelf above, sending small cups and plates flying down with a great crash.
Slightly flustered and shamed by his frightened reaction, he went towards the door muttering a string of highly creative and obscene curses. The knocking repeated.
“I’m coming, by Durin’s nose hairs, I’m coming!” he growled, “You couldn’t have chosen a worse moment!”
The door opened with a loud and drawn out squeak of the hinges, and for a moment, while his sight adjusted, the dwarf could see no one. Only after a while, when he glanced downwards, did he see his strange guest.
His guest was even shorter than he was. The small figure was only so tall as to reach the dwarf’s round belly. And what a strange guest it was! The little gnome was a ragtag apparition – dressed in an old and endlessly patched shirt and trousers, each piece of a different color – the creature looked like some wandering patchwork, full of details and trinkets. On its head was a miniature pointed hat, settled snuggly and bent at an angle. Beneath its brim a peculiar face jutted out – full of deep lines and folds, its features were stretched out in a wide, simpleton’s smile. The huge, bulbous nose wiggled slightly.
“Whatever it is you’re sellin’, I ain’t buyin’!”, the dwarf bellowed and promptly began closing the door. But, seemingly oblivious to the words, the tiny gnome slid by and entered the burrow just as the door was closing. It was quick and nimble.
“Are all dwarves this stupid?” it asked in a tiny, squeaky voice as it stood in the dim half-light of the room. “Or are you a special specimen?” A tiny bundle rocked left-to-right from a stick on its shoulder.
Confused, the stout dwarf looked at it with mouth half open. When the realization finally came to him his eyes widened in wonder. He quickly glanced at the dusty big book.
“You?” he mumbled, “I…the summoning…what…” the words trailed off.
“Yes, silly, yes is the answer to whatever you just meant to say.” The gnome said, looking curiously around the tiny room. “You called – I came.”
The dwarf finally got a hold of himself.
“But I thought of something….different.” he said. “The book clearly said: Mjuuuuu, the Great Demon, Devourer and Stealer of Souls.”
“I know, I know,” the gnome said with a sigh, “but the writers tend to exaggerate a tiny bit. Still, it is I, the great Mjuuuuu, and I am at your service.” He made a flourishing bow and took off the hat, revealing a bald top fringed with wispy hair.
The dwarf was still gaping.
“If you don’t close your mouth,” Mjuuuuu the gnome went on, “a globsnaga will surely crawl in. Now you better tell me why I’m here.”
Blinking as if to shake his disbelief, the stout dwarf finally spoke.
“It’s my friend there,” he flicked a thumb towards the bed, “the Elf. He’s awfully, awfully sick. I teased him that he ain’t tough enough to drink from the Moria keg, and the proud fool actually did it!”
The Gnome wrinkled his brows, stroking its hairless chin.
“An Elf drinking from the Moria brew? What a dunce.”
“I know!” the dwarf exclaimed. “A big ol’ swallow he took, too.”
Clambering up on the bed, the tiny creature approached the feverish face of the Elf, studying it closely.
“Hmm…yes…Moria…foul brew…” Mjuuuuu murmured, and then said: “He can be saved, yes.”
The dwarf nodded approvingly.
“And the price?” he asked.
“Only his soul.”
A moment of silence settled once more. The dwarf seemed calculating his thoughts. But soon after, he chuckled and let out a snort.
“His soul?” he laughed. “Whatever for would you want that old thing? I’d give it to you for free, you know, but I don’t accept returns. And you’d be quick to return that dirty thing, believe me.”
The gnome looked at him craftily.
“Hmm…You’ll bargain for your friend’s life?”
Confused, the dwarf made a serious face. “Yes?” he said.
“Alright…” the gnome went on. “His liver then!”
This time the dwarf laughed deeply and for a whole minute. Mjuuuuu watched, not amused.
“Then you better take his soul instead,” the dwarf spoke between laughs, “’cause his liver ain’t worth the hassle! That old Elf is a right drunkard.”
The gnome threw his hands in the air despairingly.
“Then what will you offer?”
“You can take his luck with women. He’s better off without it.” The dwarf said after a bit of consideration. “And I’ll throw in a sack of po-ta-toes as well.”
“Luck with women?” the gnome’s eyes went wide. He quickly clambered off the bed and extended a tiny, callous hand. “It’s a deal!”
The dwarf shook the hand vigorously.
“Go on then, save him.”
“In a moment,” said Mjuuuuu, “One question first, master dwarf. Why do you want to save your Elvish friend?”
The answer came at once:
“Why, he owes me a pint of beer. He lost the bet.”
“A pint of beer?” The gnome repeated. “A worthy cause for salvation! We must save him then.”
Standing at the foot of the bed, Mjuuuuu, the Great Demon, Devourer and Stealer of Souls, in all of his ragtag glory, quickly recited his ominous, powerful spell. He sang in his squeaky voice:
“Foul brew, Dwarven beer,
makes the Elf stiff with fear,
When you take a little bit,
you will quickly feel like shit.
Ancient spell of Khazad-dûm,
makes you find the toilet room,
If with Dwarves you want to drink,
Then you’re dumber than I think!”
Once the recital was done, the small creature clapped its hands and promptly vanished. Nothing was left of it, no trace except a barely noticeable foul odor.
As the dwarf looked, incredulous and wide eyed, his noble elven patient began stirring in the bed. Taking a deep breath, the tall figure opened its eyes and sat up. The fever was clearly gone, and the dark lines in the face began subsiding. The Elf was no longer sick.
“Wha…what happened?” he asked in a high, flowing tone of voice. “I don’t feel sick anymore.”
He gazed at his stout, bearded companion.
“No you don’t, ‘cause I cured you.”
“You?” the Elf snorted, “How on earth did you cure me?”
“Onion and garlic soup!” the dwarf exclaimed proudly, once more lighting his smoking pipe. “Good ol’ onion and garlic soup.”
The elf raised himself, tall and noble. The look on his face was full of anger and disgust, his chin quivering softly.
“ONION AND GARLIC?!” he shouted. “You’ve done that on purpose! You know how much I hate that!”
But the dwarf only giggled and let out another billowing cloud of smoke.
I’ll enjoy that pint of beer, he thought merrily.
THE END
