The Song of Fafnir -- A Norse Mythology Novella

7. Rising

The day my leg iron was removed from the thick ring that kept me bound was one of the happiest of my life. 

I had succeeded in conquering the obstacles around me well enough to get myself out of the Lowermost forge and if I could do that, then it wouldn't be long until I was out of the forges all together and back with my family where I belonged. 

Or so I thought. 

It would not be that easy, but let's allow me my moment of happiness that day when the Overseer untied me and led me out of the forge, my chain slithering over the floor. 

As we climbed the winding stairs in the perpetual night that shrouds the deepest of the caverns, I noticed the stink lessening and the faintest amount of reflected light beginning to appear. I tilted my head upward, attempting to catch a faint breeze from the Above World, but was disappointed. Nothing but the stale drafts of the caverns brushed over my face. 

Still, I was elated. 

"Got a new one for you!" shouted my old Overseer, as we entered the gaping mouth of the second to lowest forge. It was better lit, but still murky and contained the same strange dripping stone teeth of the Lowermost, but not nearly as many of them. The rough hewn walls bore more signs of dwarf artwork, but still looked mostly natural. 

A new dwarf, clearly an Overseer, approached us and looked me suspiciously up and down while lazily scratching his ugly, beardless face. He, too, wore the black leggings and iron-plated shoes I knew painfully well from the Lowermost.

"Well, going to take him or not? He doesn't bite, but he is a brawler." The Overseer held out the end of my chain and shook it. 

The new dwarf didn't respond. His dark, hooded eyes continued to wander all over me from my naked head to my arms, down to my thighs and back up again, examining me more throughly than human men examine livestock they're considering handing over gold for. 

Finally, he got his jaws apart and shouted instructions over his shoulder to a few dwarves who were refilling water troughs. 

This time, I didn't complain to this new Overseer or make a fuss about who I was. I did not lose a syllable on the injustice I was still convinced I'd been dealt that had been festering inside me for so long.  I remained silent and soon found myself shackled to a new lump of stone, better crafted than my old one, and the object of interested stares from the sooty dwarves at neighbouring anvils. 

I was given a new set of tools and left to myself.  

My new instructor turned out not to be a mixed-race monster like Hrae, but a wrinkled, bad-tempered dwarf named Kallja who thought it was amusing to place his foot on my chain to make me fall and drop whatever I was carrying in a loud clatter.  

I had played similar pranks, too, certainly, but they were never intended to be cruel. With Kallja, I sensed immediately that he was earnest in his meanness.  

Irritated as I was by his antics, I applied what I'd learnt in the Lowermost and paid close attention to his tutelage, believing that was the way to rise. And indeed, he taught me to work and shape various, more complex metals, how to operate the large bellows and other skills I would need, but it did not seem to matter when it came to being treated any better. He would keep up a constant stream of  jeering and insults until I was so enraged, I would lose control and lunge at him, landing a few good punches before I was beaten into the ground, only to spend hours afterwards clutching my ribs and groaning.  

I was much stronger than I had been, but had to accept that I was still no match for a real smith when it came to a serious tussle. 

Soon, my diligence waned and I began to sag under the thought that I had simply traded one hell for another. One less violent perhaps, and without the threat of being killed by the insane, but still as painful and demeaning as the one I'd come from.