Role

Chapter 1

The stick is everything. I found it just outside Akan when I was very young.

For days, a storm had been brewing high up in the mountaintops. We could all
see it coming. The elders knew it for sure, but every dwarf who took but a
step out of the mines felt something was amiss. Old or young, lad or lass...
_something_ was coming. At dusk, hell broke loose. With an earsplitting crack
that shook the mountain, the storm was upon us. Villagers rushed to the
safety of the deepest mineshaft. Jagged streaks of lightning ripped through
the cloud-darkened skies. Chunks of ice hammered the village like the
pummelling fists of so many titans. Somewhere up the slope, a bolt of
lightning ignited the dry timber along the mountainside starting a raging
inferno.

I tell you these things from memory because I did not reach the safety of the
mines. I didn't want to go. The villagers call me simple, ever since I was
small. In truth, I've always felt different from them. Whereas they prefer
the underground depths, the open sky is the place for me. I've never been
much good at speaking aloud and so I don't do it if I can avoid it. Making
friends was never my strong suit either. So, when everyone ran for cover, I
wedged myself in an alley between two buildings with a view so I could watch
Nature's awesome and terrifying power.

If not for the deluge of rain that followed the hail, Akan may very well have
been lost to the fire. Yes, despite what some think they know, stone does
crack if heated enough. Though it does more damage to a city of wood, stone
can and does suffer a fiery doom. After some time, the thunder and lightning
ceased and the rain lightened to a steady drizzle. I hitched up my belt and
wandered up the slopes to see the damage.

Everywhere I looked, trees were rent asunder by the force of the gale. Rows
of fire-blackened stumps greeted me with a toothy grimace. Great mounds of
soft earth lie about in heaps. Earth, Fire, Air and Water. Nature had brought
the full force of her wrath down upon the mountain, but for what purpose?
What offense had the mountain committed? As my eyes took in the breathtaking
destruction, my gaze fell upon a small sapling which had somehow miraculously
survived the maelstrom untouched.

Barely three feet high and as thin as an elf it was! A smaller sapling of
nary a foot forked out from the base. Tiny, delicate leaves, even, on some of
its fingerlike branches! Incredible! Here, despite the destructiveness of the
storm, an example of growth and renewal! As I marvelled at the sight, it
occurred to me that no one from Akan would understand this miracle. They were
good people, solid as the stone they worked, and I bore them no ill will, but
my place was not among them. They would assume me lost in the storm, I know,
so it would be better to simply leave.