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Mithnite, you're making the place look untidy." Mithnite sat.
    Grandma ignored us as she poured our tea, teapot and cups already on the table when we arrived, along with a plate of sandwiches threatening to topple at any moment. How she knows is a mystery, but if you're coming for a visit she is always prepared.
    I sank into my chair, missing my hug, then thought better of it and jumped up, squeezed her tight until she relented and reciprocated, and I said, "It's not a phase, I've had a rough time of it. You know what I went through. I honestly thought I was done with it all."
    Grandma leaned back and studied me like I was covered in interesting warts. "Faz, I love you more than life itself, and would never tell you to do something I didn't believe in, but you are magic, same as I am. Same as Mithnite here is."
    "Am I, really?"
    "Don't interrupt," scalded Grandma.
    "Sorry."
    "Tsk, you just did it again! Faz, you can't escape it any more than you can escape your own destiny. We are who we are."
    "Okay, so I've been a fool, nothing new there. I was so tired, so broken, Grandma. I believed it was the right thing to do."
    "It's over with now. But don't you dare leave it so long between visits again," she warned, moving faster than you would believe as her potions began to bubble over.
    I returned to my seat and we chatted about this and that, laughed and joked, drank tea and Mithnite ate all the sandwiches. Cocooned in love and stifling heat, belly full and a peace finally accepted for the things that had happened in the past. I could have stayed there forever, but there was business to be done and the hour was up all too soon.
    As we said our goodbyes at the door she asked, "What's the job? And be careful."
    "Aren't I always?"
    "No, you aren't."
    "Fair enough. Dancer had some story about a dragon stopping the dwarves being able to access their gold, but that's obviously nonsense. So, not sure. And why they want me is another mystery. They always take care of business themselves."
    "Damn dwarves are sneaky buggers, and so rude. Be careful, and if you do meet a dragon, be nice, they're prone to incinerating anyone they don't like."
    "So they really exist?" Nobody had ever told me they were real, now two people said they believed in them.
    "They're real all right. I met one once. Right feisty bugger it was, too. So don't go trying to be a smartass."
    "Me! As if. Come here, gimme a cuddle."
    "Stupid boy."
    She gave me the cuddle anyway. She even gave Mithnite one, and truth be told he probably needed it more than I did.
    Fortified, buoyed, excited and somewhat nervous, I set off from Grandma's and the city with Mithnite in tow. I said he could wait at the car while I dealt with whatever this job really entailed, and could go get help if things went haywire. Poor boy was happy for the distraction, but I knew he still wasn't ready to talk.
    Slowly, we made our way into the hills of South Wales to go meet Ulod at the old mine.

 
     
     
     
    Off to the Mines
    Wales has a long history of mining. Large communities formed around the much-needed sources of work, but as cheaper and cheaper imports became available, much like other industries such as the once booming steel industry, places closed, communities were devastated, unemployment skyrocketed, health deteriorated, and for the most part there wasn't a damn thing the Welsh could do about it.
    Generations of miners, and the myriad businesses that supported them and their families, found themselves untethered from the one thing they believed was a constant. Mining ran deep in the hearts of the men. It was who they were, who their fathers were and their fathers before them, and it was all lost. Tradition and a way of life gone up in foreign, coal-fueled smoke.
    Now there's little but museums left, or abandoned, black places, full of rusting machinery and lost dreams. Yet, in all the long history of digging underground, not a single person in Wales had ever seen a dwarf. Hard,