A mournful, distant whimper floated up from the dark maw. Barnaby. Tamsya sighed. This was precisely the kind of unforeseen physical exertion she’d hoped to avoid by becoming household inventory. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, a feat that felt like bench-pressing a full sack of potatoes.
“He’s down there, Tamsya,” Korsen said, his voice unusually strained. He peered into the blackness, wiping moisture from his grimy cheek. “My poor, brave Barnaby.”
Another whimper. Tamsya blinked. “Is he hungry?”
Korsen turned, staring round-eyed. “Of course he’s starved! He’s just fallen into a geological anomaly and is likely terrified beyond reckoning!”
Tamsya rummaged in the basket of sundries she’d brought, retrieving a coil of thin rope and a plump, spiced pork link. “If he wants food, he needs a meal. It’ll keep him calm.” She tied the hemp around one end of the cured meat, testing the knot with a tug.
“Brilliant, Tamsya! Truly brilliant!” Korsen exclaimed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Give it here, I’ll lower it.”
Tamsya held the rope out. “No, no. My arm is already out. It’s less effort for me to just drop it.” She leaned precariously over the jagged edge, the cold air rising from below smelling of damp earth and something metallic. The pit was wider than her body, an open breach in the newly purchased Crag. She let the rope unspool, watching the pale speck vanish into the black. After a tense moment, she felt a slight tug.
“He’s got it!” Korsen crowed, practically vibrating with relief. “He’s still alive!”
Tamsya grunted, slowly reeling in the rope after Barnaby had finished his snack. Each rotation of her wrist felt like grinding stones. The rope came back slick with sheepdog drool. This was far too much arm movement for a stationary object. She resolved to only offer one portion at a time. This was generous, almost excessively so.
Korsen, meanwhile, had begun to feverishly clear away the loose dirt and crumbling rock from around the chasm. He tossed aside a gnarled root, revealing more of the peculiar, non-Morndell rock. He found a sturdy, thick length of timber – part of the collapsed framing – and lashed a heavy-duty climbing hook to one end. “He needs to come out, Tamsya. He can’t stay down there. It’s too dangerous.”
“Yes,” Tamsya agreed, rubbing her wrist. “He’ll get covered in dirt. We’ll have to brush him.” The thought of brushing Barnaby made her sigh deeply. So much effort.
Korsen carefully lowered the timber into the shaft, testing its stability. He called out, his voice echoing. “Barnaby! Good boy! Come to Papa!”
Another whimper, closer this time. Then a wild scrabbling. Korsen braced himself, pulling with all his might. The rope groaned. The earth around the breach shuddered. Tamsya, still seated, noticed glints of light reflecting from the depths as the timber shifted. Not just wet rock, but something unnaturally bright.
With a final heave, Korsen dragged Barnaby, a muddy, panting lump of wool, out of the abyss. The sheepdog immediately collapsed onto Tamsya’s lap, depositing a fresh layer of grime and a happy, rumbling purr. Tamsya's legs went numb under seventy pounds of matted fleece. At least he was warm.
But the effort of Barnaby’s extraction had ripped away a significant portion of the pit's rim. The exposed interior was no longer dark. Instead, it glittered. Jagged, impossibly massive crystals, some as tall as Korsen himself, jutted from the walls. They were not the clear, shimmering kind Tamsya sometimes saw in the riverbed. These were dull, opaque white, crisscrossed with faint blue veins, catching the late afternoon sun and scattering it in blinding flashes. They looked like frozen, colossal teeth.
“What in the name of the Six Overseers…” Korsen whispered, his jaw slack. He reached out a trembling hand, touching a cool, smooth surface. “This… this is industrial quartz. In these quantities… it’s unheard of.” His eyes, normally darting and restless, grew still, fixed on the shimmering cavern.
Up a winding, overgrown path, the distinct crunch of boots on dry leaves sounded. Elder Grolf, the self-appointed village gossip and busybody, crept through the scrub. He’d been dispatched by Jolya Brinn, officially to ‘collect rare herbs for her ailing constitution,’ but secretly to ascertain if Tamsya Brinn was violating her marriage contract by failing to perform adequate labor. He’d spotted Korsen’s peculiar digging with petty satisfaction. A trophy wife, digging for her supper! He nearly had her. He would report back to Jolya, and Tamsya would be sent to the deep-mountain logging, her lazy days over.
Grolf peered through a thicket of thorns. He saw the gaping pit. He saw Korsen standing, mouth agape, staring into the depths. And then, the sun shifted. A blinding, prismatic flash erupted from the chasm, hitting Grolf squarely in the face. He cried out, stumbling back, clutching his eyes. When he lowered his hands, the sight that met him was almost unbearable. The entire cavity pulsed with a strange, cool light, revealing crystals so large they defied belief. Industrial quartz. The most valuable mineral in the Morndell Valley, used in the new factory’s precision machinery, its prices rumored to be astronomical after the legalization of private enterprise.
Grolf didn’t hesitate. He let out a strangled gasp, a sound caught between greed and awe. Tamsya Brinn, the lazy loafer, had just struck the biggest fortune the valley had ever seen. He had to tell someone. He had to be the first. His legs, usually stiff with age and envy, found a sudden, impossible burst of speed. He turned and sprinted, a human cannonball of gossip, back down the Crag of Oakhaven, towards the distant rooftops of the village.
Korsen spun, his head snapping up at the sound of crashing branches. “Grolf! What are you –” His words caught in his throat as he watched the elder disappear over the ridge, a streak of frantic gray. “No. No, no, no.” His eyes darted to the crystals, then to the sun, then to Tamsya, buried under Barnaby. “The deed. It’s not stamped until midnight! The Collective! They’ll seize it as unclaimed resource!”
Tamsya, warm and comfortable, merely mumbled, “Who will rub Barnaby’s ears?”
Korsen didn’t hear her. His mind raced. Midnight. The deed. The quartz. The Collective. He looked at Tamsya, a beautiful, inert lump beneath a sheepdog. He looked at the path Grolf had taken. A single, desperate, insane plan formed.
With a grunt, Korsen reached down, grabbed Tamsya by the waist and knees, and hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of turnips. Barnaby, momentarily dislodged, let out an indignant bark before scrambling up, ready to follow his new favorite napping spot. “Hold on, my stationary object!” Korsen bellowed, taking off at a dead sprint down the treacherous, rocky incline of the Crag of Oakhaven, the deed clutched tight in his free hand. He had to make it to the Village Committee Board before Grolf, before the entire valley descended on their glittering mine, before midnight, before –