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Anita, the little dwarf of the Passage of the elf of the flattened nose

Chapter 7: The melody quarry

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Anita was very happy with what Madame Candida had told her, securing a place for her to be educated in her singing and dancing academy. All she had to do was comply with a recommendation from the famous former dancer and director, and Mana was already ahead of them at the market to buy enough food for Anita.

"Be preparing all my love, I'll be home soon," Mana said to her husband and rushed through.

"Where is Mana going?"

"Where else," Brandifur replied, "is going to buy the things necessary for the feast in your honor, Anita."

"Hey, I don't think that's necessary, I don't want to bother you in any way."

"Don't worry about that, Anita, it will be a pleasure to have a small celebration for your admission to the academy."

"Thank you very much, I will help you as much as I can."

"That's the attitude, now let's go home and prepare everything before Mana comes back from the market."

Having said that, they both hurried through the fence and in less time than they thought, they were already going through the little gate on the fence and were already avoiding the awkward attempts by Timor and Plutor to welcome them or at least that was for the two dwarves, since Roquita, the cat, hidden in the basket his mistress was carrying, was quite sure that the two super-developed birds only wanted to have him as a snack.

Once in the security of the house, Roquita shot out to the upper floor, surely to seek refuge in Anita's room, while his mistress and uncle, anxious, began to sweep, accommodate chairs, armchairs and wash some glasses and other dishes.

"I'm here, my love!" Said Mana, who came in carrying many things. "Timor, Plutor! Now, don't be rude boys!" She said and closed the door.

"I'm glad you came, my love."

"Yes, I'll prepare the food now."

"Well, I'm going out for a moment."

"I understand, come back soon."

"I'll do it... Timor, Plutor, let me pass, boys!"

"Where's Uncle Brandifur going?"

"You'll soon see, Anita," said Mana, suppressing a laugh. "Come help me with the food."

"Yes."

Anita was surprised at how much food Mana had bought, but then she understood everything when Brandifur returned to the house.

Timor and Plutor made a lot of scandal and it was not for nothing, apparently together with the dwarf, others were coming, all invited for the celebration. In the end, Brandifur had no choice but to lock the two geese in their pen so that they would stop making such a fuss.

There was nothing small about the little celebration and Anita had to shake many dwarf hands and tell more than once how she had calmed down the Valrax Serpent and how it had gone with her interview with Madame Candida.

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When Anita thought that a typical morning of cleanliness would come after the celebration party that her relatives gave her, she was surprised that the couple of husbands were already in the living room doing cleaning work.

"Good morning Anita." Mana and Brandifur greeted her.

"Good morning, please let me help you."

"It's not necessary, Anita," said Mana.

"No, seriously, I want to help."

"All right," said the housewife, "after all we're going to an interesting place."

"Really?"

"Yes, Anita," Brandifur said, "we'll go to the city quarry, well, the old quarry, because now it doesn't have much activity to say."

"It's an interesting place, you're going to like it Anita."

"I'm curious, I hope we can go soon. Are you going too, Mana?"

"Of course, Anita, after cooking all day, I think I deserve a day off."

"After visiting the quarry, we'll go to The Roasted Beard's restaurant."

"That sounds good."

"There's good food there, Anita."

"Well, we won't go anywhere if we keep talking. Let's clean up!" Brandifur finished and everyone began to clean up the mess of yesterday's party.

Fortunately they took less time than expected and then got ready to leave, as always, Anita was carrying her cat Roquita in the wicker basket, which was guarded by his little blanket.

The two guard geese made a scandal when they saw their masters and began to peck at Anita's basket and not to ask for food, that's for sure, unless they wanted to eat the poor Roquita.

"Timor, Plutor, don't be bad!" Anita said to them, lifting her wicker basket to her chest.

"Foolish boys," said Mana and drove the geese away with her hand.

"Well, boys," said Brandifur, "take care of the house, we'll be back in the afternoon, understand?"

The geese quacked as if they understood their owner, and the three of them walked away from the house.

"Those Timor and Plutor, it's hard for them to get used to people," said Mana with a smile.

"Better said, they don't get used to anyone," said Brandifur, "you would have seen the problems I've had with some of the parcels I've received because of those two."

"But they're getting used to Anita, she's even feeding them."

"That's right," said Anita, "I just wish they'd get along better with Roquita."

With this and other conversations, the three of them descended and climbed slopes as the city of Singing Rocks was located on a group of hills adjacent to Long River.

Sometimes Anita enjoyed the view of the river and could see some barge in the distance, other times, the waterway was hidden but she was entertained with the wonderful shape of the trees with their trunks that went from dark brown to light beige and their green leaves, radiant in the morning sun.

As they moved further away from the river, it was noticeable that the houses no longer appeared with such regularity and gave way rather to older large houses and much further on to authentic mansions of magnificent facades and gates, which in spite of their magnificence looked somewhat neglected since in reality they were abandoned.

"All these were the headquarters of the old companies that were extracting rocks from the quarry," said Brandifur. "With time they were left in the abandonment due to the scarcity of orders. You would have seen it Anita, the place before was full of activity... The caravans of mules, the hustle and bustle of the errand boys, the luxurious carriages and so on."

"I would have liked to see that too, but I'm very young," said Mana.

"Why does everything look so lonely now?"

"Well," replied his uncle, "the quarry was very famous during the Green Mushroom War, once the war was over, little by little business went elsewhere. Now the city is better known as a resting place for old men like me."

"You don't look so old uncle."

"Did you hear it, Mana? She's so considerate!" Exclaimed Brandifur and his wife laughed gracefully.

Anita now saw with more attention if that could be, the facades of the old and stately abandoned mansions. She had heard several stories of the war before mentioned, but she never believed that the city had such a trading past because of it.

The Green Mushroom Wars were eight military campaigns waged not by one, but by several dwarf kingdoms and elves among others in a span of a thousand years against countless hordes of subterranean goblins under the rule of several warlords who had no unity among themselves but by an unfortunate coincidence attacked at the same time, their armies, who were said to be consuming a pile of mushrooms that gave them unusual courage and even strength, razed several kingdoms including Durangamor, the kingdom to which the city of Singing Rocks belonged.

It took alliance with elves and other races to contain the green tide, and although dwarf historians and others liked to write that it was the boldness of their respective races that won the victory in either campaign, the truth was that the goblins knew more and more defeats as they overexploited the cultivation of green mushrooms and in the end, could not harvest more.

"Well, we're here," Brandifur said, swelling his chest and making a fan motion with his arm to introduce his grandniece to the last of the hills.

"Unbelievable," exclaimed Anita at the sight of what looked like half a hill, as the other side seemed to have been nibbled by giant mice. "Oh, there I can see tracks of mineral wagons."

"Yes," said Brandifur, "but it was the stones from the quarry that they carried and nothing else. A lot of mules were used for that, and these were very dear to the dwarves."

"No wonder I saw some squares with statues of mules. So it is because of the quarry that the city was very famous."

"Actually, Anita was for something else, come on. Come on, Mana, follow me."

Anita was intrigued and crossed glances with Mana, who only smiled at her so as not to spoil the surprise.

"Of course I could show you now, but the rocks here are not so suitable for that," said Brandifur, adding more mystery to the matter and guiding the women along abandoned roads and helping them to climb steep slopes.

"Yes, this is a good place."

Anita didn't know what her old relative meant because the rocks around her looked the same as the ones she saw when she arrived at the quarry.

Brandifur unhooked a bag tied to his back, and instead of taking out what the young dwarf supposed were sandwiches or tobacco, what he actually took out was a series of tiny hammers and chisels apparently made of silver.

"Uncle, what are you...?"

"Listen carefully, Anita," said Mana with a smile.

Brandifur bent down and began to strike the rocks delicately with chisels and hammers.

It was incredible, it seemed that each one of the rocks produced a sound, not just any but melodious, this varied depending on the type of chisel used, the angle of this and the blow it received and even the place where the stone was impacted. They were not soft timbres but could be heard with great clarity.

"It is beautiful," said Anita, who could not believe what she heard and covered her mouth with her hands, "I never thought I would hear the stones make that sound as if they were singing..."

"Now do you see where the name of the city comes from, dear Anita?" Mana said to her with her gentle smile, so characteristic of her. "I was also very surprised the first time I came to this place."

"This is why the quarry was so famous. The stones of now, of course, sound extinguished in comparison to those that were extracted before."

"Really? I think they are very melodious."

"What was extracted in the quarries had several uses," said Barndifur. "In the war, they were very useful because the walls produced warning sounds when goblin sappers approached from below, but of course, not everything was for war, the castles of the dwarf lords and kings also had rocks extracted from this quarry, the more you had, the more important it was. Dwarf engineers were in charge of putting each stone in its place in such a way that each step on these resonated either with sublime melody or serious tone depending on the situation."

"The throne of the dwarf king of the kingdom of Brinarios, which is where I come from," said Mana, "is said to emit a different sound depending on how the king sits in it and how his mood is."

"Wow, I'd like to see that."

"The quarry was so famous that it even received requests from the Elf kings either for their palaces or monasteries. I am not quite sure about this, but it is said that even the distant elf kingdom of Lofildius asked for a shipment of the stones from the quarry."

Anita was impressed and was invited by Brandifur to try different sounds from the surrounding rocks, while Mana prepared the sandwiches and her husband started smoking his pipe with aromatic tobacco.

CONTINUARÁ...

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