“What do you know about locomotive technologies, Bartholomew, my boy?” Uncle Finneus asked me.

We were in a private room aboard the train Puffing Billy on our way to Tradverd. Uncle Finneus sat across from me in silken robes with loose pants underneath. Looking for all the world like he had no care or worry. His cane was beside him as it always was, leaning up against the red velvet cushion. The sun was shining outside. It was a pleasant morning.

“I can’t say I know much, Uncle,” I replied, “Any particular reason you ask?”

Uncle Finneus, who had stuck his head out of the window while I was talking, glanced back at me. “What did you say?” he asked, sitting back down, and pulling out his pipe.

“I just said that I don’t know much. Why do you ask?” I replied with a bit more force than necessary.

Uncle Finneus appeared regretful. “That’s disappointing. I can’t say I’ve ever thought to make an afternoon researching steam engines. But now that I’m on one, I feel like that was a mistake.”

“I’m surprised, Uncle. I thought you had a handle on all subjects,” I said. And indeed, I was surprised. Since I had arrived, Uncle Finneus had an answer on hand for every question I had, no matter the content.

Uncle Finneus chuckled. “There’s only so much information one person can fit inside a brain. Give it another 30 years, and you’ll understand what I mean. It’s a ridiculous notion to assume I can learn everything about everything. I’ve forgotten more information than you’ll be able to learn in a century.”

“How old are you exactly to have forgotten so much? My mother never gave me a straight answer,” I asked.

“Hahaha, of course, she didn’t. She had no answer to give. She doesn’t know,” said Uncle Finneus.

“So, how old are you?” I pressed.

“Old enough to know that we are nearing the station, and no good will come of us talking nonsense. Now let me prepare my mind.”

With that, he pulled out a small ball of brown resin that smelled of death and bodily fluids from the silver case sitting next to him. He put the resin inside his pipe, lit it, and began puffing out circles of smoke. With each exhale, the smoke rings changed color, from red to blue to purple to even black.

I tried talking to him but received no response. It looked as if he was asleep. And I would have thought just that, if not for the continuous smoke rings that flew from his lips.

This went on for twenty minutes before he turned to me with crazy eyes that swirled with vanishing colors and asked, “What is the depth of your magic boy?”

“Depth of my magic?” I asked, distracted by the strange phenomenon that was happening with his irises.

“Yes child, how deep is the connection with your magic? From what your mother wrote and from what I can see, it is not shallow. So how deep does it go?”

I shrugged, looking away, no longer feeling like I wanted to make eye contact with him. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen the bottom of it or anything.”

“Do you speak to it at least?” he asked in a soft tone.

“Uncle Finneus, I am not particularly interested in conversing about my magic unless it is needed.” I snapped.

Eventually, the train let out its horrible screeching cry and began to slow down. There hadn’t been any movement from Uncle Finneus for at least the last twenty minutes, and I was beginning to grow worried. I reached out to touch him when his eyes suddenly snapped open. The glare he gave made me jump reflexively. His eyes were dilated to such extremes I couldn’t tell where the color had gone.

“Are you all right, Uncle Finneus?” I asked.

His face softened, but the eyes continued to stare through my soul. “Relax, my boy. I am just in a very focused state right now. It seems like the train has stopped. Let’s be off. There is no time to waste. Come along. Hurry up.”

Uncle Finneus grabbed his cane along with the silver case and left the travel room without a preamble. When we exited the train, Bob, the dwarf, was already waiting for us at the station. “I’m so happy that you were able to make it. I hope it was a pleasant ride?” said the dwarf, giving Uncle Finneus a deep bow.

“Yes, Yes,” said Uncle Finneus as he eyed the dwarf up and down with his unnatural eyes. “Let us be off. I’d like to put an end to this nonsense by nightfall.”

“Of course. I’m happy to hear that. There was another disappearance last night. Right, I have a carriage awaiting us.” Said Bob, skipping ahead of us like a child on the first day of summer.

After a bumpy ride of twenty minutes, we arrived at the sprawling campsite at the edge of a mountain. The rows of thick canvas tents lined muddy streets. If I had to guess, I would say it was a camp of a thousand dwarves, all bristling with hair and mud. When we walked closer, a wave of smells hit me, feces, rancid meat, beer, and piss. It made me gag, but Uncle Finneus either didn’t notice, or it didn’t bother him.

“Take us to where the latest disappearance happened, Bob,” said Uncle Finneus.

Bob nodded and began leading us through the camp. “Where have the disappearances been happening? Have they been clustered in one area?” asked Uncle Finneus.

“Umm, well, I know the first disappearances were close to the latrines, so on the outskirts of the camp. I’m not sure where the others disappeared from. John, one of the other foremen, will know the details. Oh, there he is now. John, John! Would you mind coming over and explaining to these gentlemen where the other disappearances occurred? We’re headed over to the last place it happened.”

A very muscular dwarf with a curling mustache detached himself from a group of dwarves and jogged over, “Who are these guys, Bob?”

“This is the investigator I hired, Mr. Finneus Burgeon, and his nephew," replied Bob.

“Bartholomew,” I said, offering the new dwarf a nod as we walked.

“Anyway,” said Bob, seeming annoyed I had cut him off, “Mr. Finneus said he will find out what has been causing all the disappearances, and he wants to do it before nightfall.”

John whistled. “That would be a blessing if he can do that. Even my productivity has gone down since these disappearances started. I can’t sleep. Every little noise wakes me up. I almost killed my neighbor because I thought he was skulking about. Carl didn’t have to piss anymore after I swung my hammer at him. I’ll tell you that. Hahaha.”

“Tell me about the disappearances,” said Uncle Finneus.

“There isn’t much to say. The first couple was on the outskirts, but then they started happening throughout the camp randomly. A disappearance last week occurred right in the exact center of the camp. Creepy, right? Joab was sleeping in the middle of a thousand dwarves and vanished with no one the wiser.”

While he was talking, we arrived at a blue canvas tent held up by a wooden pole crowned with a carved statue of a raven cawing at the sky. We all pushed our way through the tent flaps with Uncle Finneus trailing behind us, his eyes darting this way and that.

“This is where he disappeared from. His bunkmate is in the mines right now. But he told me that he didn’t hear anything last night,” Bob said.

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Uncle Finneus began examining the interior of the tent, moving with purpose as he looked through the man’s belongings. Suddenly, he threw himself onto the ground in the corner of the tent. “I’ve got you,” Uncle Finneus crowed.

There was the sound of a blade being drawn. The next moment, Uncle Finneus had sliced open the tent and dashed out, leaving the dwarves and me to stare in shock.

“Does he do that often?” asked John, looking over at me.

I shrugged, “I’ve never seen him cut a tent open instead of walking around if that’s what you’re asking. But I haven’t been staying with my uncle long, so this may be his normal habit.”

“Let’s go see what Mr. Burgeon is up to,” said Bob, who had stuck his head out of the new opening. “Where did he go?”

I pushed him out of the tent to find that Uncle Finneus was nowhere in sight. My initial thought was to follow my uncle, but after some internal debate, I decided against that course of action and instead stayed behind to chat with Bob and John.

I had never investigated anything like this in my life, but I had read a few books on the subject in the Elven library so I asked Bob, “Would you mind showing me around camp? I’d like to get an idea of the area and how it's laid out. When my Uncle Gets back, it should provide him with a better understanding of what’s been happening.”

Bob looked over at John, who shrugged. “Sure, why not? What exactly do you want to see?”

I thought for a moment, “Let’s carry on looking at all the places people have disappeared from. I’ll map out what things are near the locations and see if we can find a pattern.”

John shrugged then waved a hand, “Follow me then, I know each place by heart. I make sure to avoid them whenever it grows dark.”

When we had first arrived at the camp, I had found the smell revolting. As we walked around the place, the smell did not grow on me. It was horrible, and I eventually had to wrap a cloth over my face to keep out most of the smell. John the dwarf, commented on it. And I made some excuses about allergies. As we approached the last tent we were going to visit I asked, “John, I can’t help but notice that all the buildings here aren’t buildings at all. Everything is canvas. Given that this is a permanent mine, how is it that no one has built better housing? Or at least floors in the tents. This mud is atrocious.”

I also wanted to ask why they hadn’t set up some basic latrines but felt that such a question was too rude to ask. Bob shrugged, “Most of us here are poor. And the ones that aren’t don’t see any reason to waste our money like that. We’re seasonal workers, lad. If we build something, we either have to tear it down before we leave or hope it can hold up against the winter and monsters that roam when the white world falls.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Surely you aren’t all that poor. I saw a newspaper clipping not but last week that talked about how profitable the mines in the area surrounding Glueburn, are.”

John started laughing, “Bartholomew, I do not know how the elven economy is run, but here in the real world, just because something is profitable does not mean that the workers are making money. Bob why don’t you explain this, you have a better understanding than I do.”

Bob shrugged then nodded, “Fine. Well, it’s like this. Three years ago the owner, Travis Bloduge bought the Tradverd mine and the area around it. He together with a bunch of lawyers hired us. I’m not going into details, but he screwed almost everyone over because they signed the contract after a verbal agreement without reading it. My wife works at a law firm, so she made sure to read through it. I was able to argue the contract and ended up with a pretty good deal. I made sure to help out John with it as well. But for the rest of these fellas out here, well they got really screwed over, signing multi-year contracts with barely livable pay. On top of that, as required in their contracts, they have to rent tents directly from Mr. Bloduge.”

“If it’s that bad, can't you take him to court? I can’t imagine such a contract would be able to hold up to scrutiny.”

John who had been walking alongside us silently, chuckled again. “And with what money are we supposed to fight against a man richer than most towns? There is no way to bring this before a judge and fight against it.”

I rubbed my hand under my chin. “Couldn’t you all just not show up?” I asked, “Like the deserters you talked about Bob. What if you all just did that, it’s a big country, its not like he can make you honor those contracts if you're not in the area.”

John waved a hand, “Bahh, enough of this talk. We are not humans who run away when put into a tight spot. We honor our contracts.”

“All right,” I said shrugging my shoulders.

We continued to chat, this time about the immediate dangers of living in the area. There were far more issues than even I had imagined, from disease to tunnel collapses and everything in between. The stories were becoming more and more grotesque, when as if out of nowhere, Uncle Finneus appeared beside me, still looking like he could see into a realm of reality that was locked to the rest of us. “Bartholomew, come! I’ve found the trail. If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen, we have a monster to catch.”

I offered a silent salute to the two dwarves, who nodded back at me and jogged to catch up to Uncle Finneus, who was already making his way toward the base of the mountain. “In that letter, your mother mentioned that you were adept at fire magic. Odd for an elf, but that is neither here nor there. Can you use it? You appeared to not want to discuss it earlier. Unless that was just a dream, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.”

I hesitated, before nodding my head, “Yes, I can use it. But I’m not very good at it. Hence the whole reason I’m here in the first place and all that.”

Uncle Finneus laughed, “You’ll have to tell me the looks on those fake elders of yours when you set alight the Mother Tree. I can only imagine the horror and terror in their eyes.”

“Uncle Finneus, it is not a laughing matter, please stop. That event ruined my life.” I said.

My uncle waved away my complaint. “We may need your talents, so be prepared,” he said.

I sighed, “What are we tracking?”

“I am not completely sure, so I dare not say. Just be ready for anything,” he replied.

Uncle Finneus moved like a predator, quick and silent, through the forest. I had to jog to keep up and received two annoyed looks from Uncle Finneus because of it. I had been the best hunter in my class back in the commune. But compared to Uncle Finneus, I was nothing more than a baby giraffe trying to reach a leaf on the top of an acacia tree, which, everyone knows, is a fruitless endeavor.

As we continued towards the base of the mountain, the forest grew quiet. Birds no longer chirped, and rabbits seemed to have burrowed away in fear. Such silence put me on edge, but I did not bother Uncle Finneus, who seemed absorbed with the hunt. He may not have even noticed, so caught up was he, in whatever we were stalking. After we traveled a few miles into the forest, we came upon a large opening on the side of the mountain. The mouth of the cave looked dark and gloomy, like the jaws of some primordial monster ready to clamp down on anyone who entered. Uncle Finneus again did not seem to notice the feeling of impending doom and made a beeline for the cavern face.

He stopped at the entrance and turned back to me. I was startled to find that his face had changed. The manic eyes had turned yellow and feline, while his ears had grown to become thin leather with hair covering their entirety.

“Huh, Uncle Finneus, what’s going on with your face?” I asked, backing a few steps away from him.

“Never mind that, Bartholomew. The creature we are hunting appears to be somewhere in this cave. Do you have any way of seeing in the dark?” he said.

I didn’t want to let go of the questions I wanted to ask, but I decided I could save them for later. I snapped my fingers together, causing a flame to appear above my hand. “Will this do?”

“What are the elders teaching these days that all you know is flame magic? Have they never heard of building a strong foundation? Still, that will be fine. Come along, stay behind me, and try to stay as silent as possible,” growled Uncle Finneus.

I nodded and increased the power I was sending to the flame in my hand, making the flame hover above Uncle Finneus and me. It spluttered and flared a few times but settled into a constant size after a few moments.

Together, we ventured into the depths of the earth. My heart raced with anticipation as I made my way deeper into the underground cavern, my flame casting flickering shadows on the walls around me. It was not long before the sound of dripping water cut through the silence, creating a haunting melody that reverberated through the underground.

Beneath my feet, the ground was uneven and rocky. The walls of the cavern were adorned with sparkling crystals, each one gleaming like a precious gem in the glow of the flame. The small corridor of the tunnel opened up into an underground cavern with towering stalactites that hung from the ceiling and a lake that was so still it acted like a mirror instead of water. I stopped following Uncle Finneus for a second to take in the beauty I was seeing. It was nothing I had ever imagined. It was a new world, a new universe.

A quiet, clicking sound woke me up to the present. I pulled my gaze away from the ceiling to find Uncle Finneus charging at the largest spider I had ever seen. The monster towered over Uncle Finneus with long, spindly legs that seemed to stretch on for miles. Its eight eyes, each the size of a small dinner plate, glinted in the dim light, glaring at both Uncle Finneus and me simultaneously.

A massive appendage came down to crush Uncle Finneus, but he was no longer there. He somersaulted out of harm’s way and drew his cane sword in the same instant, slashing at the spider with lightning-quick speed. The monster hissed and chased after Uncle Finneus, moving faster than I would have thought possible for such a large creature.

Uncle Finneus dodged and weaved under the constant barrage of attacks, leaving dripping blood behind as his sword stabbed and slashed, leaving small gashes. After dodging a particularly dangerous attack, Uncle Finneus leaped forward with his sword raised above his head. He brought down the metal on the joint of one of the spider’s appendages, cutting straight through it.

The scream from the monster made me cover my ears and brought me down to my knees. When I became fully aware again, three more legs had been sliced off, and circles of acid covered the ground, bubbling and melting stone. I was confused about where it had come from until I saw the spider spit, and Uncle Finneus threw himself out of the way. The glob of spit landed on the ground and began to bubble and smoke. My uncle was up off the ground and charged forward in a flash. I’m not sure if he had grown tired or if the spider was lucky, but his charge was stopped short by the swing of a leg that sent him smashing into an unforgiving rock wall.

“Shit, Shit!” I cried.

The monster raced towards the fallen form of my uncle, who did not appear to be moving. I sucked in a deep breath and reached down inside myself for the fire that raged underneath. I took it and threw all that I could grab at the spider, praying that the flames would make it in time. The flame was released, and the whole world was set ablaze. Red, orange, and blue colors danced in the air. The lake sent steam up into the ceiling, and the stalactites bloomed red with heat.

“Bartholomew, it’s too hot! It’s too hot. Turn it down!” came the muffled yelp of Uncle Finneus.

“Sorry!” I said, trying to keep my head from falling over.

I tried to pull the fire back in, but it fought against it. The flame seemed to be enjoying its newly found freedom and was uninterested in giving it up. By the time I managed to leash it, exhaustion had overtaken me. And my stupid head felt like it weighed thirty pounds.

While the husk of the monster lay smoking on the cave floor, Uncle Finneus walked over, dusting off small flames that danced on his clothes and shaking his head. “This was one of my favorite outfits. I received it from royalty nearly 100 years ago. The designer said that it was immune to magic. They do not make things like they did in the old days.”

He came over and patted my head as I sat on the ground. “Good job, lad. However, you did go a little overboard. I can see firsthand why your mother sent you to me. Uncontrolled fire like that is dangerous in a forest. Anyway, come on, let’s go see if we can find any remains.”

I staggered to my feet gulping in deep breaths of smoke-filled air and followed him as we went in search of bodies. “Are you ok?”

“Of course,” said Uncle Finneus, appearing no worse for wear, despite having flown into a stone wall.

Ten minutes later, Uncle Finneus was cursing like a sailor as he stood over the only body we could find. We were in the nest of the spider, which had been in a side offshoot from the cavern. The dwarf had been spun in spider silk and looked to have been stored in preparation for the eggs that lined the nest to hatch.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nephew of mine, sometimes I forget how young you are, but it is obvious that this monster is not what has been causing the disappearances. None of it adds up, and we did not find enough skeletons. I’ve counted three bodies so far. And one of them is over a year old. Let’s burn these eggs and head back to camp. We still need to find the cause of these disappearances.”