You could say of it many things. It was not practical for what it was; there had been the trade of practicality for solidity. Solid it was: blocks and blocks of clay and rock, pieced together. Perhaps it had been two or three Golems once; it was made of parts that did not seem to fit well together. You could say of it many things, but you could not, if you were reasonable, say that it was a small Golem, even by the standards of Golems.

It stood there. When Rothgar had first been dragged in chains to The Dark Lord’s citadel-bungalow, this was one of the first things that he admired. So many people guard their front gates with proud, strong, tall, dangerous soldiers, and Rothgar, who was one of those, had long felt that the pinnacle of excellent taste was to aspire to achieve even bigger, even more deadly, even straighter-standing soldiers.

Then Rothgar saw the Golem, which stood there. It was heavy, it was clumsy. It did not look like it liked to walk, or cared to do so. But despite the fact that it was entirely unmoving the vast majority of the time, it never gave the impression of being, for example, a statue. You could not be sure why. There was no breath. If you didn’t approach, the eyes didn’t move. Perhaps it was just an instinct: perhaps there was no logical reason for it. Perhaps the thing was simply too inherently dangerous, coiled, an instant from bringing down upon you a cascading torrential angry mountain.

Rothgar had never seen anyone climb it before.

It clearly hadn’t objected; this was evident from the fact that there was a Dwarf sitting upon its shoulder, with a little coiled rope ladder beside him and a sort of claw-like grapple looping neatly twice around the massive yoke-bone next to it.

The twelve warriors with Rothgar, at the very least, would have made any front gate proud. They were very well-warmed. They aimed at the Dwarf.

The Dwarf continued rubbing his hands against the side of the Golem. Rothgar, who was not young, said to a guard who was,

“What’s that in his hands?”

The young man squinted.

“…clay, I think.” He blinked. “Sir.” He squinted again. “Yes, it’s…clay.”

Rotghar had not ordered repairs. Rothgar had not needed repairs.

Rothgar considered.

In front of him, there was no great flat smashed pile of bone blood skin sinew and teeth, and it could therefore be certain that the Golem had permitted all this.

As Rothgar stood pondering, the Dwarf noticed them at last. He hastily did something with his hands against the side of the large being, looked at it for a moment, nodded, and removed the grapple. “Give me a minute!” he called. Rothgar expected him to slide down, and made an annoyed mental note to send someone to remove the climbing gear later. The Dwarf made a long complicated knot, and then leaned over the rope, covered his mouth, and very quietly said something that was clearly an incantation of some kind. He slid down the rope.

The Dwarf stepped back from the Golem, took the rope, turned it in his hands, looked at it for a moment, and tugged very hard and very suddenly. The knot came away, the rope fell, and he caught it.

…almost. It fell at Rothgar’s feet. “Sorry,” the Dwarf said, “I’m a little clumsy.” He picked up the rope.

“Who ordered repairs?” asked Rothgar.

“Nobody. You just needed them,” replied the Dwarf.

“Well, we hadn’t ordered it, but we’ll check the work. If it’s good, how much do you want for it?”

“Oh, nothing,” replied the Dwarf, coiling the rope.

Now it was Rothgar’s turn to blink. Which he did. Twice.

“What is it you want, then?” He looked back at his troops. They looked back at him. They looked at the Dwarf. He was rummaging in his pack. He pulled out a crumpled, dirty, very expensive piece of vellum parchment with a great deal of fancy writing and several large seals on it. The largest was Rotghar’s, as majordomo of the citadel-bungalow.

It stated that this was Sam Hammerwright, Son of Rock, Child of Stone, Ambassador of the Niðr, envoy of the Dwarven peoples to the conference ordered by the Dark Lord, arriving, as requested, to work out the details of the Dark Lord’s new rule.

“You’re the Ambassador of the entire Dwarven people?” asked Rothgar.

“I guess,” Sam said.

“And the Golem wouldn’t let you in? I find that hard to believe.”

Sam looked embarassed.

“I thought maybe I could fix something before I had to start doing the stupid stuff,” he said.

Rothgar looked at him.

He walked slowly towards the short, stocky young fellow, and then took him by the arm.

“I think I’m going to buy you a drink,” he said. “Let me show you how to find our pub.”

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