8
The Most Serene Council of Dwarves was forty strong; its members were known as the Grisly-beards because their combined age was six thousand four hundred and twenty-eight. Despite their venerable years, not a dwarf among them had wrestled with a problem such as that now under consideration. What to do with the pixy and the girl was no problem: The Constitution of the Dwarfish Lands was clear on that point; so was the Dwarfish Code of Hospitality, known by heart even to dwarflings. What to do with the boy Adam was another matter.
First, there was a problem since he was seriously ill—worse, he was hovering between life and death. He’d lain in a fever for many days, his skin had a deathly pallor under the beads of sweat, and the girl and the pixy had refused to leave his side. Balom, havi
