CHAPTER 2
The lights of the city have gone out, mostly. You see that the temple-hovel still is lit up. A house over yonder has a light on; a few houses too, but this one has caught your attention. It is flat on the monument stone and rests on the same second level of the city as the room you are in now: it has a familiar, eastern architecture.
Outside you hear the preachings of the funeralman next to the breaking-wheel. He swings a flat steel board around the twisted corpse, saying small prayers of penance; in his other hand, a candle. Besides it, the night is completely quiet.
"Psst, over here!" says a tiny voice, from outside the window, you think. "Wake up you!"
It's a tiny furry bearded man with a big nose. He wears a cloth sack as a robe and talks fast and small.
"You're the Stranger? The Nightcrawler?" says the little thing. "The master wants help! We are simply too small!"
"What are you?"
"A dwarf! But now that you've seen me, you owe me a favor! Aye, you do!"
"Is that how it works? Is that two favors just now?"
"Just one still, but you owe me that one!" he sighs "We can pay you, just help us move the stove!"
"Stove?"
The thing starts jumping around madly, scratching it's head and nose "You ask too many questions! A stove is...a machine that uses things that burn to make better fire!"
"I've never heard of such a thing. How is it better than a bonfire?"
"Just come help us already! We can pay!"