The Hammer Unfalls

“Again!”

Master Willow threw a rag into the air. Glim punched towards it. A shard of ice the size of his hand flew into the rag and sliced it. It skidded across the floor of Master Willow’s antechamber into a stack of old crates.

The Mage-at-Arms threw another rag into the air and Glim flung another icicle, but too slowly this time. The ice tinkled as it shattered on the floor. Glim cringed. Three years had passed since that day in Master Willow’s garden, and he still didn’t have it down.

“You don’t have the luxury of a lapse in focus. Those who ply must always be ready. Focus must become our second nature. As easy as breathing. Though ice is our nature, we must always be ready to call upon the flame.”

His tutor flicked two rags in the air. Glim already knew he was going to miss the second. Nevertheless, he skewered the first rag. When it came to aiming the second ice shard, hopelessness and frustration overcame Glim. He did focus, only not on the rag. His eyes found a glass cylinder capped in tarnished metal that Master Willow frequently studied. Glim sent his second shard into it, knocking it off the table to shatter on the floor.

Master Willow’s face darkened. He rounded on Glim, fuming. But then his eyes lit up with a secret thrill of satisfaction. Glim felt his stomach plummet, detecting the trap too late.

Of course.

Master Willow intended me to fail.

“The pathways are there, but not responsive enough.” Master Willow’s voice became a coiled viper. The sound of it made Glim sick. “Your essentiæ are not… fluid. Let’s see what we can do about that.”

Master Willow reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a brass trinket, which he rubbed with his fingertips. Some sort of two-pronged fork. He glared at Glim – or was it anticipation that gave his eyes that feverish glaze?

“I’ve noticed that you are curious about your mother. Would you like to know more about her now?”

Glim didn’t know what trap he had stepped into, so he kept his mouth closed.

“Your mother gave me this years ago. Told me it can accentuate the flow of essentiæ. At the cost of some discomfort, of course. Possibly death. Apparently ambitious tutors used these on fledgling plyers in years past to kickstart their gifts. Nasty ritual, from what I’ve read. But the survivors were almost like real plyers.”

Master Willow looked at Glim with a mixture of triumph and curiosity.

“Allora told me to use this on you if things weren’t going well. She’d rather have you dead than without essentiae. I’ve often wondered how this artifact might work. Let’s find out together.”

Master Willow put his thumb in the middle of the device. Glim’s body jerked. His blood became iron; the brass trinket a magnet. Bones shifted inside him as they bent towards Master Willow’s hand. Prickles flowed more freely through the vacant spaces. Glim cried out, then yelped even louder. Master Willow sighed.

“Yes, this part does hurt.” He fumbled around on a table and came back with a murky draught in a bottle. “Here, drink this.”

Glim gulped down the sticky mess. “Will this help the pain?”

“Mumweed tonic. To keep your blubbering down to a tolerable level.”

Master Willow touched the brass device again. Pain coursed through Glim as the meat of his limbs lifted away from his bones. He sank to the floor in a fetal ball, his mind exploding with screams of pain, but his mouth only managed a dull moan. He pictured various ways of killing his tutor and smiled.

Master Willow pressed the brass trinket harder. Glim’s pain intensified and his smile vanished. Confused glimmers raced through his core to his limbs and back again. Filled spaces that hadn’t existed before.

His tutor’s voice lashed at Glim through the din of pain. “Do you think I enjoy these lessons ? I don’t know why I promised Allora I would do this. It wastes my time.”

The pain continued for nearly an hour until Master Willow seemed satisfied. “Since you actually can ply, that should suffice for now. Let’s try again.”

He tossed two rags into the air. Through his tears Glim watched them fall and directed his hand towards them. Twin shards of ice whistled through the air and pierced each rag.

“Finally, some progress.”

While Glim gasped on the floor, a bell tinkled. Master Willow opened the door to his antechamber.

“Ah, Jarl. Come on in. We’re just finishing up.”

Nervously eyeing the contraptions inside, Glim’s father walked into the antechamber. Glim pulled himself to a sitting position.

“How go the lessons?” his father blustered.

“Ahhr…” Glim’s numb lips could not form words.

“We’re getting somewhere,” Master Willow interjected. “Plying is tricky. Hard on the body. I gave the boy a draught but he’ll be sore for a few days. His voice should come back by tomorrow evening.”

Glim seethed. Master Willow had no remorse at all. Acted as though this were all perfectly normal. Glim tried to tell his father the truth, but incoherent murmurs were all that came out. As Glim left the tower the dark eyes of his tutor bored into his. Glim didn’t need the warning. He felt it in his bones.

————— ~~~ *** ~~~ —————

Glim’s voice returned. But the pain in his limbs lingered for months afterward.

Gray clouds darkened the morning sky. He walked along the rampart and headed down towards the guard’s quarters. Glim felt sullen and used, as though part of him had been forever altered and he could never get his natural essentiæ back. He’d nursed his anger for days, inventing and tossing aside scenarios where only his pure, unmanipulated essentiæ could save Wohn-Grab. But now Master Willow had warped it, and Glim could save no one. These fantasies filled his mind so thoroughly that he didn’t hear his father calling to him.

“Come on, son! Pick one!”

Startled from his thoughts, Glim looked at the crowd gathered around his father. Most of the kids from Wohn-Grab. A few of the guards stood nearby, looking bored.

Consumed by his resentment, Glim had forgotten. Training day.

His father waved at a fan of wooden swords on the ground. Most of the stout ones had already been taken. Glim looked them over and selected one with a tight grain.

“Okay, line up!” his father called to the children who had picked up swords. They formed two lines.

Glim lined up across from Pyri, who smirked at him. “Well… this should be easy.”

The captain of the guard walked between the lines, looking sternly at the students lined up. “Pull your thrusts. Anyone who breaks another’s ribs gets stall duty until next season.”

The combatants faced each other. Still half steeped in his fantasies, Glim missed the intent look in Pyri’s eye.

“Begin!” his father yelled.

Pyri’s feet hardly touched the ground as she leapt. Glim saw the vicious, tight arc of Pyri’s sword and reacted, swatting his own sword downward.

Pyri didn’t pause, but spun her grip and swiped upward in an attempt to catch Glim under the arm. Glim instinctively sidestepped and swung at Pyri, forcing her to defend. Glim kept up a series of feints to buy himself time to think. It seemed like only seconds later when his father yelled out, but Glim felt his arm trembling in fatigue.

“Halt!”

Pyri threw her sword to the ground in disgust and stormed off. Gyda, who had been watching from the sidelines, smiled to herself as she watched her friend walk away.

“I’ll help, Captain Jarl!” she said, running up. Her light brown hair, tied up with a snippet of ribbon, waved behind her as she ran.

Glim and Gyda helped his father gather the swords. She scooped them into her arms like firewood.

“Help me out?” she asked Glim, extending her arms for more swords. He loaded her up, until she tucked her chin on top of the pile to hold it steady.

“Here you go, son,” his father said, dumping an armful of swords against his belly.

Glim’s arms rebelled at the weight, overtired from the spar against his determined, but unskilled, opponent. He thought of Pyri’s haughty expression and shook his head in bemusement.

Glim saw a couple of guards headed back towards the armory.

“Psst!” Glim hissed, “Come over here.”

The young guards looked at each other and walked over.

“Yes?”

“Take these,” Glim said. Before the man could think, he tossed a few swords towards him, then loaded the rest on top.

“And you, there. Are you going to make Gyda walk all the way to the armory and back?”

The guard’s face reddened.

“That’s my good man,” Glim said. He took half of the swords from Gyda and handed them to the guard. He looked at her and tilted his head towards the guard’s outstretched arms.

“Um… here you go?” she said, timidly piling the rest of the swords into place.

The guards spun on their heels and walked off towards the armory. Gyda watched them go with a smile, then ran to catch up with her friend Pyri, who pouted and tapped her foot.

“I think she likes you,” his father remarked at the retreating backs of the girls.

“Pyri? She despises me.”

“No. Gyda.”

Glim doubted that very much.