The Hammer Unfalls

The acrid stench of rotting meat and musty water assaulted his nose the moment Glim opened the door to the glass house. Brass water tanks closed in around him like ramparts.

Wondering what Miss Daryna, or Ryn, meant by ‘don’t touch anything,’ he looked around to see what she might have meant. Perhaps the array of knobs, dials, and divots on the side of each tank? Or the racks of strange tools along the walls? Glim looked at the long poles with twisted hooks, brass strainers, and other implements, wondering what they were for.

The door opened and Glim jumped.

“We’re all set. So let’s get you up to speed.” She hopped onto a stool by a long metal table. “Bring it on over.”

“The tools?”

“No. The device from your dream.”

Glim set it down in front of her. Ryn took off her wide felt hat and picked up the brass and glass rectangle with the array of pegs. She studied it for a moment.

“Ahh. Right here. Hold on.”

She walked away. From the back of the building Glim heard a door open and close. She returned holding a wooden box. Opening it, she pulled out a brass cylinder with three squiggly lines etched into it.

“This should do it.”

“I recognize that!” Glim reached into a pouch at his hip and pulled out the trinkets Master Willow had given him. He sprinkled them onto the table with a clink of brass against brass.

“Yep. Runeplugs.”

“But no one knows what they’re for.”

Ryn snorted. “You mean Willow doesn’t know what they’re for. Why should he? The man has no use for them.”

“What are they?”

“They tell Elderkin devices what to do. Take these water tanks, for example. In summertime, I’ll pull out one of the phyr plugs so the water doesn’t get too warm. In the dead of winter, I’ll add a couple.”

She held up the runeplug she’d selected and held it up to him. “Algidon.” She placed it into a deep hole at the top of the device that Glim hadn’t paid any attention to.

Nothing happened.

“It’s all set. Try it out!”

Glim took out a marble, hoping once more that it was carved from wood and not skull. He dropped it into the funnel, where it pinged its way down to the middle spot.

“It always does that.”

“Those are the odds. 54 percent of them will fall into one of the middle buckets.”

“Percent?”

She covered the middle part with her hand, tapping the middle chambers in order. “Seventeen out of every hundred will fall here. Twenty will fall here. Seventeen will fall here. That’s 54 percent in the middle.” She slid her finger towards the edge, tapped tree of the remaining chambers. “Twelve, seven, and four.”

“What does it mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. Those are just the likely outcomes. Like if you draw straws 100 times. You’ll be right half the time, give or take.”

“Then why did you put the runeplug in there?”

“You’re an Icer. You can ply the central, or fringe, right? If you ply central—”

“—then the marble will drop into the middle more often!” Glim interrupted, a note of triumph in his voice.

“Er, no. Not more often. 54 percent of the time. But if you ply fringe, the numbers will skew. If you drop 100 marbles, maybe zero of them go into the leftmost chamber, but eight go into the rightmost.”

“But plyers don’t ply the fringe all the time.”

“This gauges where you fall on the polarity. I’m guessing you haven’t decided where to specialize?”

Glim said nothing. To his surprise, Ryn smiled.

“Let’s get you some experience, then. Leave that on the table and bring your stuff.”

She walked to the back of the chamber, where she picked up a knapsack and a walking stick. She took a gray cloak from the wall and draped it over her pack. “Ready?” she asked.

“Where are we going?”

“To another tower.”

Ryn opened a door with a round closet behind it. Eight padded seats backed up against the wall. As if part of the wall.

“I’m a bit heavier than you, I’ll wager, she said, examining him critically. She took his backpack and lifted it. “Oof. You don’t pack light, though. Fine, we should be set. You sit here.”

Glim sat on the offered seat. Ryn pulled straps from the wall and circled his waist and chest, snapping them into slots in the wall so he couldn’t move. His scabbard dragged against the floor.

“What are you doing?” Glim asked, squirming in his seat.

“Strapping you in. Now hold your pack and sit still.”

She took the seat opposite him, pulled a strap taut across her lap, and held her own pack.

“This next part is a bit uncomfortable. Open your eyes if you feel like you’re going to vomit. It helps.”

Ryn grasped a lever on the wall, winked at Glim, and slammed it down the opposite direction.

The closet rumbled. The floor shuddered.

Glim’s stomach plummeted, as if he was falling. His hair rose up. He screamed, clutching his pack, which suddenly felt like it might fly out of his hands.

He screamed again, looking across the chamber at Ryn.

“We’ll be at this awhile. You might as well get used to it. Oh, and don’t worry about your ears. The air will even out in a minute.”

Glim could not hear her very well. Some unseen hand pressed inside of his ears, which suddenly popped.

“Ow!” he said.

“That part’s over. Try to relax.” Ryn’s hair settled back onto her head. Glim felt his do the same. “Now then. Tell me a little more about why you think Willow is going to kill you.”

“What?”

“We’ve got a few hours to go. There’s nothing to do except talk.”

The chamber started to tilt to one side, and spun as it leaned. Glim clutched his backpack.

“That’s normal. Just look at me. It will help. Tell me about the training. I want to know where your mind is.”

Glim told her about how the Mage-at-Arms had nearly frozen him in the garden.

“He provoked your essentiæ. It’s brutal for sure, but not uncommon. What else?”

“He led me right into a hinterjack attack.”

“Not on purpose, I’m sure. Think back, Glim. What drives your fear?”

“Well, there was one more incident.” He told her of the rift in the mountainside, and how he’d nearly fallen to his death. He rambled on and on, going into every detail. Then told her about the nightmares. About all of his worries with the training. The exhaustion.

She listened without comment, until he got to the part about the mumweed tonic and the tuning fork. Her face reddened.

“What?” Glim asked her.

“Nothing. It sounds awful. But I think I know what you need to do.”

“What?”

“Forget about Elderkin studies. Your long-term mastery should be climbing.”

“What?”

“You seem stuck on that word.” She laughed. “Climbing. You almost fell. You are afraid of falling from a mountainside and becoming a puddle of blood at the bottom.”

Glim blanched and felt sick.

“You can lessen the odds of either,” she said, “and face your fear at the same time. You should learn how to climb.”

“How?”

“We can practice today. As soon as we get to the tower.”

The chamber shuddered. He heard a squealing sound, and felt vibrations in the seat.

“Speaking of,” Ryn said.

The chamber settled to a stop. It turned in place until Glim heard a click.

Ryn undid the strap at her waist, stood, and stretched. She looked at Glim with a raised eyebrow. Feeling sheepish, he set his pack aside and unhooked himself. The belts rolled back into place, snapping against the wall.

Glim felt as though he were walking for the first time. His legs felt wobbly. His stomach weak. The walls seemed to move, even though they weren’t.

“This will help.”

Ryn opened the door. It led to a hallway with solid granite walls. Dim light suffused the hallway, coming from a long strip that ran the length of the ceiling. She swept her hand to indicate the hallway. “Welcome to… wherever this is.”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s north of us somewhere.”

Ryn had been right: seeing the hallway helped Glim get his bearings. They walked down the hallway and his stomach settled.

“You did well,” Ryn said. “No vomit. You’ll make a great climber.”

They walked through an archway and emerged into a room like the ones on the basement of Wohn-Grab, filled with banks of dials and flickering lights. Pipes ran overhead. One let loose a burst of steam. Glim jumped.

Ryn smiled. “It’s fine as long as you aren’t on the ceiling when it happens. Now then, let’s check things over. Yes, just as I thought. Everything seems to be in order.”

“What is this place? Why are we here?”

“To give you a break. A chance to reconsider running away. To get you thinking about your future as someone who gives a whit about it, and not just a leaf floating down a stream. We’ve already accomplished a lot.”

“We have?’

“You identified your fear. Decided to become a climber.”

“You decided.”

“I’m right, too. No time like the now. Let’s get started!”

She led him up a stairway to an old storeroom. Rotted crates and gray piles littered the floor. Haphazard, splintered boards piled like pine needles around them. Leaning against the walls, or each other.

“Touch nothing. We need to get there,” Ryn said, pointing to the ceiling.

Glim looked up. Beams of iron spanned the walls. Round wooden floors, like the one in his study, rose into a tall tower. Unlike the floor of his study, most of them had collapsed, leaving only a few planks behind.

Several floors up, Glim saw a platform of stone. A rectangle revealed a hint of light. A doorway of some kind in the floor, that led to a twisted stairway.

“You can’t trust the wood,” Ryn said. “The steel is usually fine.”

“How will we get up there?”

“Climb.”