The Hammer Unfalls

After sitting all morning talking about feelings, Glim needed a change of pace.

“I’m going to go practice falling some more,” he said, as if daring Ryn to disagree.

“That sounds amusing.”

Glim had been unsatisfied ever since he’d made the ice slide, and doubted it would hold. It had seemed fragile and pocked with holes. The sheer amount of ice needed seemed out of his reach.

In fact, Glim wondered why he hadn’t become drained in the first place when making it. That slide had been, by far, the largest thing he’d ever summoned. And he hadn’t felt drained after making it.

Why?

Glim crossed the bridge and trudged up the hill, past the trees. He looked down into the gully they’d been practicing in, and his stomach clenched. Seeing it again, with the new snow blown away, gave it a much more forbidding appearance filled with sharp rocks and shallow grooves. It’s a wonder Ryn hadn’t broken any bones when she jumped. Looking at it now, Glim doubted he could summon even half of the slide he’d made before. What had changed?

Glim made an attempt to be mindful. For one, he felt nervous. And now, seeing the treacherous slope below, a little angry. But the first time, he’d been exhilarated. His mind had not been in revolt as it was now. He’d also been confident because he’d just seen Ryn jump.

In short, he’d been in a better state of mind. Now, with time to reflect on the task, he felt his enthusiasm vanish like morning mist in the sun. He felt Ryn approach, but didn’t turn around.

“Forget this,” she said simply. “Your heart isn’t in it. Let’s just go for a walk. Replenish ourselves.”

The afternoon sun caught the ice coating the everbrown trees, which gave the ridge a sparkly appearance. The ice dripped under the warmth of the sun, which meant that the temperature had risen above freezing.

Ryn followed his eyes. “Elderkin towers are often built over hot springs. They need it for power.”

“Power?”

“Yes. Their machines need steam to function. I don’t understand all of it, but I can show you when we go back. If you move the pipes wrong, you’ll see more steam than you’ve ever seen in your life. They have all sorts of diversion chambers and shields and such. If you aren’t careful, you can cause an explosion.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s like an avalanche. It can wipe out an entire tower.”

Glim shuddered, and switched his attention back to the beauty of the ice melting in the sun. As they walked, talking about nothing of import, his mind relaxed. The drink she’d given him in the morning had worn off some, and his body ached, but not overly much. More of a pleasant exertion. His fingers had it the worst. Climbing had really swollen his hands.

Glim looked at Ryn’s hands, which seemed permanently stained by dirt in the creases. At least, he’d always assumed it was dirt. The more she told him about the Elderkin devices, the more he wondered if other explanations fit better. He decided to try figuring it out.

“What can you tell me about gardening?” he asked.

Ryn talked at length about nourishing the plants, and how to keep them warm. How the glass house helped. Glim steered the questions towards the tanks. He played dumb a few times until she told him about wiping away black grease from the gears and putting in fresh vegetable oils, which she had to press herself.

“A-ha!” Glim shouted in triumph.

“A-ha what?”

“I got you to tell me why your hands are always dirty, without asking.”

Ryn looked at her hands self-consciously. “Downside to being the gardener.”

Glim immediately felt sorry for bringing it up. “I admire it. You do stuff instead of sitting around.”

The moment of awkwardness passed, and they headed back to the tower. Glim enjoyed the relatively warm wind on his face. A slightly less cold current than the typically frigid air. He caught a scent he didn’t understand. Like brine.

On instinct, his hand flew to his sword hilt and he tensed.

Ryn spun around. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Glim said. “Something is not right. Let’s get back to the tower.”

As they approached the bridge, Glim caught the scent again. Apparently, Ryn did too. “Ahh. A snowcrab,” she said. “They show up on warm days sometimes. Any time it gets above freezing. Like today.”

“Are they dangerous?” Glim had heard of snowcrabs from the guards. When blizzards ended, sometimes the crabs would scale the walls of Wohn-Grab.

“Extremely so, if you are bleeding and get ambushed by one. But we won’t be. Get ready to freeze it. They move fast when they need to. Much faster that you’d expect. But you shouldn’t have much trouble.”

They came to the treeline overlooking the bridge. Glim eyed it warily as they walked down the hill. “Listen.”

From the cliff face came a scraping sound. Glim saw two twitching fronds emerge, which rose over the edge. Massive, sword-like legs followed, and hauled up a lumpy, armored body. It looked like a spider the size of a hinterjack. It moved along the ground in a stuttering, jerking gait. It raised its sword-tipped arms in warning, and snapped a massive claw the size of Glim’s entire head.

“Any time you’re ready,” Ryn said in amusement.

“Can’t we just let it be?”

“We can. But there are two reasons not to. One is that it might seek the warmth of the tower at night. You don’t want a surprise visit from a snowcrab.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“They’re delicious.”

“You can eat them?’

“Gladly. They taste divine! Or, if you’d rather, we can eat more goop from a pipe in the wall.”

That convinced him. Glim still wasn’t sure about eating this horrific-looking monstrosity that seemed like it could snap him in half without any trouble. But Ryn could not hide her excitement. He’d never heard her gush about anything.

He watched the brownish-bluish-orange creature meander towards them. The way it moved repulsed him, but in a fascinating way. As if each limb were independent entities barely coordinated with each other. Fighting it would be like fighting four swords at once.

“Remember, they can move fast,” Ryn cautioned him, taking several steps back.

The wind shifted. The snowcrab twitched its antennae, clearly sensing something it had not before. Sensing them. As if reading Ryn’s mind, it raced sideways in a movement Glim did not expect. He stumbled back in surprise and lost his footing.

He fell hard.

Visions of being gored by stabby sword legs gave Glim a surge of panic. It reminded him of something. His early lessons, when his father made him wriggle around on the floor. Glim remembered the thud of his father’s sword at the ground by his side, and the word he’d said: skewered.

Glim yanked his foot against his body and twisted, rising from the ground. The crab had gained the distance in the few seconds Glim had been down. He extended his hand, sensed the liquid sloshing around inside the crab’s body, and drew the heat from it.

The crab’s advance slowed and it toppled over. It twitched on the ground a few paces away. Glim’s hand grew hot and the crab’s movements slowed even more. Crawling with revulsion, he walked towards it, drew his sword, and flipped the twitching creature over. Its massive claw tried to close, so he drew one last wave of heat from it. Glim scraped his sword along the thick armor plating, and found a seam behind its eye stalks. He slipped his swordpoint into the crevice and plunged downward. The crab immediately stopped moving.

Glim shuddered, but the cessation of movement reassured him. He picked up the creature, which weighed more than he expected it to. “What now?’

“We get to take care of two things at once! I show you the Elderkin steam chambers, and we also get to dine well.”

As soon as they entered the tower, Glim set the crab down and slammed the door shut behind them. He shook his arms and ugghed. “What now?” he repeated. Like a grunt asking for orders, or a child seeking direction. Glim heard his own passivity and scowled. Mindfulness wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“I’ll climb down. There should be just enough rope.”

“You’re going that far? How will you get back up?”

“There are ways,” she said with a smile. Ryn tied her rope off to a massive pipe running up the wall, tested it with all of her might, then threaded the rope through her belt. She hopped over the edge.

Glim watched her rappel down the wall until she reached a platform far below.

He tested the rope just as Ryn had. His heart beat fast in his chest, but he trusted Ryn’s knot. But he did not trust himself. He thought of the slime on the rocks as he skittered how the cleft in the mountain. He thought he might throw up.

“Cut that out. You’re not coming down that way. It’s really dangerous.”

“How am I coming down, then?”

“Just wait a few minutes.”

Glim sat on the floor. From below he heard a clanging sound, then a whirring. Curious, he looked over the edge to see a square rising up the side of the wall, clamped around one of the pipes. It stopped right next to him. It had rails on three sides.

“Hop on!”

“No way,” he said. He thought of the cave, and slipping down towards an empty sky.

“This is much safer than the rope. It works the same way as how we got here. You survived that, didn’t you? Just get on and sit. You’ll be down before you know it.”

“I’m not getting on that thing.”

“Yes, you are!” she called up. Her voice sounded fainter, and more echoey, than usual, which only made his stomach clench tighter. “You need to do this. You need to take this step, Glim, or you’ll live in fear your whole life.”

Glim grabbed the crab and sat on the metal platform, trembling.

“Ready?”

Ready? Ready to trust his life to a tiny metal square while the endless tower fell away below? How could he be ready? But he answered her with the most eloquent response he could muster. “Uh-huh.”

The platform smelled like hot grease. Glim, despite his best judgment, looked down into the endless maw of the tower and thought he might be sick. It shuddered violently and dropped away from the floor.