The Hammer Unfalls

4.54 Finding Emo

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Glim had never taken a bath with so many people involved, with guards at each entrance, and Garrick demanding every type of soap, washcloth, and scouring brush Wohn-Grab had to offer. His father hovered at the entry in full armor, seeming torn between charging into the mountains in a quest for revenge, and staying put to look after Glim.

The water clouded pink as soon as Glim sank into it. His hair took minutes to bend as the dried blood softened in the warm water.

“You’re not hurt?” Garrick asked, for the dozenth time.

Glim sank under the water to seek a moment of peace. But any time his thoughts tried to rest, the vision of Ryn’s shredded back popped into his mind. Her screams as he touched her broken spine. The memory of slavering jaws filled with sharp fangs, and mad eyes stalking his every move.

Glim resurfaced, gasping for air.

“It’s okay. You’re okay, my boy,” Garrick fussed.

His father escorted him back to the tower in grim silence, but hugged him tight when they reached their room.

“You’re home and I’m happy for it. But what you’ve seen is tough to bear. I’m here for you. Would you like to talk? Or sleep?”

“I’m done for the day.”

By the time Glim sank into his bedroll, the scent of unfamiliar tower floors still clinging to it, he craved the silent embrace of sleep.

But sleep had other plans for him. Visions of fangs, claws, and blood. Writhing worms under a cold light. Ryn gasping for breath.

The horror of these images rattled him. Into what action? He could almost hear Ryn ask. Glim had skated by too long on the defensive. Time to shift the balance.

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The breeze ruffled Glim’s hair as he sat on the battlement looking out over the white-capped mountains. Trying to forget.

“Don’t,” he said.

He took another swig from the flagon of tea that Garrick had started pushing on him ever since his return. To keep sharp, and “put hair on his chest.” Glim didn’t bother to ask what purpose a hairy chest served.

The breeze swished his tunic.

Glim sighed. “Don’t you dare say it.”

The wind stirred again and whipped his hair into his face.

“Would you cut that out?” Glim said, slamming the flagon down.

Do I detect a hint of perfume and slobber?

“Don’t you have someone else you can harass?”

Not really. What in Æolia’s taint happened to you? The wind giggled. Everyone seems in a tizzy.

“You mean you don’t know?”

Judging by the blood in your hair I’m guessing it wasn’t good.

“I was attacked.”

Yet you made it though alive, you scrappy so-and-so.

“I did. But Ryn died.”

You mean that woman whose heart pounded like a gong any time she spoke to you? I’ve heard deceit before but that was impressive even to me.

“There’s a difference between secrecy and lies.”

Who told you that? Ryn?

Glim fell silent.

You need to learn about women. You should spend more time with that nice young woman. Pyri. You seem to get her quite flustered.

Glim groaned. “Go away.”

Yes, yes. Of course. I’ll just ask Æronthrall to stop turning and wait for it to cool. Perhaps a few million years? Then I’ll take my leave of you. Naturally, by then you’ll be dust. I bet it’ll still smell of moldy lilacs and spittle.

Glim took a swig of tea and looked across the mountains in silence.

I’ll be sure to visit your funeral and whisper a few words of tribute. Here lies Glim, Fighter of Giants. The strong, silent type, that one. A bit thick, though. Seeking revenge in all the wrong places.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Oh. So you’re NOT planning to head north and hunt down hyaenas?

“You knew about those? Why didn’t you warn me?”

You disappeared into that moving hut. I can’t be everywhere at once you know. I lost your scent. The wind paused and sniffed. Bit of a silver lining, that.

“What do you want with me. anyway?”

Just conversation. For old time’s sake. One last talk before you get yourself killed.

“For the love of the Trine, would you please leave me be.”

Somebody is grumpy today. Who’s my grumpy-wumpy?

“Grumpy-wumpy?” Glim smiled, in spite of his desire to remain as irritated as possible.

There now. Is a smile too much to ask? Especially for one bearing the gift of warning?

“What warning?”

I’ve already given it, Glim the Hopeless, she said, her disembodied voice whisking around his head. Sometimes, following it made him dizzy. Fine, I’ll spell it out: if you go hunting hyaenas, others will die. Do you want more blood in your hair? It’ll make your funeral messy.

“Glim the Hopeless? Your nicknames are getting less inspired.”

If the shoe fits. What would you have me call one who can’t see the truth in front of his own face?

“What truth?”

Your enemies are not to the north, but inside these walls.

Glim felt a trickle of fear run up his back.

“What makes you say that?”

My ears reach far.

“Who are they?”

It changes by the day. Right now, it’s you.

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His lessons had not yet resumed. Glim retreated into his own thoughts, which mostly seared hot with a jumble of unpleasant thoughts. Shame, fear, and anger warred for dominance in a mind stretched thin.

Glim clung to one purpose, which he hoped would cut through the cacophony his thoughts had become: learning to wield essentiæ so well that he’d never lose a friend again when he could have stopped it. He needed to learn it all. And he needed more power to do it. He’d never sought power before. Glim didn’t really know how. But he had an inkling.

The chamber in the basement maze of Wohn-Grab pulsed with heat. Glim had collapsed here once, when he’d first been attacked by ice and needed warmth. Now, he sought the chamber for a related reason. He needed its warmth again.

Glim focused and extended his arm. One, he thought. A cloud of ice poured from his hand, tinkling onto the floor of the chamber and skittering into the corner to pile up. Two. Warm tingles along his skin became hot aches, but still Glim poured more snow from his hand.

When his count reached nine, his hand could endure no more. Glim stopped with a sharp intake of breath. “Hot, hot hot,” he said, running to the pile of ice he’d just made, and thrusting his hand into the cold snow.

Snow. He recalled Ryn leaping from the ridge into the powder below. The white stinging his eyes as he scaled the tower. The slavering beasts emerging from the blue shadows of the snow.

“Stop it!” he screamed, to no one. His words echoed from the stone walls.

When he’d recovered, Glim started the count again, and summoned more snow. This time he made it to eleven before the heat in his palm became too much to bear.

Heat. He pictured the tower with the cheerful fire in the brass fireplace, with Ryn’s teasing smile.

“Stop it!” he begged himself once more, desperate to be free of the barrage of memories. He tried to focus. The chamber suffocated him with its oppressive heat. A perfect place to increase his tolerance. No matter how much heat he drew from the air, the chamber warmed right back up again from the Elderkin’s devices.

He pushed the memories away and drew the heat into his hand once more. He willed himself to last longer this time. Glim screamed as he pushed the count to thirteen. His mind started to dissociate from his body.

That’s not your hand. It is a separate thing unconnected to you. It feels nothing.

Glim reached the mid twenties then stopped, panting. His detached mind snapped back, overwhelming him with pain. He looked at the hand that had become his own once more, expecting it to be throbbing and red. But it looked the same as ever. Such a small thing. The longer he looked at it, the stranger it seemed. A scant sliver of defense against a world that threatened him. Too slow to draw the sword, and too weak to summon the ice he needed.

The more he pondered it, a question rose: why just the hand?

Glim took a steadying breath. He drew heat from the stifling air once more. But this time, he drew it into himself. His core warmed, suffusing his body, then his limbs, and surged into his face. His head throbbed, and so did his body. Just when he thought he’d be overcome by it, he thrust his hand forward. White pain surged through his arm and tingled his fingertips. A solid boulder of ice flew from him and skittered into the wall.

Glim fell to his knees and began the restoration ritual. He’d proven enough to himself for one evening.