The Hammer Unfalls

4.72 The Awakening

⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙ॱ⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅

The tingles had always been with Glim. They’d coursed through his body and flowed from his hands, unassuming and unassertive. He'd worked hard to corral them in the early days with Master Willow. Now they burned within him like embers. They boiled in his blood and seared his mind with white light. Or had those spires surged to life once more? Glim didn't know. He knew only the dazzling pain of euphoria.

The giant’s eye moved. The ice buckled again, with several loud cracks that vibrated his bones. He’d never make it across the cavern.

Forced to reverse course, Glim ran to the tower again, and looked for a door. He found one and frantically punched in the sequence Ryn had taught him. The door did not budge.

The ice cracked again behind him. Panicking, Glim took the ladder once more. His aching hands took hold and he went up the side, past the platform he’d rested on before. Higher and higher he climbed, until just when he feared his grip would give out, he collapsed onto the top of the tower.

A semicircular platform of glossy black stone arched away from the cavern wall. Glim looked up to see the spiky cavern roof nearer than he expected, and beyond that, a cloudy sky. The platform had a chest-high rim of stone at its edge.

Glim rubbed his hands together, forcing blood back into them, as he looked for a door. Next to the cavern wall, he saw a squat building. It must be the entrance to the roof from within.

Torn between the two—try to get inside the tower, or see what had happened below—Glim’s curiosity won out. Now that he had some measure of safety from the breaking floor, he felt he could risk a peek.

He walked to the furthest point of the rooftop and looked down over the edge.

The glassy floor had clouded and crazed with a spiderweb of broken lines. Yet between the cloudy patches, he could still see the giant, whose eyes had opened once more. They looked around, slowly, as if taking in every detail. Then, with a cataclysmic crackling of breaking ice, the giant flexed his arms and pressed upward.

The floor erupted.

Like an upside-down avalanche, ice and white skin surged upward. Massive arms rose and stretched. The giant sat up, rubbed his eyes, and yawned with a cavernous moan. He peered directly at Glim.

The giant’s jaw shifted experimentally, his lips slid back and forth, and with a voice like boulders grinding together, he spoke.

“I see you’ve decided to be more reasonable about the temperature.”

Glim wasn’t sure what he’d expected to hear, but this certainly was not it. The giant stared at him, clearly awaiting a response.

“It, uh, it is always this cold in the Hiemal Peaks,” Glim shouted as loudly as he could.

“No need to shout,” the giant said, then chuckled, which sounded like thunder in the distance. “I can hear you perfectly well.”

The giant lapsed into silence and watched Glim, who could think of nothing to say. At last, the giant shifted and stretched one leg, which sent ice surging against the base of the tower.

“We can sit here as long as you like,” the giant said after several minutes. “I am certain I’ll outlast you. Or you can tell me what you have in mind.”

“I’d like to get warm,” Glim said. “And find more food.”

Glim wasn’t sure what the giant had expected to hear, but this certainly was not it. He blinked and stared at Glim in confusion, and, to Glim’s sudden terror, a glint of ire.

“Do not be coy. Speak your piece.”

Glim trembled and tried again. “I am cold, and hungry, and I’ll run out of food soon. I don’t know what this place is, and it makes me nervous.”

The giant leaned forward, until his face consumed the entirety of Glim’s horizon.

“You do not lie!” the giant said in wonderment.

“I’m not fond of lies.”

The giant grunted disapprovingly. “Some are.”

An awkward silence fell as the two studied each other. Glim could see confusion on the giant’s face. But all Glim felt was pure, unabashed terror. He’d never seen, or even heard of, anything like this in his life. This giant could kill Glim with his eyelash if he wished and it would be like swatting a gnat.

Glim attempted to get some measure of control over the situation.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am… me. Who are you?”

“Glim.”

Yeah. That had gone well.

“You’re a very odd choice for a negotiator. Well, Glim, I’ve had many names, most of which you could not pronounce. My first spoken name, which I think I shall reclaim now, is Certe. But naturally, you already know that?”

The giant studied him once more. What he hoped to figure out, Glim could not tell. Nothing had changed in the last minute or so.

“Pleased to meet you, Certe.”

“Are you, in fact, pleased to meet me?”

“No!” Glim shouted, and immediately regretted his rudeness, as honest as it might be. “Not displeased, either. I have no idea what is happening!”

“That makes two of us, and brings us to the central point. Where have you taken my hammer?”

“Your… your what?’

“My hammer. Where is it?”

Glim looked around the cavern, running from one end of the roof to the other.

“I’m sorry, I can’t see a hammer anywhere. Maybe it’s somewhere under the ice.”

Certe frowned, which made Glim’s heart surge inside his chest. “Ahh. I see. You are trying to get a rise out of me. An interesting ploy. It will not be effective, I can assure you of that.”

“Mister Certe, I assure you, I am not trying to get a rise out of you. It is the last thing I want.”

Certe blinked again in obvious surprise.

“Again, you do not lie!”

Glim frowned. “Let me save you some time. I have no reason to lie to you because I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where your hammer is. I am cold and hungry, and I’ve had a very, very strange day. My brain feels like mush, you’re the first giant I’ve ever seen, and I’m starting to fear I’ve gone insane.”

“Perhaps you have.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“I do not owe you reassurance, Glim. Your people have lost that right. I only speak truth. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with someone else. This is getting us nowhere.”

Glim felt sick inside. “There’s no one else here.”

“Then go fetch someone. I am tired of this game. It is childish, and it is wasting time. Of which, as I said before, I have much more of than you do.”

“There is no one to fetch! There’s just me. There’s no one else within a month’s march, and if there were, I don’t know where. And you won’t fit into the shuttle.”

“You are making no sense at all. And from me, that’s saying something.” Certe sighed, which caused a gale to whistle through the cavern, nearly knocking Glim down. “Have it your way. I’ll find someone myself.”

Certe shifted, pushed off of the ground, and tried to rise. He strained, muscles twitching from the effort, until he slumped down again.

“I… am weak?” he said, brow furrowing. “How have you done this?”

“I haven’t. Maybe you’re hungry?”

“I do not eat,” the giant said, sinking back into the ice. He lay there, still as death, with only his eyes showing movement. They roamed the cavern, taking in every detail.

“This is,” he murmured, seeking the right word, “unlikely.” The giant closed his eyes and remained still.

--------------- ~~~ *** ~~~ ---------------

Glim staggered across the rooftop. The door next to the cavern wall did not respond to the button panel. To his relief, Glim saw that the recent vibrations had nudged the door ajar. Probably from the wall of ice that had crashed against the tower. Glim pushed and the door gave even more, until he could slip through.

To his amazement, the tower looked to be in excellent condition. Small spheres like those in Master Willow’s library gave the silver room a pale white light. Glim looked around an empty circular room with benches and cabinets lining the walls. Across the room he saw a panel of switches and a staircase. He opened the nearest cabinet to find a pile of fibers at the bottom, the coats long ago disintegrated. The other cabinets produced nothing of use.

A trickle of warmth touched his cheek from somewhere below when he approached the staircase. Glim followed it, grateful for the promise of staving off the cold that had long ago numbed him. His cheeks and hands throbbed.

The stairway led to a larger version of the guard room he’d seen in the shuttle fortress. It, too had arrow slits in the walls, although shuttered. Yet he saw no bows or arrows. Only racks of staves. Glim pulled one from it’s berth. The black staff felt cold in his hand. He tilted it to see a blue shimmer in the grimy patina. Glim spat onto the staff and rubbed it with his sleeve to reveal a glint of silver. He scoured it and found runes etched into the surface.

Taking the staff with him, Glim descended to the next floor. This one had doors all around. He opened one to see rows of beds.

He descended once more into a maze of pipes, levers, dials, and banks of buttons. Half expecting them to flicker to life at any moment, Glim glanced the room over then continued his descent.

The hint of warmth grew. When the next floor came into view, he saw why. From ceiling to floor, and left to right, the chamber was filled with a snarl of overgrown vines. It took him a few minutes to decipher the mess. Tugging at the brown mass, which resisted his efforts with a dry rattle, he discovered glossy purple leaves with pale yellow pea pods.

Glim cried out and sank to his knees. He plucked a pea and ate it, savoring the starchy-sweetness as he crunched the crisp pod between his teeth.

Hunger took over. Grabbing pea pods by the handful, Glim ate his fill. When he could find no more peas within reach he tore off the smaller leaves and ate those. Sated at last, Glim found his head clearer. He looked around for the source of the heat. He ran his hand along the nearest growbed, which felt cool to the touch. Cool. Not cold. Glim lay down and shimmied back along the floor to lay along the relatively warm wall.

His belly comforted, his mind overwhelmed, Glim lay back and tried not to think. He rested awkwardly, turning from side to side to get his various halves warm. At long last, he felt comfortable once more.

Glim took the next stairway and came to what had probably been a library. The room had a sphere and reading table just as Master Willow’s tower did. But the chair had become a jumble of desiccated wood on the floor. The shelves held nothing but thick piles of dust he assumed had once been books.

The next stairway, Glim could not descend, for the tower had partially collapsed, blocking the way. He turned and glanced around the library once more. A glint in the corner caught his eye. He found a stone block on one of the shelves filled with holes. Protruding from a few of them he saw thick wands with wax covering the ends. Scroll cases? Glim pulled one of them out to see he’d guessed correctly. The tarnished silver cylinder had words etched along the side: Legend of the Trine Marauders. The next had been titled Lament of the Elderkin. The last had no name.

Thrilled at the discovery, he returned to the growbed and tucked the scrolls carefully into his pack. Too tired to investigate further, Glim closed his eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.

Until the vibrations woke him.