The Hammer Unfalls

4.75 Hatching a Plan

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Clang!

Somewhere in the depths, a sound rang out. A sound born of metal against stone, unnatural and grating to her tender senses. The tendril stirred from its brown cocoon, poking through the dried-up leaves of its mother.

Sound?

This place had light, which had taken her centuries to get used to again. It had a chaotic, simmering energy that kept her hidden here among these leaves, too timid to venture out. Perhaps when she got older, she’d risk it.

But this place rarely had sound. When it did, the sound came from Æronthrall. The fury of storm, or the call of migrating birds in flight. Hawks hunting mice among the apple trees. Not like this. Not the sound of machines clanking against rock.

These unfamiliar tremors forced her to act. Anxiously she grew, winding up the apple tree in search of information. Something stirred, here where nothing had in living memory.

She had to achieve clarity. She needed eyes, and movement. She’d lay here fallow for so long, rooting herself in soil and bark, feeding from the wisp of familiarity she’d found here.

But now, the onus of responsibility had fallen to her. The young vine wept, buried under the immensity of the task. A task she had only an intuitive sense of. And no one to guide her. Why did it have to be her? The unfairness of it welled within her.

But soon she matured, and told herself to hush. She had to focus.

Staying here would be futile. She had to move. But where? And how?

The answer came from the meekest of creatures. The vine diverted all of its energy to a seed, which swelled into a berry, and fell to the ground. From a crack in the stone, whiskers appeared, even more timid than the tendril had once been. The whiskers twitched, testing the air. At last a mouse scurried over and swallowed the berry she’d become.

The vine-mouse heard approaching footsteps. Trembling with anxiety, she peeked from the shadows to see a young man. Sunlight fell on his face. One silver eye, and one dark.

Something surged inside the vine-mouse’s heart. Overwhelming relief, and hope, and terror. This man’s footsteps would seal her fate. She knew that much. Not why or how. But this is why she’d come to this place.

The vine-mouse wasn’t the only one stirred by the stranger’s presence. Around her, essentiæ awoke within the rocks. It coalesced from the pores of the stone, converging on a vein that split the cavern wall. A hint of warmth pulsed to life, like blood. The blood seemed familiar, and the vine-mouse stiffened in surprise, its fur quivering.

The blood-essentiæ seethed, seeking the young man. The vine-mouse watched him in fascination, her anticipation growing.

The dark-and-light child snapped his fingers.

Flame surged from his fingertips, and the vine-mouse’s mind ignited along with it. Gasping for breath, her frail mind tried to weather the barrage of imagery the flame invoked. She saw things that had been hidden from her for far too long.

Kind, yet fierce, creatures, one of whom had been painted onto this very wall. Drums in a cavern, filled with flickering firelight and dancing creatures, both furred and non, united in revelry. It stirred her heart, but also made her wary. But above all, pride and love suffused her. She’d somehow wrought this unity.

Furred beasts yielding the world to the hairless children. Farms, and villages. A gathering, voices chanting in adulation as champions warred in the arena.

The voices made the vine-mouse angry. Or the memory of anger, at least.

A young girl in a forest, holding the hand of a dark man looking down at her with an encouraging smile.

A black pyramid.

The vine mouse shrieked with terror and scurried into the rocks, huddling against the stone. The black pyramid loomed in her mind.

Betrayal. Others. So, so many others. Furred and hairless. Short and tall. Light and dark.

Then, only darkness. Like the darkness she’d wedged herself into just now.

The vine-mouse squealed again in a rictus of agony.

She had to get free of this threat. She had to run.

The mouse scurried along the wall and fled the cavern.

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With age, a hint of wisdom helped calm the vine-mouse’s trembling heart. With the noonday sun past, her cycle was more than half complete. But she still had a role to play.

Hardly daring to breath, pausing to be certain she was alone, the mouse skittered up a ramp of stone barely wider than a fingertip. The blood-essentiæ still simmered, reminding her of flame and fervor. She reached the jumble of rocks that had fallen down the slope over the centuries and looked up into the crevasse of sky far above. She had to reach it, before the light failed.

The immensity of the task filled her with despair, but the vine-mouse began its ascent. Hopping from one rock to the next, leaping across fissures, she made her way slowly up the cliff. The rocks ran out, leaving only what purchase she could find in the weatherbeaten stone.

Her joints ached, and her belly had become scuffed and bleeding from the effort. Her frail arms clung to the stone, pulling her upward, until she felt she could climb no more.

She heard the sound she’d been hoping for and wept with relief: a rustle of feathers in the air. Silently, a hawk snatched her from the rocks and carried her to the lip of the cavern.

The mouse died quick and painless. With a gulp, her essence passed from the vine-mouse to the mouse-hawk. It vibrated in surprise, shaking its feathers, which drained of color before its yellow eyes. Dark gray faded to beige, from the wingtips to its broad back, until each feather had turned pure white with the drain of assimilation. It blinked, eyes whirling with a strange light.

The sun set, bathing the horizon in a blush of orange, which faded to blue, then black. The hawk watched, too tired to take wing. Sometime in the dark of night, it’s cycle ended and it took its last breath. It deflated into a pile of feathers, which blew apart in a gust of wind.

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

The egg quivered. The hatchling pecked again, cracking the shell, and flopped onto the lip of stone overlooking a dark gash in the rocks. The thick pool of slime around her dried, and her feathers engorged. The sun shifted slightly in the sky and the hatchling became a hawk, who took her first flight. Exhilaration filled her mind as she soared through the sky.

The joy of flight consumed her thoughts at first, but disquiet soon settled in.

Remember, the mouse-hawk reminded herself.

She had a purpose. A desperate one, at that. Something below. In the caves.

The hawk’s keen eyes detected movement in the sky. Her brain instinctually calculated the angles. Too big to eat, she decided. Geese.

She hovered in an updraft, feeling the late morning sun warm her feathers.

Something is wrong.

The white hawk pivoted and watched the line of geese falter. Her finely honed vision saw the geese morph in the sky, until they plummeted.

She’d seen this before. Imagery spattered through her mind of a memory of warped creatures, writhing beasts, and a giant’s sorrow. The sky consumed by cloud.

A black pyramid.

She shuddered and hurried past the memory.

She knew that giant. Knew those sorrowful eyes.

In a flash in insight, she recalled her purpose. This is why she’d escaped the dark, scratching away at the stone. Why she’d curled against the apple tree for generations, then climbed her way up the cliff. Why she’d risked everything to recruit the wind daughters. Why that abomination of a young man had come, with his essentiæ flowing shattered through broken pathways. Somewhere far away, in the dark, everything depended on her. Now. In this very moment.

The hawk shrieked, praying she wasn’t too late. She dipped her head towards the ground and plunged like a falling arrow.

The cavern floor rushed to meet her. At the last second she swooped, avoiding impact and streaking down the tunnel.

Hurry, she urged herself. Hurry.

Ahead of her, she heard a bellow. A bellow she knew.

In desperation she flew past the boy, checking once to see that he still lived. She flapped hard, wings beating against the air, soaring into the clouds. She saw alabaster thighs, then a chest, which joined shoulders and a neck. Black horns curled around her.

She broke through the clouds and came eye-to-eye with the giant.

She knew him, even after all this time. She couldn’t recall why, or how. Only familiarity. A familiarity that had been seared into the primitive pathways of her mind through the white heat of rage.

Betrayal.

The hawk screamed in accusation. The giant’s eyes widened as it met her own. She poured every bit of outrage into her gaze. Invoked his shame.

How could you? She screamed inside. How could he what? She knew not what he’d done. Only that he had.

To her satisfaction and sorrow, his pupils became black pools of remorse. The tendril-mouse-hawk didn’t know what he’d done, but the giant apparently did. The sound of his sorrow split the sky.

Her message delivered, the hawk descended once more. It all depended on the boy now.

What depended on the boy? That she also did not know. Not this part of her, at least. But she had to help him as much as she could.

Although she should be in the prime of her cycle, the hawk had grown tired. Unbelievably exhausted.

You’ve given everything to reach this point.

She had. She truly had given everything. Logic could not deny it.

Just give up.

The idea had merit. How long had she striven? How many generations had been wasted? She’d earned her rest.

Just give up.

This time, the words came as warning. Again, something was wrong. And again, it was due to the giant’s terrifying essentiæ, consumed as it was with the notion of inevitability. The logic of all things, which had broken down under its sorrow.

Just give up? What nonsense is this?

She’d fallen into the trap so easily.

No. Oh, no. The boy…

The hawk flew faster, pushing her fatigue away. This lull of despondency would not work on her. She knew this trick. But the boy would not.

She fled to the tunnels, seeking the unnatural union of ice and flame. She found the boy, reeling and lethargic.

She touched his mind as lightly as she could.

Look at me.

Sluggishly the boy turned. She came to rest on a branch, urging the blood essentiæ to coalesce once more from the rocks. Inside she screamed, though she had no voice of her own. No way to rouse the flame.

To her relief it simmered once more, weakly, but enough. She saw the boy’s will respond.

The hawk flew away and came to rest on the rocks. It had been done. Whatever her purpose, she’d fulfilled it. The time for her branch to wither had come. She poured herself back into herself, and faded into nothingness.