The Hammer - Cor Series Book I

The nightmare monster lurked in the darkness, waiting for him to move and betray his location. The shadows shifted to reveal a hulking shape swaying from side to side at the far end of the tunnel.

His grandfather said to get out of the maze of tunnels, he only needed to climb a rope and find a blue light.

Another passage opened beside him, and he inched forward to where a jagged fracture broke the cavern floor. Musky fear filled his mouth as he searched the darkness overhead. At least the dream was consistent for once again a translucent green rope dangled over the void, just out of reach.

The clicking of claws on rock set his heart pounding. A glance over his shoulder revealed the massive bear-like creature sweeping toward him with its red eyes piercing the dark.

Corvan whirled about, leapt off the edge, grabbed the rope, and climbed furiously. A roar filled his ears as the creature's fetid breath rolled past him, propelling him toward the rock shelf and a blue glow just overhead.

His breath came in ragged gasps as his sweaty hands slipped on the rope. He heaved himself up higher, but the rope stretched and grew thinner.

He gripped the rope even tighter, but it squished like jelly between his fingers. Once again, he plummeted toward the open jaws with a strangled scream trapped in his lungs.

Corvan sat bolt upright in his bed and wiped the sweat from his brow. A shiver crawled up his spine. The green rope and the search for the blue light were connected to stories his grandfather used to tell before he vanished. No doubt those same stories were also connected to his upcoming birthday. He had overheard snippets of conversation about his grandfather in the hushed discussions and arguments his parents were having as the day grew closer. No wonder the nightmare was coming more frequently.

Pulling his knees in close, he wrapped his arms around them and gazed out the window. An owl hooted in the trees. A shadowed figure running on its hind legs moved past the southern gap between the boulders of Castle Rock. It crossed back again.

The lizard!

Slipping quietly from his bed, he quickly pulled on his jeans and t-shirt. A nighttime hunt for the mysterious reptile would be far better than facing dreams of caves and monsters back in bed. Besides, there was no school tomorrow; he could sleep in.

Creeping down the stairs and through the kitchen, he eased himself out the back door. Swirls of dust rose between his toes as he moved past the outhouse and onto the worn path leading to the rock. A lone coyote barked at a moon ringed by dark clouds.

Cutting away from the outhouse path, Corvan circled the base of Castle Rock just inside the tall stalks of ripening grain. Approaching the water channel cut into the west side of the rock, he dropped to all fours and crawled forward inside the smooth walls. The lone coyote barked again, closer this time. Corvan flattened himself against the cool stone. He could handle a single coyote but had no wish to encounter a pack alone in the dark. He listened intently, but there was no answering call.

Instead, he heard the scratching of claws heading directly toward him.

Corvan lifted his head above the edge of the channel in time to see a shadow detach itself from the protection of the rocks and dart toward him. The lizard! It was trotting alongside the water channel on its hind legs. Its eyes were glinting in the moonlight as it looked out over the field.

Very close now, the lizard ran alongside the worn channel leading down to Corvan’s hiding place. It was almost upon him when it abruptly veered off and disappeared into the wheat. A swath of stocks swayed with its passage.

He had nothing to catch it in. What was he thinking? Slipping out of his t-shirt, Corvan tied the neck shut with the sleeves. The improvised sack didn’t look big enough to catch the large reptile. What if it ripped the thin cloth to shreds? What if it ripped him to shreds?

He wanted to run to the house to find something stronger, but this might be his only chance to prove he was not a liar. Flattening himself into the water channel, he peered into the darkness where the lizard had disappeared.

Time crawled by. The dark shadows from the clouds overhead moved across the rock and then launched out into the sea of grain like an armada of pirate ships sailing away in the night. They all vanished momentarily as a single brilliant flash illuminated the open prairie. Thunder rumbled overhead, and in the deep silence that followed, Corvan heard a sharp hiss.

Rolling on his side, he found the bright eyes of the lizard watching him intently from the lower edge of the channel. Dropping a small bundle, it moved intently up the slope toward him with its gaze fixed on his face.

The lizard was close enough for him to see the blue marks on its chest and a black collar around its neck. He hadn’t noticed that before. Was it someone’s pet?

Its claws scraped across the rock as it hissed and clicked in angry tones, but then it stopped, raised its nose, and sniffed the air.

Out of the darkness, a coyote bounded up from the field. Corvan shouted a warning, and the reptile twisted and ducked to evade the attack. The coyote skidded to a halt in front of Corvan, whirled about, then pounced on the lizard. The lizard rolled to one side. Its front claws raked the coyote's lean face. The wounded animal yelped and stopped to wipe a paw over its torn nose. The lizard sprinted up the slope and disappeared into the circle of rocks. Shaking its head, the coyote leapt after it.

Corvan jumped to his feet and darted inside the ring of boulders while waving his arms over his head and yelling at the coyote, which was now digging furiously in the dirt next to the central stone. It turned to him, snarling and weaving its head from side to side. Bubbles of saliva dripped from its black lips. Rabies!

Resisting the urge to run, Corvan waved his hands over his head to make himself appear larger. The angry growl gave way to a whimper, and fear shone in the animal’s eyes. Rabid animals were more aggressive. The wounded animal put its tail between its legs and stumbled out of the ring of rocks to disappear in a brilliant flash of lightning. An blast of thunder rolled across the darkening prairie. The storm had arrived.

Drops of warm rain fell on Corvan’s bare torso as he walked back to where he’d dropped his shirt. Lightning crackled again, illuminating a small bundle of wheat on the ground. When he picked it up, he discovered a dozen or so short stalks neatly tied with a leather thong.

“Animals can’t tie knots,” he whispered. “Where did it get this from?” To examine the strange bundle more closely, he made his way up to the rocks and set it down while he untied his sleeves and tugged his shirt over his head. A spatter of rain fell on his upturned face as black clouds boiled in the sky overhead. The storm might turn into hail, maybe even a tornado. It was time to get back to the house.

He turned to pick up the strange bundle of wheat, but it was gone. Whipping around, he saw a shadow slip beneath the large boulder where the coyote had been digging. The lizard had returned for its prize, but why would it want a bundle of wheat so badly?

Powerful gusts of cold wind rushed past him. A blast of freezing rain pummeled the back of his head and sent a shiver through his body as he made a dash past the central rock and into the fort he and Kate had built on the other side. He squinted out the doorway at the light bulb swaying on his back porch. He was about to make a run for it when the clouds burst. Sheets of driving rain obscured his view.

The tattered tarp roof whipped up in the wind and water dripped water on his head. Corvan backed away from the door and hunkered down to watch. A prairie storm this hard never lasted long.

The rain pounding on the roof of the fort began to mix with the intermittent patter of hailstones. The walls of the fort swayed in gales of wind that whipped the hail through the open doorway. Huddled in the corner, Corvan watched as the water falling inside the Castle Rock gathered around the central boulder.

Before the water could reach the channel heading down the western side of rock, it began to leak into the hole the coyote had dug into the soft dirt. The mound collapsed, and the muddy water rushed in and dropped away. The drain opened even wider, and a whirlpool formed, sucking the water away under the Castle Rock. A column of bubbles shot up through the whirlpool, and something bobbed to the surface of the water, swirling amid the hailstones. Corvan jumped to his feet and peered out the door. It was the sheaf of wheat.

Splashing into the pond, he tried to grab the wheat, but it shot past his fingers and disappeared down the water funnel. Dropping to his knees in the freezing water, Corvan thrust his hand in to get it back. It was gone, but below the surface, the water was flowing into an empty space between two slabs of rock. He was just about to pull his numb hand out when he came up against a slender rock with a series of angular edges. It had to be a large quartz crystal, the perfect addition to his rock collection.

He tugged, but it did not come free. He tried pushing down on it, but his hand slipped off the crystal and he fell hard, painfully jamming his arm between two slabs of stone and trapping his face under the water. Freezing water rose over the back of his head. His lungs screamed for air. He twisted his arm frantically and pushed against the bottom with his free hand. Finally, his trapped arm came free. He scrambled to his feet and stood looking down the whirlpool, gasping, and shivering in the cold wind. Where was all the water going? Were his grandfather’s stories about a tunnel under the rock real?

Lightning crackled, and the entire mound of rock shuddered with him as the rumble of thunder echoed through the stone below his feet. The whirlpool vanished, replaced by a rapidly rising tide of freezing water around his legs that were tightening the muscles in his calves into excruciating knots. The water washed out into the western channel, and Corvan followed it down the slope and home. Another flash of lighting, and the lightbulb on his back porch and all the lights in town winked out. Repeated flashes and peals of thunder followed him up the stairs and into his room, where he stood by his bed, dripping and staring through the gray curtain of rain at the Castle Rock.

The numbness in his injured arm gave way to a growing warmth. He looked down and realized that under a coating of sticky mud, he was clutching the crystal. It grew warmer, and an intense wave of heat made the muck between his fingers steam. His fingers prickled as if tiny spiders were crawling between them.

Was this still part of the dream? The rock grew hotter, and he flung it into the corner, where it thumped off the wall and landed with a dull clank in his metal wastebasket. He pinched his sore arm and winced. This was not a dream. The lizard was real; the space beneath Castle Rock was real; and he had almost drowned to retrieve whatever was in the can.

Pulling the wastebasket over to his bed, he sat on the floor and looked over the edge.

Whatever it was, it now lay below the dirty crumpled papers. In the panic of being under the water, his mind must have been playing tricks on him. He’d likely just picked up some old bone a dog had buried. Moving the papers aside, he peered into the wastebasket.

This was no dog bone.

The mud that had coated the angular object had dried to form a halo of gray crumbs around a small hammer that was so black it seemed to absorb the light around it.

He pulled the wastebasket closer. Over the drum of rain on the metal roof, he could hear a low hum. The noise was emanating from the hammer and being amplified by the tin walls of the can. As he reached inside, it fell silent. Wrapping his hand around the polished handle, he lifted it out.

It was so beautifully balanced; he could hardly believe it was in his hand. Smoothing out a spot on his bedspread, he laid the hammer down. It sank deeply into the quilt. Against the yellow and white triangles, it looked like a velvety black hole cut into the cloth.

The hammer was all one piece of black stone, and the head had seven distinct sides—a heptagon. Miss Thompson would be proud he remembered the name of the unusual geometric shape. He picked it up again and examined it carefully. There were faint markings on the bottom of the handle. He would need his magnifying glass.

As Corvan stepped past the window toward his shelf, an odd sensation washed over him—it was as if the hammer was tugging on his hand and turning his body like a magnet around to the north.

“It will need to go back.” The sound of his own voice startled him, and a dizzying surge of fear overwhelmed him. Turning away from the window, he dropped the hammer onto his washstand and stumbled to his bed.

The nausea passed, and Corvan stared at the ceiling overhead. A shiver ran the length of his body, and he pulled the side of his quilt over to get warm. The words he had just said were not his own—it was something his grandfather had said to him before Corvan had even learned to walk.

A final soft flash of lightning pulsed through the room. Corvan closed his eyes to allow the distant memory to surface. He had held the hammer before! He was on his grandfather’s lap in this very room when the man had wrapped his small hands around the smooth handle and had told him that it needed to go back. Back to where? Inside the Castle Rock? Maybe his grandfather had already fulfilled the task, but then, where had the man gone and why had he left Corvan behind?

The rain drumming on the roof overhead slowed his racing thoughts.

In the morning, he would ask his father what this might all mean.