The Hammer Unfalls

1.15 Rags to Riches

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The next day, when Master Willow admitted Glim to the tower, he didn’t even say a word. Merely pointed to the stairs leading to the basement.

Glim spent the next several hours scrubbing vials, until no clean rags remained. Unsure of what to do, he sat, frozen with indecision. At last he walked up to the first floor of the tower.

“Master Willow,” he called out.

“Yes?” the disembodied voice echoed from some distant part of the tower.

“There are no clean rags.”

“Then rinse them clean. Do it outside. I don’t want that stench in here.”

Glim went back to the room with the endless shelves, grabbed the bin of used rags, and trudged back upstairs and into the garden. He walked through the maze of shrubs until he came to a fountain. A statue of a creature carved in white marble rose from a pedestal at its center: a woman, wreathed in clouds. She had a dozen tongues, which she used to impale an army of soldiers gathered at her feet. Glim stared at the grotesque scene. Who would carve such a thing? And why?

Beautiful, isn’t she? the wind said, laughing.

“Not if you’re a soldier.”

Glim dumped the rags into the water and watched a yellowish-brown cloud sully the water. He scrubbed and twisted them under the water, squeezing out the residue. It clung to his hands, so he scrubbed those too.

When each rag had been cleaned, he wrung it out and set it along the top of the nearby garden wall to dry. Glim took as much time as he possibly could. When his internal you’re-gonna-be-in-trouble bell started clanging, Glim gathered the damp rags into the bin and walked back to the tower.

Glim rang the doorbell and waited for Master Willow to open the door. But it didn’t open. After a long time he rang the bell again, but Master Willow didn’t answer its ring.

With nothing better to do, Glim set the bin down and decided to take a bath. Dinner wouldn’t be served for another hour. If he scrubbed the stink from himself, maybe he could dine in the hall instead of waiting until everyone had left and grabbing a bite to eat at the last minute, as had been his pattern since the vial scrubbing chore started. He headed for the walkway to the lower chambers.

You stink, the wind whispered as he walked the pathway.

“Shut it.”

I’d rather smell the goat pen than this lovely perfume you’ve discovered.

“Go ahead then. No one invited you.”

You’re slightly more amusing than goats.

“You’re slightly more annoying than scrubbing stinky vials all day.”

The wind laughed and ruffled Glim’s cloak.

Glim did stink. Any time the breeze shifted, his own stench assaulted his nose. Each time, it brought the fear of the cliff rushing back into his mind. He felt his own distress building as the memory of panic took hold of his mind.

Name the distraction, the wind said.

“What?”

For a student, you don’t pay much attention. What did Master Willow tell you? Remember the book?

Glim thought of the illustration with the ten arrows.

I am feeling fear, Glim thought. The scent of the mushrooms reminds me of sliding down the rift. The memory of rock slipping past his fingers made his stomach clench.

I am afraid because I almost died.

But he hadn’t died. As his father had pointed out, Glim had lived to hunt mushrooms another day. And to clean vials of their ick. He just hadn’t expected so many of them, tucked away in crate after crate of grimy vials. If he thought fresh muscheron chicane was bad, the dried slime had really shown his nostrils a new level of disgust. Scrubbing the vials somehow made the musty smell blossom into a decent reminder of acrid, fresh goo. His nose hairs curled at the thought.

What should we do next? the wind snickered.

“One of us should take a bath, and the other of us should shove herself up a goat’s butt and leave me alone.”

I wouldn’t fit up a goat’s butt. Guess I’ll just have to tag along with you.

Glim walked to the lower chambers of Wohn-Grab, his sleeves whipping in sudden gusts along the way. By the time he reached the doorway to the hot spring, Glim found himself gagging.

He’d taken several steps into the chamber before he heard it. Splashing water and voices.

“…so I told him to do my chores, or else father would make sure his family got last pick of the shipment.” Pyri’s haughty tone was unmistakable.

“What happened then?” Gyda. Oh, great.

Panic blossomed inside of him. Scrambling for what do do, his mind latched onto Garrick’s advice: tell them ‘your jealousy is adorable.’

It had sounded good in the moment. Somehow, Glim doubted the retort would have the intended impact when he was covered in rancid slime.

His mind raced for some other option. He thought of Master Willow’s lecture about shame, and holding his head high to look people in the eye. Right now, looking anyone in the eye was the furthest thing from Glim’s mind. He started to retreat to a different chamber but Gyda saw him.

“Oh, hello, Eyeball.”

Pyri turned and grinned in a way that made Glim’s skin crawl. “I didn’t realize you bathed.”

“Plyers have to wash the rat blood off somehow,” Gyda said.

On second thought, the goat pen sounds lovely, the wind whispered at his ear. It whisked away.

“What in Phyr’s name is that stench?” Pyri asked, waving the air in front of her nose.

Glim’s heart sank as shame colored his cheeks with a warm blush. Of all the times. Why are they bathing now?

He took a deep breath and decided on the simplest approach. “It’s muscheron chicane. Master Willow makes me clean it.”

“Clean it? I think you’re doing it wrong.”

The pair of girls laughed, which echoed throughout the watery chamber. Glim tried to ignore them, shucked off his tunic to his underclothes, and climbed into the water. Burning with embarrassment, he sank beneath its surface and let the water toss his hair around. Maybe if he stayed down long enough, they’d leave. When he came back up for air, the two girls stood over him, as if waiting for him to resurface before making their exit.

“Come on, Gyda. It stinks in here. Let’s go find some clean water.”

The two walked away, snickering to each other and looking back over their shoulders at Glim. When they’d gone he bobbed in the water, grateful for its warmth, and tried not to cry.

The next day, Glim yanked the silken cord that rang Master Willow’s doorbell. As the Mage-at-Arms had done the previous day, he pointed to the stairs with a dismissive gesture.

Glim did not budge.

“Can we do something else today, Master Willow?” he asked.

“No.”

“Please. I don’t want to scrub vials today.”

“It’s not finished. That’s your task. Better get started.”

“I don’t want to!” he shouted, surprised at the ferocity in his own voice. Master Willow whipped his head around and stared at Glim.

“Let’s check on your progress,” he said, gritting his teeth.

Glim followed him to the basement storeroom. Master Willow picked up a few of the cleaned vials, one by one, and made clucking sounds as he examined them.

“You missed a spot here. Let’s set that one aside. Oh look at this streak here. That won’t do at all.”

“Master Willow! I cleaned them as best as I could.”

“Oh?” he asked, eyes sparking in irritation. “Let’s make doubly sure, shall we?”

He reached into his robes and pulled out the silver baton. The dirty vials on the table shimmered. Tiny wisps of silver light snaked towards the baton. He went to the crates of cleaned vials, where a few more wisps curled up.

He walked over to the shelves. Streams of silver writhed from them towards the baton. He walked down the aisles, drawing a smoky haze of essentiæ to the baton.

“Show me your hands.”

Glim stuck his arms out. Master Willow ran the baton across his palms. Silvery swirls arose.

“Now try the focusing ritual. Think of sunlight warming your skin.”

Glim closed his eyes.

“Keep your eyes open. Focus on the feeling of warm sunlight gathering in your hands.”

Gim recalled the feeling of being sleepy and warm in the chair by the fire, and pictured the memory of his hands tingling. Almost immediately, silvery wisps of light poured from his palms and trickled towards the baton.

“Now think of sunlight warming your elbow.”

Glim shifted his focus to his elbow. The essentiæ stopped streaming from his palms. Glim craned his neck, checking his elbows.

“Nothing, eh? I don’t suppose you’ve been scrubbing the vials with your elbows by any chance? No?”

The mage shoved the baton back into his robe.

“Essentiæ seek essentiæ. They long to balance themselves in the others. This baton mimics imbalance. It’s useless for anything except revealing the currents. If you don’t want to scrub vials anymore, we can try a more direct method to imbue you with essentiæ. If you survive it, it will be quicker. Would you like to try?”

Glim shuddered. “No, Master Willow.”

“Fine. If there’s nothing else, then?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. The hem of his robes whisked across the stairs as he walked away.

Glim picked up a rag, took a vial from its crate, and started scrubbing.