The Hammer Unfalls

1.22 A Truce is Reached

˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱ⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳

Overwhelmed by the thoughts spinning in his mind, Glim conjured a tummy ache the next morning. He might not be an accomplished Icer, but stomach aches were his specialty. There were different kinds. The slow burn, where he’d start out a little grumpy, and over time end up moaning in pain. There was the classic: double over and hold his belly while rocking on the ground. But Glim was particularly good at the surprise-projectile-vomit gambit. A hidden handful of porridge flung at the right moment really helped to sell it.

He lay still in a pile of furs against the curved wall of the tower chamber he and father called home. Cautiously opening one eye, Glim looked around. The light of dawn was just breaking, cold and blue in the windows far above him. He heard no sounds, but father was still in his bedroll.

Perfect.

He and father had picked this tower at random out of dozens of choices. Wohn-Grab had no shortage of disused nooks to call home. Old storerooms. Outbuildings. Towers like this one, still stable. They punctuated the curve of the wall that overlooked the Hiemal Peaks and the Avaunt Mountains, which converged on this place.

Glim liked this one best because it smelled like leather. As opposed to grease, or dirt, or moldy potatoes as some of the other chambers did.

Shut up and focus, he told himself.

The stomach ache lingered just out of reach, somewhere in his guts. Glim chased it down and nursed it to life. Yes, he definitely was very sick. He'd have to stay here on the floor all day drinking broth. Far too weak to move. If he did, it would only get worse.

He auditioned a whimper, which sounded unconvincing even to his own ears. Glim took a deep breath and summoned a deeper moan.

His father stirred. “Morning, son.” He rose and poked at the coals of the fire.

Glim moaned again.

“What is it?”

“My tummy hurts.” As his father came over, Glim scrunched up his face.

“Oh?” His father smiled. “Sorry to hear it. I'll have Hannah come by with some boiled beet stew. You can help her tie up the dung lures while you rest.”

Glim hovered between the two potential scenarios in his mind: get up and do another lesson. Or sit on the hard floor all day tying up little packets of dung while Hannah forced him to eat mushy beets and complained about her aching knees and back. The latter was not pleasant, but sometimes it was better than the lessons.

But for some reason, the idea of facing his master today gave Glim a slight twinge of satisfaction. He’d finally done it! He’d learned to form ice. In a way, at least. It was a good start. But his true accomplishment was having made a decision to ply obscured. Having a direction to head in, that he’d chosen for himself. He opted to face the morning, stretched, and rose.

“That's okay. I'll probably feel better if I get up.”

“That's the spirit, son!”

Glim dressed and walked to the dining hall. Gray mists clung to the ramparts. They swirled aside as his feet cut through them, then settled in his wake. Dewey white cobwebs laced the yellowed thatch roofs of the town. At the far corner of the town proper, the gardener Daryna potted vines with pallid white leaves. She spied Glim and waved.

Glim took the stairs onto the pathway that led to the dining hall. Cheerful yellow light spilled from its windows into the gray morning. Glim heard movement and laughter inside and steeled himself. He pushed open the door and sneaked to the end of the line.

Pyri and Gyda talked at a nearby table. Pyri saw Glim enter and gave an exaggerated sigh.

“I thought those freaks ate spores.”

Confused, Gyda followed Pyri's gaze and then smirked. “No, they cut open animals and drink their blood. Father says so, anyway.” Gyda pretended to notice Glim. “Oh, hello, Eyeball. Fresh out of blood? There are rats in the cellar. Try there.”

Pyri snickered and Glim's ears burned. He grabbed a bowl of porridge and found a seat at a table across the room. Pyri and Gyda returned to their conversation, blond braids bobbing, their mothers interjecting from time to time. Glim looked around the room at the soldiers and their families, the handful of traders and their families, and felt like a stranger in the room. He and father did fine together, but at times like this Glim realized how unusual it was for him to never have had a mother at all. Not a dead mother... just the distinct absence of the woman who had passed this way ten years ago and left shortly after Glim had been born.

Glim covertly uncorked the silver vial and inhaled the ghost of the perfume. As it sometimes did, the scent focused Glim's thoughts. Or made them drift in new directions.

Right now, plying consumed his thoughts. And the unseen presence of his mother. A ghost in the shadows of his life.

The absence of memory filled him with something like regret. His mother Allora existed to Glim only through the potent memories others had of her. Father. Master Willow.

His father still loved Allora. Glim knew that much for certain. Whenever he talked about her his eyes lit up and his words tumbled out faster than usual. And sometimes, when he didn’t know Glim was nearby, he overheard his father crying, and guessed what it was about. Allora’s departure had gutted him. He’d never said anything about his mother’s thoughts regarding Glim. Neither positive nor negative. Merely that she urgently had to go, and that was the end of it.

As for Master Willow, he also became animated whenever the topic of Allora came up. But in a much different way. There was some secret there to be sure. Glim knew that Allora had insisted on Master Willow training him. Father and Master Willow agreed on that point. He just didn’t understand why the mage had agreed to do it. He seemed to loathe the lessons as much as Glim did. Yet, he got the sense the mage truly was trying to teach him. He actually wanted Glim to succeed. Why, was between him and mother. Somehow, the thought did not reassure him.

But Glim did know one thing for sure: he could show Master Willow what the bravery of a Wohn-Grab guard meant.

He gripped his spoon, feeling tense, and shoveled his breakfast down.

When midmorning arrived, Glim went to the tower, standing in the same spot where he’d nearly died the day before. Master Willow wasn't outside so he walked around, tugged on the bellpull, and waited. A few minutes later the door opened to reveal the wizard's wary face.

“Yes? What do you want?”

“It's midmorning, Master. Time for my lesson.”

Master Willow's expression transformed from wariness to utter disbelief. He stared at Glim for a full minute, stunned into silence. His eyes betrayed some battle of emotions—shock? respect? jealousy?—before he regained his composure. The only remnant in his eyes was optimism. Self-serving optimism.

“Fine. Meet me in the garden in a few moments.”

Glim sat on a bench, swishing his feet around because they did not quite meet the ground. Master Willow arrived with another pail of water collected from the fountain. He set it onto the path, where it sloshed and settled.

“Stand up.”

Glim did so.

“Freeze this bucket.”

Glim recalled the frigid prickles along his skin, his body trembling and starting to shut down. A blast of frost instantly fell from his palm. The pail creaked as the water froze solid.

Again, Master Willow struggled to hide his shock.

“That's fine, boy. Just fine. Time to move onto something more complicated. Forming ice.”

Master Willow whipped his arm and a shard of ice streaked from his palm. It flew into the statue of the giant and shattered. He repeated the motion twice more, hitting the same spot each time.

“Creating ice from the air itself is one skill. Projecting that ice is another skill. Aiming it, yet another.”

Master Willow beckoned Glim to sit. He took the bench while the older wizard paced.

“Creation comes from mastery of algidon. Coalescing the vapor of the air around yourself while robbing it of its heat. Projection comes from tapping into aeolia, which men such as ourselves have very little command of. Using the vacuum of ice formation to our advantage, and calling on the wind to fling it away from us like a punch from the air itself. Aiming comes from phyr. Narrowing our focus to one white hot point and finding the inspiration to properly angle the ice we throw.”

Master Willow paused to look at Glim, perhaps to gauge his understanding. Glim sat up straighter and nodded.

“The three essentiae always align, with wind at the center and the ends in opposition. You are a Algist. Thus, creation will always be easiest for you. Projection will be harder. Aim? That will only come with difficult practice and luck, because flame is not natural to us. The good news is, once you discover how to aim, everything gets easier. I say we devote the next two seasons to forming ice, the following year to projection, and however many years after that it takes you to aim. Are you ready to get started?”

In that moment, Glim felt a tenuous truce between them, and hope that he could learn to ply. Not much else for him anyway, here in this remote outpost of people who distrusted or outright despised him. Glim’s back was up against a wall. Master Willow would stop at nothing, and his ambition terrified Glim.

As for father? Anger flared inside him at the thought. Twice now he’d told his father about almost dying, and neither time even phased the man. It’s as if his father had been enspelled to ignore anything that threatened Glim’s training.

A trickle of dread raised the hairs on Glim’s neck. Had he? Had father been enspelled?

For that matter, had Master Willow?

Glim stared at his tutor with sudden interest, and thought about his father.

Any time either of them mentioned Allora, their eyes lit up with a fervor Glim could not explain. He remembered the dream voice with a shudder.

You’ve fallen for it. The trap.

Glim suddenly got the feeling that he was the only one seeing this training clearly. Master Willow would train him, or watch Glim die trying. Father would do nothing to stop it. He had only himself to rely on.

His pathway had cleared. The fog had burned away. Glim saw the endless flagstones of his future and resolved himself to escape this trap somehow.