Cutlery dined in nervous excitement. So many pieces had suddenly fallen together. Like a divine hand had just been dealt. The gods were having fun with a bit of stage drama you would only see during a Temple festival. Perhaps, she thought, the Temple was preparing everything for its arrival. Without divine intervention, they would just be a bunch of mortals throwing sparklers around and drinking till they puked.
A nod after dinner confirmed that Clyde would be joining Cutlery in the gym.
Together they did their usual acrobatics stretches and training. Despite the sliver, it still felt wrong to train too hard the evening before a major quest. So they sat and chatted for a while.
"What were you before the tower?" Clyde asked.
"A street rat. Pickpocket n such. Orphan. Nothing complicated." Cutlery said. There was silence for a few seconds. Cutlery figured she should just ask him. "And you?" She said.
"A slave. I was a fuzzy house cleaner that could glide." Clyde said. Cutlery asked about what he had to do and he didn't give any more details. Just a house worker. Didn't sound so bad. Despite that, Cutlery liked her life more. She suggested he never be a slave again. By the end of the training, Clyde had joined the rebellion.
Everyone seemed to hate the tower when you boiled it down. But would they still hate the tower once Haze was breaking spines over his knee? Who knew? Cowards are only cowards when something is on the line. Cutlery just assumed everyone would run once the going got tough. That's how you survive. Not very flashy, but Cutlery understood.
Their conversation switched to the biscuits and gravy always being served by the chef. Shortly after Cutlery stood and told Clyde she was heading to bed. Outside the gym and alone Cutlery got to thinking again. The quest to the eternal glacier loomed in her brain.
This was as close as she was gonna get to pre-dance nervousness. Oh boy, how many humanoids nicknamed heretics will I kill tomorrow? Dancing and pre-murder got her to the same level of anxiety. At her room door, she thrust the wooden slab closed. Tossing her clothes to the side Cutlery slumped into bed. She kicked her feet up behind her and buried her face in her pillow. Then she thought about it.
Perhaps the heretics would join the rebellion? If she could just convince them that all the mass murder the tower had done up until now wasn't attached to her. Perhaps they could even trust the random girl they had never met who had entered their secret hideout! Yea probably not gonna work.
Her mind wandered to imaginary people begging her to let them live. Then they pledged their allegiance to her forever. Her thoughts morphed into dreams.
Asim was shaking her. Why, uh, she had been asleep awhile already.
"It is time short one. Our cold quest to the hells of this world is soon." Asim said.
"What?" Cutlery said blearily. Her dreams still filled her thoughts.
"The glacier will be a far cry from the Hazfen desert," Asim said as she turned and left the room. Cutlery watched her go and blinked.
The window was still dark. Right. An hour before dawn. She pulled on her leathers. She had taken to sleeping in pants and no underwear. She liked it.
She stepped out of the room and made her way to the dining hall. It was open but no one was in it. Some plates of biscuits and gravy sat warm on the counter. Yum. She had managed not to eat the repetitive meal more than a dozen times this month.
After guzzling some breakfast she went to the lift. Haze awaited. He was in travel gear. A light amount of gold armor sat under a loose cloak. Fish and Gill arrived a minute later. He nodded to them. He seemed tired. They rode the lift in silence down.
-
The opulence of the upper tower faded away. Now they were back in the fortress. Guards walked along the three floors of walkways that lined the gateway hall. Lifts deposited many unique groups on the floor. Some went towards wagons, while others came out of them to use the same lifts. Cold empty air filled most of the walkways this early in the morning. Haze led them down.
They walked descended a flight of stairs. A waiting dull brown wagon with no coachmen was Haze's destination. Haze swung up on the front and told them to get inside.
The wagon's internals belayed the external's simplicity. The benches were cushioned and acted as storage as well. If they pulled on the top of a bench, a rack would rise up till it hit the roof. Three benches revealed three racks. Each rack was covered in equipment for them to use.
The gear jingled as Haze whipped their pair of horses to a trot. The group had just enough room to swing their elbows and hunch over. Gill was bent at the waist while Cutlery was just tilting her head slightly. They awkwardly moved around each other. The wagon was still rolling down the tower's road when they finished getting ready.
Outside the empty city rolled by. The lifeless pre-dawn roads allowed them to reach the city walls within an hour. Cutlery got her first view outside the city. Everything was farmed. Blobs of water were pockmarked by blades of grass. People sludged through the shallow water to pull or plant. Water filtered from the top of these blobs down the many lairs to the bottom.
Ahead of them, rocky slopes lead upward to the steep mountains. Snow covered the mid-mountain heights. The tops were far above the dark morning clouds. The mountains up close were much more intimidating.
Far to the west and midway up the slopes, the glacier slowly came into view. Numerous walls of ice in the valleys looked like solid landslides. Huge gashes were still around the glacier on the sides of the mountain from the natural ice that formed around the magic frozen water.
"Few hours left!" Haze said from the front of the carriage. "Gonna get bumpy so stand up if your butt hurts. Stay inside though." He continued. The group settled in. Cutlery wondered if the sliver would protect against bum soreness.
It did a little.
-
Asim told Cutlery the farms were called rice paddies. Approaching the mountain caused the air to get cutlery. Asim corrected her saying that the wind and thin cold air from the high mountains chilled the air below them. The farm roads became endless switchbacks up the cold mountains.
"My pah used to walk this road every day to get to the mines. No slivers of course. Can't imagine it." Gill said. No one said anything for a second. Had Gill just shared a thought? Surely not.
"What was he like?" Asim asked. Everyone had turned from their window to face Gill. Fish seemed extremely interested. Cutlery figured that meant even he didn't know much about Gill. They couldn't have met more than a year ago. Fast relationship. Just like most things in the tower, too fast.
Gill didn't say anything. He heaved a sigh. A rare moment of eye contact passed between him and Cutlery. Looking at Asim he said, "He was tall, pale, built kinda like a barrel. Bulging at the seams, but solid. He was working in the mine before I was born. He's probably still working there. His luck with avoiding cave-ins was always dwarf-like. He always prayed to the dwarven gods of myth. The ones that were here before the Temple. Pretty sure the dwarves themselves don't even do that anymore. But he hasn't died in a cave in like half his friends so..." Gill trailed off with a vague smile.
His story had come out smooth and rehearsed. Perhaps he had thought of them a lot and had just let them out finally. He relaxed visibly. Maybe he should talk more. Share more. If it makes him happy like that. The carriage ride went on and his face slowly fell into its usual impassive shield. No more stories came.
Mine after mine started to pass their windows. Most looked empty. Only remnants of cart tracks were left. Others had darkened humanoids sitting outside, looking sodden with labor. The dust of their work clung to their skin.
Further on still, snow clung to the shade. The forest still rose far above the snowy sheets. Haze rapped on the side of the carriage. They peeked out as he pulled them into a thick grove of trees.
They all piled out and Haze slipped off the top.
"Well everyone, we will be on foot from here. The heretics watch the roads. They'll pose a bandit attack on us if we keep going further in the carriage. So we will hike. More time for the view. We are going to get to the edge of the glacier valley by sundown. Then we will set up camp and make a plan with some distant observations. Grab everything and follow." Haze said.
He tied up the horses and set out food for them. The youths adjusted their gear for travel and threw on backpacks. Haze started jogging into the trees. The group moved to follow.
Cutlery couldn't tell a damn direction, no orderly rows of houses here. Just brown thick sticks going straight up out of the squishy ground. Gill seemed at home though. He barely looked down as they passed over root and rock. Well lucky him. Surely they would get there sooner rather than later.
Several hours passed. Cutlery was bored out of her mind. The cold started to nibble in through the sliver's protection as the sun lowered into the Zurkonian bay. Then Haze commanded them to stop.
"We're here," Haze said. Cutlery looked around. Nothing to see.
