Excantation Page 21

  Intto’s lip curled in disgust, ears going flat to his head. “I wish I could disagree with you, Imagineer. But you are likely correct. I will gather everyone together and then help you mark the boundaries of the ward.”

  “Thank you, that’ll help.”

  I munched on the last of my lunch. Ward, huh? Would it be possible to put the platform under the ward for this village? Or would doing so start another fight?

  Hmm. If there was a good choice to be made here so everyone was happy, I sure wasn’t seeing it.

  What Intto had failed to mention at lunch was that Antero Vipunen was famous for sleeping. Like, literally, that was his whole legend. Him, sleeping. So, waking him up? Well, that was something of a challenge.

  I walked with Intto around the side of the mountain, Klaus and Ciarán shadowing us, and tried to get a better handle on what I’d just been told. “Wait. Wait, you’re saying this earth giant used topsoil as a blanket so he could sleep, and then he slept so long that he just absorbed all of nature’s secrets? Like through osmosis? And now he’s covered in the mountain because he hasn’t moved for centuries?”

  Intto shrugged, as if this was common knowledge and he wasn’t sure why I was struggling with it. “Yes.”

  Umm. Houston, we might have a few problems. “Sooo…inquiring minds want to know. How do you propose to wake him up?”

  He gave me that look again as if I’d asked a silly question. “That is your task, Imagineer.”

  “Right. Of course it is.”

  Ciarán snickered behind me. “People think Imagineers can do anything.”

  “It’s one of the job hazards,” I agreed with a groan. No, seriously, how did you wake a sleeping giant who’s been out of it for millennia? Was Intto testing me? I felt like this was a giant test. No pun intended.

  We heard a grumbling noise in the air, a sigh on the wind, and a low groan that was more felt than heard. It sounded like a very large man dead asleep. I had a feeling that’s exactly what it was.

  We climbed up a very narrow game trail. The trees died away, leaving a sort of ropey-looking vine that trailed in wavy patterns. No, not a vine. Moss? Huh. Now, if I didn’t know better, I would say it was in fact moss-covered hair.

  “Intto. Just throwing this out there. We aren’t, by any chance, walking on the giant’s face, are we?”

  “No,” Intto assured me, still spritely moving along. “His chest.”

  “Chest. Right. Cool beans.” I was absolutely not okay with walking around on a giant’s chest. On the other hand, I hadn’t even detected when we’d gone from normal mountain to walking on his chest, so…there was that issue.

  I stopped short when the wiry moss-hair ended and what had to be a nose protruded out of the ground. And it was a beak of a nose, let me tell you. That seemed as likely as a target as any. I went to the side of it and slapped it hard. “HELLO!”

  Nothing. Still snoozing away.

  I tried kicking, as my hand still stung after slapping what essentially felt like warm rock. Carefully, so I didn’t break a toe. I kicked three times before trying even louder, “HELLO!”

  Still nothing.

  Yeah, this was going about as poorly as I imagined.

  Okay, what makes people immediately wake up? Cold. Not being able to breathe. Pain. Loud noises, although that apparently didn’t work on the giant. Maybe a bull horn would help? I didn’t want to hurt him. Breathing, maybe? Or cold?

  What if I blocked his nose for a second, forced him awake that way?

  I created what was essentially huge nose-filters and imagined them into place in his nostrils, blocking all airway. His breath shuddered to a stop for three, two, one—

  Then his mouth opened on a groan and he breathed again. Well, crap. That didn’t work as planned. But maybe with his mouth open, I could try something else? I had to be careful about this, though. We were right on his face. If he decided I was a bug and tried to swat me, that would potentially ruin my whole day.

  “Reagan,” Klaus said patiently, “what are you trying to do?”

  “Well, I know if I stop breathing or something cold touches me, I wake up instantly. And I’m a pretty deep sleeper, as you know. I thought I could stop his breathing for a second and see if that would wake him up.” I scratched at my head, considering that cavernous mouth. It was about the size of a cave’s entrance. “Maybe a really huge ice cube in his mouth?”

  Klaus eyed the gaping mouth in question. And could we say morning breath? It was revolting, but then, when someone hasn’t brushed their teeth in several centuries, what else did you expect? “Try it.”

  I certainly didn’t see the harm. I formed the largest ice cube I could, something practically as tall as I was, and released it into the giant’s mouth. Hopefully it was too small to be a choking hazard. He closed his mouth for a second, we heard a crunching sound, then he sighed and opened it again.

  Did he just….

  “Ice cube gone,” Ciarán confirmed after a peek over the lips.

  I threw my hands into the air. “I honestly don’t know what else to try. Someone give me something, here.”

  Intto gave me a consoling pat against my thigh. “Do not lose heart so quickly, Imagineer. There is a legend of a man named Väinämöinen who tried to wake Antero Vipunen by poking a stick down his gullet. This didn’t wake him either. Instead, the man was swallowed. Because he was stuck in Antero Vipunen’s stomach, he built a smithy inside and made the best of it. Eventually he was spat back out.”

  “Wait.” I stared down at him, jaw steadily dropping because excuse me? What? “You’re telling me this giant accidentally swallowed a man, who then proceeded to build a smithy in his stomach, and even that didn’t wake the giant up? But eventually it upset his stomach enough that he spat him out, and the guy was freed, but even then, the giant didn’t wake up? He slept through all of that?”

  “That is how the legend goes, yes.”

  Seemed like a fairy tale in many ways, but that was how legends usually worked. The grain of truth in the story was that Antero Vipunen was absolutely impossible to wake up by any means. “You know what, I’m calling it. We’re not going to be able to wake him up. Let’s put our heads together and come up with something.”

  “Antero Vipunen is wise, though,” Intto protested with an uncertain look at the sleeping face.

  “He’s also hundreds of years out of date and has no idea what’s going on even if I did manage to wake him up,” I riposted, already growing impatient with this argument.

  Klaus stepped in, his tone patient. “Intto, I know you worry about making the right decision. But we can all counsel together and come up with a good solution.”

  I nodded fervently, hoping Intto listened. Trying to get someone else to think of the solution was not the right tactic here.

  He sighed gustily. “You’re right. I’ve thought long on this, but I cannot think of what is best for my clan. As much as the others aggravate me, I do not want them left in danger, but how do we establish a new platform so all may use it?”

  “It does seem like something of a tall order at the moment,” I consoled him. “But we Americans like to say where there’s a will, there’s a way. We’ll think of something.”

  Intto nodded, but he didn’t look happy. We trooped back down the trail, the wheels and cogs spinning in my mind as I hiked back down. Just where could we put it? I’d had the stray thought earlier that we didn’t really need a full-sized platform out here, not with everyone so small in size. A small platform would be easier to place, easier to find a space for. And I’d discounted the idea because of Antero Vipunen, but he seemed to just sleep through everything. I don’t see how he’d need the platform. Or was that short-sighted of me? If something really drastic happened out here, say a natural disaster, even he’d wake up and need to move. Although he couldn’t fit through a normal-sized portal, anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about him?

  My cellphone rang. I’d put a booster on it before leaving London so it
had satellite connection ability. I knew we’d have no real reception out here, and I wanted to stay in contact with everyone. I dug it out of my pocket and answered the Facetime with a smile. “Hi, Nana! How goes it?”

  Nana glowed, a hint of color in her cheeks, and was she wearing makeup? Holy cow, she was. With her hair done, makeup on, a breezy shirt of purple that I literally had never seen before, it was like she’d gone back in time by a good ten years. Maybe fifteen. “It goes very well, Reagan. I wanted to share the news that they’re breaking ground right now.”

  “Holy crap, really?!” I stopped dead in my tracks, not able to talk to her and navigate a forest trail at the same time. I was almost immediately crowded on both sides as my guardians also jumped into the call. “They have the plans already done?”

  “They do. They’ve been working almost ’round the clock. They borrowed heavily from the original structure—did anyone tell you we finally laid hands on the original blueprints?”

  “What! No, no one told me that. Last I heard from James was that he would take Seo Ra Im up to do a seeking spell for them.”

  “Well, he did so, and she found them. In the last place anyone would look, in fact, so just as well we had a witch doing a seeking spell. But they’ve been using those plans as a sort of base of how the building should be laid out. They’ve also taken the chance to update it to modern building standards, so it’ll function very well, I think. There’s been some concern over the permafrost in that area, hence why they’re breaking ground now.”

  I nodded in complete understanding. There was a phenomenon in Canada where the upper level of soil expanded as the temperature dropped. It could heave an entire foundation out of alignment in a very short amount of time, sometimes as little as a single winter. There was a way to build so you didn’t have to deal with warped foundations and floors. “Jackson was telling me about their concerns. With the frost heave phenomenon in that area, they’ll have to dig really far down for the footings. He said a caisson foundation was the only way to go. They were talking about twelve feet deep, last I heard.”

  “They decided on fifteen feet. Just to be on the safe side, as no one wants to go back into the foundation and rebuild it.”

  With that big of a building? I shuddered at just the mental image of how much work that would take. If it was even possible. “Fifteen feet sounds great to me. But yeah, that’s a lot of digging.”

  “Very much so. You can see why they started in on it now. I can also tell you the Alder Tree is growing very, very well. We’ve been getting in pictures and updates, and it’s a sprightly sapling now. Your greenhouse is doing its job.”

  “I’m really happy to hear it.” And relieved. And a few other dozen emotions. So far, everything that could possibly go wrong with this project, had. I was all for forward progress.

  “How goes it out there?” Nana asked with a smile.

  That smile was about to go upside down. “Well, there’s been a power struggle out here, and the idiots who took control of the platform basically destroyed it on accident. They built a building right on top of the platform, using mortar and everything, and it sealed all the symbols and cut the columns. Like, we’d literally have to rip it completely apart to rebuild it.”

  Nana winced. “We knew it wasn’t a good situation out there.”

  “Oh, that it is not. We’ve had to put a ward up over the village because of all the nonsense. I honestly don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re talking about just abandoning the old platform, building something new, but we’re on the side of a mountain. Not a lot of flat land to work with. And if we go down to flat land, that’s where the troublemakers live.”

  “Sounds to me like you need to carve into the mountain and create your own flat land.”

  “That’s basically what it boils down to. Where is still the question. And I’m honestly mad enough at the idiots that I want to just put a ward over the new platform so they can’t get into it.”

  “That’s spite talking, Rea.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I started walking again. We had no reason to linger up here, and I didn’t want people waiting on me. Klaus guided one of my hands to his shoulder so he could lead me down, and I took the offer, the other hand holding the phone up so I could still glance at Nana. “But it’s also common sense, I think. I really don’t trust these guys to not do something else stupid to the platform.”

  “It is a valid concern,” Intto agreed from ahead.

  “See? Even the clan leader here agrees with me.”

  Nana’s prophesied frown made an appearance. “But you need to make it available to everyone in the area, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, and that’s the problem.”

  Ciarán leaned over my shoulder and threw in, “I think what she’ll end up doing is creating two platforms. One for the clan, and one for everyone else in the area.”

  I pointed at him over my shoulder. “And I think that’s going to be the solution we land on. Because I can’t think of any other way to approach this. And it might make things easier on me and Mactep too.”

  She pursed her lips in thought. “I admit, I can’t think of any other answer offhand.”

  “Yeah, me neither. And I’ve had hours to think about it.”

  “Can you build two platforms close together?”

  “Sure. Well, they’re not going to be that close. One will be on the mountain, the other in the valley. That’s about the same distance as the terminals were in the Hub.”

  “Ah. Then that should be fine.”

  “Yup yup. So, we’ll discuss, build, and hopefully return triumphant. I think we’re still another two, three days away from being able to return to London.”

  “You’re going to use London as your base of operations?”

  “I might as well. A lot of the platforms are in remote regions, and I have to keep up-to-date with things somehow. We might change that approach as we get further into the field.”

  “Keep us all updated.”

  “I will. Love you!” I pocketed the phone and stopped clinging to Klaus. The thought briefly crossed my mind to email my parents about this. Habit. I tell you, habit was the most dangerous thing. As soon as I thought that, I dismissed it. I’d already shared this moment with the people I really wanted to. I didn’t need to reach out to anyone else.

  Intto’s look said he’d just realized something. “Imagineer, you said you were tasked with repairing and reconnecting all of the platforms.”

  “Right.”

  “How many platforms are there?”

  “No idea.”

  He blinked at me, golden eyes looking up out of his dark fur. “You do not know?”

  I spread my hands in a shrug. “The maps we have show where platforms were a hundred years ago. A lot can change in a hundred years. It could be they’re still there. Or torn down. Or built on top of. It could be I’ll have to change the location of the platform entirely, like I’m doing here. And some of the clans have moved territories completely—like mine—so I’ll have to create new platforms for them. I won’t even know what I’m dealing with until I get into that area of the country. It’s part Indiana Jones, part Holmes on Homes.”

  “Oh. Yes, I do see the problem.” There was a twinkle in his eyes as he said, “You must love a challenge.”

  “I must,” I agreed dryly.

  I sure did get them handed to me, either way.

  We went a few rounds of discussion that night around the campfire, but in the end, we all agreed there was only one sane option. Make two platforms. Make a small one for the firefoxes, then replace the damaged one in a different area of the valley floor with a glamour ward around it to keep the humans from spotting it.

  We fully planned to build them, then leave the next day, which I was happy to do. I did not understand people who went camping. There was nothing enjoyable about sleeping outside like this. I am a person who demands my creature comforts, thank you very much.

  Zoya went ahead of me this morn
ing to clear a spot for the larger platform, which involved scouting a good area as well. She had every intention of putting it smack between the piru and menninkäinen’s territory. Neutral ground, I think was her theory. But really, it was the perfect spot for them to fight over.

  And if that’s what they chose to do with their time, so be it. As long as they left everyone else in the area out of their power struggles, it was fine.

  Because banishing and I still weren’t exactly on speaking terms, Zoya did banish out a section of the mountain before leaving, carving out an area for a small platform. I decided to reinforce it with a wall so the dirt didn’t eventually cave in a mini-landslide. I did not want to come back here and fix something. I put in a nice stone retaining wall with a good ten-foot foundation so frost heave wouldn’t warp it.

  Klaus stood at my elbow, watching me put in the wall, and commented, “One of the things I appreciate about you is that you truly try to do it right the first time.”

  “Well, Klaus, that’s because I don’t have time to do it over.”

  He chuckled low. “There’s that. Here, stop and drink for a moment.”

  “I don’t feel particularly thirsty.”

  “Yes, that’s the trouble with being in colder climes. It’s easy to dehydrate because you don’t ever feel hot. Drink a little. Your brain will thank you.”

  I accepted the water bottle he handed me and drank a healthy swallow. I could practically feel my body sigh in relief. Huh. He was right, I was dehydrated. I drank more deeply, emptying out half of the bottle. “Klaus, you know everything, don’t you?”

  He snorted as he accepted the bottle from me again. “Far from it, child.”

  It was nice to have his support even though he couldn’t help me with the work itself. A smile lingered on my face as I put in the foundation for the platform, then started building it layer by layer. I had to do it a layer at a time because of the columns on all four corners. It was easier to hold it in my head that way, and since I wasn’t in a tearing hurry, why break my brain?