Tue 12 Jan, 2010
Stars. The first thing Tom Kimble saw was the Milky Way, incredibly clear, a river of creamy stars streaming across the sky. He then became aware of a loud buzz, like his ear lay next to a bug zapper. He looked around and saw hundreds of bugs zipping all around him. And around them were the inner walls of a huge stone castle.
As far as he could tell, he was floating in the middle of a courtyard. Grey stone walls six stories tall surrounded him, and towers stood like giant guards in six directions. People in browns and greens ran along the tops of the walls and across the well-trampled grass of the courtyard below him. They were yelling, but their words seemed far away, like voices from underwater. He felt relaxed, like he was dreaming.
Two large hunks of metal floated on either side of him. Looking closer, he realized that they looked like arms, giant metal arms with hands like gloves.
One of the bugs zipped closer, and Tom put up a hand to brush it away…then he pulled back as the bug zoomed larger and larger. For a second, Tom thought it was coming right up to his face, then his perspective shifted and he realized these bugs were enormous, at least the size of a grown-up.
The bug had two thin arms and legs, but its body was covered in an armor-like, almost metallic exoskeleton. Instead of hands, it had huge, two-foot claws that gleamed like knives on both their inner and outer edges. Its head was a weird, twisted thing, like an ant’s head melted into the shape of a helmet. Tiny eyes like sparks glowed a faint, dusty yellow from beneath the “helmet’s” brim. The thing reached out a claw to slash him.
Tom howled in shock and thrashed an arm at it. One of the huge floating arms swung lazily through the air and whacked into the bug, which bounced off like a baseball and slammed into a castle wall.
More of the bugs swooped out of the sky towards him. He backed away, then turned and leaped into the sky, hoping that this was one of those flying dreams. Once he heaved himself off the ground, he floated upwards, and turned back to see the bugs close, but hanging back a bit, obviously a bit unsure what to do now that he was flying. The arms and legs floated with him, as though attached to him.
That’s when the realization hit him—how could he be flying? He couldn’t fly. He began to sink towards the ground, and the bugs closed in as if hoping he was getting weaker.
In desperation he lunged towards them, and they pulled back. He lunged forward again, and they pulled back. Frustration suddenly flooded his veins with adrenaline, and desperate to get these things away, he leapt towards them, swinging his arms. He smashed a few like baseballs hit by a bat, then he was surrounded by dozens of chittering, hovering bugs, all slashing away at him but banging into some kind of force field a few feet from him. He began to swat at them, twisting his body to get some real force into it, but he was starting to feel tired, and there were so many of them, with more crowding in by the second. He began to sink under the sheer weight of bugs clinging and clawing at him.
Then he heard a whoosh and sensed that the bugs behind him had scattered. He turned and blinked his tired eyelids as a huge shape slashed across one side of him. He raised an arm to block it, knowing it was too late. The slash instead sliced through several bugs. Tom blinked at the sight of a huge suit of armor, easily three stories tall, made of some sort of gleaming metal that looked like a fusion of copper and gold. Huge silvery blades extended from its forearms.
Help had arrived! Tom struggled to free himself of the bugs, and the other armor reached forward and scraped them away. Soon, Tom was swinging and slicing at the bugs himself, feeling the tide of battle turn.
The bugs began to stay away from him, allowing him to take the offensive and edge towards them. Before he knew it, he was floating dozens of feet above the castle walls, slicing down bug after bug. He began to sweat as he spun and cut, enjoying every moment of it. It was like a video game, but he could feel the resistance as he cut through the body of a bug and the inertia as he turned to face any bugs floating closer from behind. He thought about just quitting, but the sharp blades of the bugs glittered in the moonlight, threatening to cut through his armor.
He continued to advance into the cloud of bugs, farther out, away from the castle walls. He wasn’t even looking down now; just focusing on the next bug, the next enemy.
As if he’d just cleared a level, the bugs suddenly spread out and flew away in an ever-thinner cloud towards his right. He leaned forwards to go after them, then pulled himself back in caution. Where the heck was he, anyway? He looked down.
Woah.
He floated above a jumble of small rooftops that spread out from the castle like a long dress. There were hundreds of little houses down there, and no two streets were alike. Some were so wide ten people could walk down, side-by-side, easily. Some were narrow enough to give one person trouble. Some went up and down hills so much there were short flights of stairs built into the streets. And the more he studied them, the more they seemed to have a pattern.
His eyes were drawn further upwards, towards the castle. It looked to Tom like it belonged in the Middle East more than England; it was a broad, massive structure of beige stone, divided into three intersecting rings, each ring having six sides, and each corner supported by a huge tower. Tom boggled; it looked like it was literally a mile wide, and at least six stories tall.
Behind the castle, and around the walls of the town, green forest stretched out in every direction, away towards distant purple hills and a mountain peak in the far distance.
Tom drifted down to the courtyard below. He felt like his arms and legs were weighted down. He began to feel that he was sitting on something and felt like he was inside a small space, but he couldn’t see anything there, just the castle walls outside him, and those huge metallic arms that seemed to float in the air.
He leaned his body forward and then slowly put out his hands. He saw those massive arms reach out as he felt himself lean over, then his arms seemed to let go of something and he flailed his arms around for support. He felt himself grasping invisible handles as the giant arms touched the ground, and in a moment he could see he was on his hands and knees. He leaned further forwards, and the world around him faded away into grey cloth stretched over strange curved supports. He was surrounded by a sort of bubble, and a circle in front of him cracked in half and split open like two doors, revealing soft grass below.
He found he was sitting on something like a bicycle seat. Gravity pulled his stomach down, and he extracted himself from the seat and held onto the handles—which were solidly bolted into the weird frame—and swung downwards. He let go and landed with a thud on the soft grass.
Tom looked up to see several blurry figures hurrying across the grass towards him. He shook his head, but that felt like it weighed fifty pounds. He tried to blink to clear his thoughts, but his eyelids moved so slowly. Exhaustion finally overwhelmed him, and everything went black.
The next thing that came to Tom was a smell—a smell both musty and clean, like an old room that’s just been dusted. Then he felt the cozy warmth of being held in a cocoon, and realized that he was wrapped in very heavy cloth. He heard his breath, pumping in and out of his nostrils like bellows. He felt thick sheets beneath him, and he opened his eyes.
He was in a huge wooden four-poster bed, covered in blankets so thick they were almost rugs. Early morning sunlight beamed through the cracks of curtains covering large windows to his left, making bright colors of the many rugs piled on the floor. The walls were made of thick blocks of real grey stone. There was a massive cabinet of some sort opposite him, next to an empty fireplace. To his right was a delicate-looking wooden door, tan colored, with delicate scrollwork all around it. And just next to it, a prim woman in her thirties sat on a small chair. She stood, her dark blue dress rustling like bushes in the breeze, and she opened the door with a click and left.
Panic suddenly rose up in Tom’s chest, and he pushed it back down, curling in on himself. He thought about his parents, his bedroom, and the other kids at school. He refused to panic. This wasn’t a dream, that was clear, but he wasn’t chained up or anything. This wasn’t exactly a dungeon. He could handle this.
He opened his eyes and sat up in bed, forcing himself to look around the room. Dust motes floated in front of the window, making the room feel comfortable and familiar, like the neighborhood library. The bed and the cabinet both looked well-used but in good shape. The fireplace had been blackened by years of fires, but cleaned so well there wasn’t a trace of ashes or soot. This place felt lived-in.
He heard another click, and the door swished open. Tom turned to see a hawk-nosed man stride in. He was an older man, his face lined but not yet ancient, his features sharp and craggy, and he was dressed in what looked like a silk shirt and pants. As he stopped next to Tom’s bed, Tom noticed a deep scar in the man’s forehead, arcing from his brown hair all the way down to his right eyebrow, and even dividing the eyebrow in two.
“Greetings,” the man said in a deep voice.
Tom regarded him for a moment, then said, “Hi.” He kept his voice neutral, neither eager nor worried. He wasn’t giving up any ground, not yet.
The older man took a breath, then turned and began walking around the room. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts. Tom just looked at him, knowing from experience that it’s best to let adults get themselves ready. Finally, the older man turned to Tom and said, “My name is Torren Brask XXIII. Welcome to the country of Braskil. Braskil is a world very far away from your own, but don’t worry, you’re safe here with us. We’ve brought you here from your world because you’re a very special boy. You can do things that very few other people can.”
Uh-huh, Tom thought. He leaned forward in his bed and said, “I don’t care. Send me back.”
For an instant, shock passed over Brask’s face, then he was all indulgent smiles. “It’s quite all right. You can stay as long as you want. Time works differently here. You can spend months here and when we send you back it will be only a few hours after you left.”
Tom’s brow crinkled. This sounded like an excuse, but couldn’t think of a way to argue it. He changed subjects. “Okay, so what are these special things I can do?”
Brask walked over to the window, grasped the curtain, and turned back to Tom. “You can pilot a Giant Armor.” And with that, he yanked the curtain aside, letting dazzling light into the room.
Tom blinked, then his eyes grew wide as he saw the top of a huge suit of armor outside. He leapt out of bed, his skin prickling at the cooler air of the room after the warmth of the bed, and ran to the window. He looked down on a square, grassy courtyard at least fifty feet wide. Around it stood stone walls three stories high, studded with lead-lined windows like this one. And in the center of the courtyard was a huge suit of armor, its head level with Tom’s third-floor window.
It looked like it was made of brass or copper or even gold, though the metal didn’t look quite like anything Tom knew. It stood at attention, as though proud to be there. The head looked like a robot’s head, all vertical plates with no mouth to speak of. Its red glass eyes sparkled in the late morning sun. Its shoulders were pushed back, and its huge metal hands hung down, slightly curled as though ready to be balled into mighty fists at any instant.
Tom turned to Brask and said with some excitement, “That’s what I was in last night, isn’t it?”
Brask nodded. “We found it not far from the castle,” he said as Tom looked back at the courtyard. “Some months ago, my people were digging there, and found it buried in a huge cave. It’s magical. In fact, our priestess suspects it was put together using magic. It only responds to certain people. Like you. If anyone from our world steps inside, they can do nothing. Only people like you can pilot it.”
More memories from the night before came back to Tom, and he remembered the huge insects slashing their claws at him. He whipped his head around to face Brask. “It’s about those bugs, isn’t it?” Tom asked. “You want me to fight those bugs.”
“No, no!” said Brask in an appeasing tone. “We just want you to pilot your very own Giant Armor!”
Tom narrowed his eyes. “But you want me to pilot it so I can fight those bugs.”
Brask’s face clouded with surprise and anger. So he’s just like most grown-ups, Tom thought, he thinks kids can’t think things through.
Brask paused, then said, “It’s not important right now.”
Tom just stared at him, repeating a trick he’d learned dealing with teachers who thought a smart answer was luck or a big mouth, and not actual smarts. The silence grew.
Brask’s face clouded further, he pursed his lips, and his whole body went taut as a kite string in a hurricane. Fear clutched Tom’s heart—this was the guy in charge, he was the one who could send Tom home, and maybe Tom had just pushed him over the edge. Maybe he’d never go home now. He felt the urge to apologize but then all the tension drained from Brask’s body. He walked over to the bed and slumped down on it, his eyes on the floor. Tom cocked his head to one side, observing him. The older man’s reaction seemed a bit theatrical. After a moment, Brask looked back up at Tom.
“Yes. My kingdom is being attacked by insects. Insects the size of men, called Trych. You saw them. Every few nights, they attack in huge swarms, beyond counting. Some of my people have already died. There’s little we can do to stop even a few of them, and by the next full moon we’ll all be dead. The only things that can stop them are the Giant Armors.”
Tom felt anger wash over him. This guy was trying to manipulate him. Before he could control his anger he heard himself yelling, “So you think I’m going to go out there all alone and fight a whole army of bugs? No way!” His hands hurt from how tightly they were curled into fists.
Brask put his hands up defensively. “It’s all right!” he said. “You’ll be perfectly safe. You’ll be in that Giant Armor. It would take a Trych ten minutes to cut through that armor, and you can crush one within seconds. Look at it! You could squash any number of bugs in something like that, couldn’t you?”
Tom was pushing his anger down, barely listening to Brask. This was not the first time he’d let his anger out, but he was learning how to control it. The previous times…he didn’t want to think about those. Painful for him, and for his parents, and for everyone.
He made himself look back out the window at the Giant Armor. He had to admit it did look invincible. Or at least strong enough to squash a lot of bugs. But the anger wouldn’t completely go away, and Tom wouldn’t trust himself to say anything else.
Brask heaved a big sigh, then said, “All right, you don’t have to fight if you refuse. But at least fly it. We brought you all the way to our world, so the least we can do is let you fly it about.”
Without letting Brask see it, Tom smiled just a little.
Chapter 10 of Armor – Finale - Giant Armors Blog says:
[...] feel rather emotional about uploading the final chapter of Armor. I feel elation. Relief. Sadness that I didn’t do so [...]