Jason Denzel
Awareness dawned with the sound of my master’s voice. Like the muffled echo of an earthquake far distant, I heard him call out, repeating my name over and over in a rumbling mantra of summoning. His firm and patient voice awoke my consciousness and drew it from the firmament of time and space.
I have forgotten the name he called me by, along with most of the memories from those first chaotic moments. I remember only the sound of his voice, luring me away from my blissful rest and willing me to fill the form he’d crafted.
When at last I arrived in this world, I felt my essence locked within a hulking form. He confined me to a shape with thick arms and legs, pressed down upon me like the weight of the very earth. I roared my disapproval.
In those initial seconds, I learned the truth of my new reality, instantly comprehending the cursed concepts of mass and weight. I lashed out, trying to escape, but all I managed to do was stumble and collapse. From that moment on I realized my master, along with gravity, force, and pressure, had become my jailers.
My master spoke again, and this time his sounds solidified into words. “Golem?” he whispered. “Can you hear me?” His voice lacked the chanting rhythm from before. Instead he spoke with a gentle voice, trying to comfort me.
I ignored him in a stubborn refusal to acknowledge my new existence. It may have been moments that I laid in that place, or it could have been hours. Time was an unfamiliar concept to me. I understood its concepts, but had not experienced it directly before. The flesh of humans withers quickly, requiring them to measure the passage of time. My flesh does not wither. My muscles do not atrophy.
For I am made of stone.
My body was formed of the same granite as the natural cavern in which I dwelt. Strong and unyielding, it complemented my dank environment of utter darkness.
At some point during that period of early silence, I became aware of other objects touching the earth. I sensed wooden tables lining the cave. A towering bookshelf stood against the wall near a cluster of stalactites. So sensitive was this affiliation with the stone around me that I could even discern the dust creeping across the floor, seeking every hidden crevice one feathery wisp at a time.
Mostly though, I could feel him upon the uneven, rocky surface. He never left this dwelling, and constantly moved about, stopping only to sleep fitfully on the cot in a recessed nook, or to give full attention to something from his shelf.
I laid there in silence, quietly hating him while I sensed his shuffling. I have patience beyond all measure when it comes to such things. “When you are ready, golem,” he would say amid his tasks, “we shall talk.”
A steady drip of water in a distant corner splashed into a shallow puddle. I counted the regular cycle, trying to mark time. Eventually, after what must have been several days, I finally spoke.
“Why?” I demanded. I heard my own quaking voice echo through the chamber. My master shifted his weight, turning toward the corner where I’d awakened and fallen. He strode forward, and I noted the labor of his steps. The tattered hem of his robes traced a path in the dust behind him.
“Why?” I boomed again.
“Easy, golem,” he soothed as he came to stand before me. “I have created you to assist me in the great cause of improving our world.”
I recognized the vibrations of my master’s words, as well as ambient echoes of the splashing water and the crackle of the cook-fire. I knew where he stood by his weight on the floor. But I could not perceive him in any other way.
I reached out, trying to feel him with my heavy hand, but he slipped around it. “Take caution until you are used to your body,” he said.
“I feel limited,” I said.
“Interesting,” he murmured. “You have great potential, golem. But stone cannot see as other elements do. You will become used to your nature.”
Anger boiled within me. I dropped my hand, and my master left me to my thoughts. I traced his footsteps around the dwelling. In time I calmed, and forced myself to accept the truth.
Blindness consumed me, for my eyes are made of stone.
Within that utter darkness I felt a hollow place where previously I’d known only perfect awareness. I knew not where I came from, but I remembered a glorious place—or perhaps a state of being—which my new stony manifestation could not fathom. I had been drawn from it; summoned away into darkness by the steady voice of my master. Just as I instinctually knew his words and their meanings, so I knew of light and vision. Yet it was a distant thing, like a memory of another life, now long forgotten.
I remained on the ground, letting the terrifying absence of sight claw at me.
On another day my master spoke to me again. “The terms of your service have been woven into you. Repeat them to me.” His voice wrinkled like the soles of his feet.
I knew the terms embedded into me as deeply as the roots of a mountain. My master compelled me to speak them, so I obeyed.
“I shall carry out your commands,” I rumbled. “Endeavor to satisfy your intended meaning.”
I felt the subtle shift in his weight as he nodded.
“I shall guard you from harm.”
“A little simplified,” he mused. “But it shall suffice. What of the last?”
“Obey and protect your lineage and legacy as fiercely as I would protect you.”
“Very good,” he replied. “And your payment?”
I paused to pull the answer from the depths. “In exchange, you or your successor shall release me from this form, freeing me to return to that from which I came.”
His voice carried a smile. “Good. Please stand.”
I consciously moved my whole body for the first time, rotating my thick marbled arms to help sit myself up. Then I heaved my giant torso of smoothed granite, and lifted myself to full height atop my massive stone legs.
“Astounding,” my master whispered, his voice now far below me. “I am Qual’Jom. Tell me, golem, is there anything you need or desire?”
“I wish to be released,” I rumbled. The dim memory of the place I’d come from still sang to me.
A wheezing chuckle escaped him. “Oh, golem. You just arrived! Barring that desire, is there anything else you would like?”
I pondered this for a moment. “I wish to see.”
“Hmm,” he muttered. “I had not expected you to ask that.” I sensed him cross the room to his bookshelf. I felt the lifting of a slight weight from the bookshelf, followed by an added pressure on the large wooden table in the center of the room. My master leaned his thin frame over the table, pressing it into the stone floor. The soft whisk of pages turning echoed in the cavern.
“Very well,” he said. “I shall research methods to bring sight to your eyes. For now, I trust you have enough awareness to clearly perceive what is happening around you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then I shall continue with my studies. You will oblige me as needed.”
I bowed my head in sad acceptance of my fate.
My master and I settled into a routine where I grudgingly assisted him in his ongoing experiments and studies. He gave me mundane tasks like fetching and lifting objects around his dwelling. I restrained and slaughtered animals he called forth from his summoning circle. He ate only a portion of what he conjured. I did not ask, nor did he ever offer to explain, what he did with the rest.
He worked in every corner of the dwelling. I felt his fingers trace the walls in strange patterns I did not recognize. He mumbled to himself as he did so, but I cared not what he said.
Much of his work focused on the summoning circle. Traced in a wide arc in the place I awoke, the lines were drawn with varying degrees of thickness and shape. Initially, I observed my master chalking runes through the vibrations against the ground. Later, he gave me the task of maintaining them. At one point, he complimented me. “Well done, golem. You have an unexpectedly steady hand.”
His encouragement failed to penetrate my cold being. The gentle manner of his voi
ce now vexed my senses. He told me stories and jokes, but I cared nothing for the subtleties. Sometimes he sighed and referred to me, not without affection, as a “grumpy lummox.”
Time wore on, but nothing changed in my enclosed world except my master. The labor of his step increased. His pacing slowed. The bookshelves swelled as he studiously churned out volumes of research and directed me to place them ever higher. He jabbered frequently about his work, but little of it made sense.
On one nondescript day, I felt my master approach the corner where I awaited tasks. He wore the added weight of a cloak over his thin body and tattered robes. He held a wooden staff and leaned on it ever so slightly.
“Golem,” he said with unusual energy. “I am going on a journey. I have discovered the method of granting you vision.”
I remained immobile and expressionless, but listened carefully as he went on. “I’ve read of an artifact known as Quolosin’s Fire. It is a long distance from here, but I am willing to make the journey for you. Remain in this dwelling, and do not leave for any reason. Let no one disturb my possessions, including you. When I return, the Fire will allow me to give you sight!”
He gave me an affectionate pat with his gnarled hand. His footsteps echoed across the cavern and out the crooked doorframe in the most remote corner of our abode. Beyond the entrance, I perceived his staff-assisted march through long, winding halls of stone. Even past that, I could sense his steps grow lighter as they dwindled into the distance. Then he was gone.
I dwelt alone in the darkness of the mountain.
The days passed, and I found myself eager for my master’s return. The promise of receiving vision from Quolosin’s Fire lifted my spirits.
In my positive mood, I did not mind keeping my master’s dwelling clean and tidy. I exterminated any vermin that dared to creep in, such as rats and other unsavory critters that came seeking the treasures of his food hoard.
But many weeks passed, and the remaining food had long been spoiled by the time someone finally entered the cave. At the first distant padding of footsteps, I felt a flash of excitement at the prospect of finally becoming complete. I squared myself to the entrance and waited for my master and the Fire that would bring me vision.
Yet my hopes sank as I realized that the approaching footsteps were not light and shuffling, nor aided by a staff. They belonged to a heavyset person wearing large boots who hefted their bulk down the stone steps leading into the cavern. A velvet-trimmed cloak dragged upon the ground.
The stranger entered my master’s chamber. I heard their quiet gasp.
“I had to see it for myself,” the person said. His voice revealed him as a man, yet he was not my master. “So this is how ol’ Qual’Jom applies his theories. No wonder he’s been absent from our quorums.” He sidestepped into the dwelling, his back brushing against the wall. “What name did he call you by, construct?”
I did not respond, but followed him with my blind gaze as he slid deeper into the room. An instinct to guard my master’s home rose inside me.
Perhaps my silence ignited boldness within the man, for he stepped forward and his voice became more confident. “Speak, if you can hear me!”
I remained silent.
I felt his boots walk toward my master’s bookshelf. He stopped there, and I heard the gentle slide of leather as he began to pull a volume free. I shifted and loomed over him.
“Do not disturb my master’s possessions.”
He froze and waited for a count of twenty thundering heartbeats. Then I felt the weight of the leather tome shift from the bookshelf to himself. His voice quavered with forced intensity. “Your master is dead, creature! I-I claim this knowledge for my own!”
“Replace the tome,” I repeated, not believing his lies.
He eased one step forward, heel rocking toward the toe. “No one has disturbed this place since his death. Therefore you are masterless, and I shall claim you as well.”
I felt a pressure upon my body, seeking to ensnare me. It was not a physical sensation but perhaps one wrought of the firmament I had known before my awakening. This force sought to bind me, perhaps even harm me. But my master had crafted me well, and I shrugged off the intruder’s sorcery like splashing water. I struck out with the speed and strength afforded by my nature and lifted him by his skull. I had never touched a person so directly, and I marveled at the feel of soft flesh. He squirmed in my grasp, the book falling from his fingers as he clawed at my iron-like grip.
“Release me!” he croaked, legs kicking. The pages of my master’s precious book scattered across the damp floor beneath his flailing feet, igniting my senses.
Soiled. Ruined. Because of this man.
A surge of anger overcame me. Without another thought I crushed his head. His skull shattered easily within my grip, for my hands are made of stone.
The intruder’s fluid emptied upon the ground, further desecrating the discarded book. Not quite comprehending what I’d done, and unsure what to do next, I stood motionless for a long period, the passage of time marked only by the decreasing drip of his juices.
The intruder claimed my master was dead. He disturbed my master’s possessions. In my carelessness, I had further spoiled them. A dark suggestion crept into my mind: had I failed in my duty to protect these treasures?
Months passed as this question consumed me. The blood on the cavern floor crusted. Yet still I stood there, holding the intruder’s decaying corpse. As he deteriorated, his rotting body began to slip. Not wishing to disturb the ruined pages further, I threw the remains into the corner where waste collected. Let the rodents and maggots consume as they would.
How would I know if my master was truly dead? I couldn’t recall if he ever specified how long he’d be gone. I understood he was old by the accounting of humans, but I also knew he possessed great power. In his studies, I’d heard him murmur about the extension of life. Such things had not mattered to me then. All I cared for now were the desecrated pages and the possibility that I had failed.
I despaired and longed for his return in the most silent of ways.
More months passed, and the intruder decomposed to bone. On one of those days, I sensed new footsteps approaching. I grew suspicious, as I felt many pairs this time.
Resigned to more invaders, I shifted my frame toward the lone cavern entrance. The memory of the previous intruder remained fresh. Rage boiled within me, fueled by my embedded instincts and by my lingering frustration of how the last intruder ruined my master’s book. I clenched my fists and waited for them to come. This time, I would not fail.
They descended the carved stairs. I counted a dozen heavy figures, all wearing metal boots, and—judging by the clanking noises—similar metal clothes over their bodies. They rushed into the open room, fanning out along either wall.
I stood motionless in their midst. Their feet kicked up the ubiquitous dust that normally lay around the room, and I heard steel weapons being drawn. One of the invaders knelt near the midden heap where I’d thrown the previous intruder. I felt him stand and turn in my direction.
“By the right of the Emperor,” he called, his voice slightly muffled as if something covered his head, “I declare judgment on you, abomination, for the death of Sen’Pollus.”
“Where is my master?” I thundered, not caring for their judgments. The cavern shuddered with the might of my voice. Dirt and tiny stones rained from the ceiling.
Metal scraped as several of them shifted in fear. An invader to my left eased a few steps forward, trying to move unnoticed.
“The sorcerer Qual’Jom received what he deserved,” sneered the captain. “He delved too far into the forbidden arts. Now with the slaying of Sen’Pollus, his tower and this dungeon below it are claimed by the Emperor.”
I loomed before them. “This place will not be defiled.”
They heeded me not and attacked, beginning with the one to my left. I obliterated him with my fist. The rest fell upon me like stalactites in a deep earthquake, yet I prove
d to be as invincible as the mountain. Their metal weapons shattered on my skin, hardly scratching the surface.
They screamed in the end. Eventually only two remained: the leader and one other. The lesser man fled for the exit, well out of my reach. Without thought, I stomped my foot down hard, pulverizing the ground. The floor beneath the fleeing coward thundered upward, ramming a pillar of rock to the ceiling, pinning and crushing him there.
I marveled at what I had just done. Somehow, I’d cast my mind and energy out my foot and channeled it through the stone floor at a speed faster than thought. The earth obeyed my instinctive command and re-formed itself to my will.
In that moment of dazed wonder, the leader of the invaders assaulted me, leaping and swinging a great sword with considerable strength. The mighty blow landed true, chipping a fragment from my neck, but his sword shattered to worthless pieces.
“Hateful beast!” he cursed, tears of rage in his voice. “You—!”
I crushed him with a swing of my arm and a bellow of my stone lungs.
Corpses littered the floor all around me. Twelve invaders now joined the original intruder in death. Arms pulled wide, I roared my rage to the vaulted ceiling, a challenge to any aggressor seeking to defile my master’s dwelling. They could come, but I would tear them apart.
Splattered blood ran down my hands and body, following the chiseled rivulets of my stone form. I reveled in my brutality and felt no remorse.
For my heart is made of stone.
I sensed every fallen book and broken inkwell. Many of my master’s precious possessions littered the cave, smashed and fouled by the fighting.
I moved about, intending to clean up the bodies and bring some semblance of order to the chaos. But with every step I took, my cumbersome feet crushed another implement or scattered more pages of a fallen tome. I silently cursed the invaders for their reckless devastation. Their vengeful greed in seeking my destruction yielded naught but the ruin of my master’s dwelling.
I made my way to the back of the cavern, near the summoning circle, and hunched down. This nook comforted me. I sought solace there, my thoughts dancing.
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