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.It'll help you seal off not only the air passage, but the energy channels as well."Tavis took another frigid breath, held it, and pushed his tongue to the back of his throat.He tried to exhale.He felt a terrible pressure inside his chest, and it seemed his sternum would crack under the strain.An instant later, the force simply melted away.His torso felt strangely hollow, then his entire body swelled up, not with air, but with muscle and bone.The One Wielder heard Basil's voice, and something dark and sinister whispered that the runecaster might be calling Sky Cleaver.Tavis put the thought out of his mind and drew another breath."Good.You've grown half-a-foot already," Galgadayle reported."Continue as long as you can.Your body willknow when you can't take any more."Tavis expelled the breath and felt himself swell, then > inhaled again.He continued for many minutes, never i opening his eyes, growing larger and stronger with each lungful of icy air.Soon, his head began to spin, as Galgadayle had warned it would, and his muscles started to burn with weariness."By Stronmaus!" Basil hissed."How are you feeling, Tavis?" Galgadayle asked."Dizzy," the high scout replied."Weak."Tavis gulped down another lungful of frigid air."Perhaps you should stop," Galgadayle suggested."Given your condition and lack of sleep, it might be best not to press matters."Tavis expelled the breath into his body, and again felt his chest grow hollow."One more time," he gasped."When I face Lanaxis, I want.to.be."A whistling roar filled the scout's ears, replacing his own voice.He felt himself falling.It seemed to take forever before his face met the ground, and then he heard a strange choking sound: himself, trying to breath snow as fine as flour.A pair of tiny hands, no larger than those of a child, grasped his shoulder and laboriously rolled him over.Another hand, no larger than the first, slipped between his lips and cleared his breathing passage.'Tavis!" It was Basil's voice, but much more tinny and high-pitched than normal."Are you all right?""He'll be fine." Galgadayle's voice also sounded sharp and high."He needs to sleep.I should have known that as tired and feeble as he is, he wouldn't have the strength to—"Galgadayle suddenly stopped speaking, and Basil hissed, "What's that?"Tavis opened his eyes and saw the faces of his two friends, barely half their normal size.They were looking away from him, back toward the drumlin where the ver-beegs were waiting.Then the One Wielder heard it, Orisino's shrill voice calling out to Sky Cleaver in the ancient language of its divine maker "In the name of—"Tavis sat up, his hands flailing about for the axe, but finding only snow."—Skoraeus Stonebones, Your Maker, O Sky Cleaver—""Enough of that.Move!" hissed Basil.The runecaster pointed at the shimmering silver snowball that still hovered over the fissure, then swung his finger down at Orisino's distant figure."—do I summon you in—"The snowball crashed over Orisino's head, ending the intonation in midword.The silver sphere shattered into a thousand pieces and spilled its shimmering radiance over the chieftain, who immediately fell motionless.His flesh turned as glossy and hard as ice, then he toppled onto his side and did not move."That will keep him quiet," Basil chuckled."At least until he thaws out—which could be quite some time."Tavis continued to thrash about in the snow."My.axe," he gasped."Sky Cleaver!"Galgadayle grabbed the high scout's wrist and guided his hand through the snow.Tavis felt a familiar handle in his palm.Though the shaft was much smaller than he remembered, the One Wielder could feel the energy of Orisino's half-completed call coursing through the ancient ivory.He pulled the weapon to his breast and collapsed back into the snow, his weariness descending upon him like a flight of starving wyverns."That's right, Tavis.Sleep." Galgadayle's whispering voice was fading fast."Rest.Let your friends watch over you until dawn."+ 16* Titan's VaLeTavis stood on the summit of Othea Tor, watching a veil of flaxen sunlight cascade down the Endless Ice Sea's looming face.As the sun behind him rose higher, the curtain fell faster, until it was descending so swiftly that when the sallow light finally reached bottom, it splashed out onto the bleak snows and spread across the entire empty plain in the span of a single expectant breath.Othea's shadow did not fall over the rift so much as appear along its length all at once, and suddenly the high scout found himself staring into the purple bowels of a deep, gloomy abyss.He could hardly comprehend what had happened.There had been no earthquake, no plume of billowing darkness, nor even a thunderous rumble to proclaim the opening of the fissure.The vale had simply appeared, as though it had been there all along and required only the goddess's umbral touch to reveal itself.The abyss was shaped exactly like Othea's shadow: a long, narrow triangle that stretched from the base of the tor to the foot of the Endless Ice Sea.Its walls were as sheer and black as slate, descending more than a hundred feet before they vanished into the swarthy murk that filled the bottom of the chasm.In the center of thisgloom hung the silhouette of a palace roof, supported by nothing that Tavis could see except viscous shadow.The structure appeared to be a harmonious balance of three symmetrical wings arranged around a central cupola, but it was impossible to tell more.The rest of the building remained a dusky, half-sensed enigma, as nebulous and obscure as the vale itself.Tavis turned away from the palace and started down the back of the rugged tor, occasionally stumbling over a crag as he struggled with the length of his new stride.That morning, he had awakened refreshed and famished and not quite the size of a hill giant, as he had discovered when he reached for his rucksack with a hand as large as a buckler.Only after devouring all of his food, and much of Galgadayle's as well, had he paused to inspect his new body.He had found legs as thick as spruce trunks and arms as big as putlogs, and a chest so large a cooper could have bent cask hoops across it.Though the scout stood a full head taller than any firbolg he had ever seen, Galgadayle had not been particularly surprised.The ability to change sizes was primarily a matter of spirit, the seer had explained, and anyone who intended to battle a titan certainly had an ample supply of that.At the bottom of the tor, Tavis found the verbeeg warriors lingering a safe distance away, their hungry eyes fixed, as always, on Sky Cleaver's obsidian head
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