Angular Momentum

"You signed up for the Ironarm?" Duggan stared at me as if I'd announced I was going to knit a sweater for a dragon. "Borin, the first event is the Anvil Toss."

"I know."

"You can barely lift your textbooks."

"That's an exaggeration."

"Last week you asked me to open a jar."

"It was a very tight jar."

The tournament was held in the Grand Hall, a cavernous chamber carved from living granite, its ceiling lost in shadow and its walls lined with the stern oil portraits of every headmaster the Academy had ever produced. Forty-three scowling dwarves in gilded frames, the largest and most prominent being the current headmaster, Grandmaster Obrak Ironjaw — painted mid-lecture, one finger raised, his expression suggesting he had just caught someone reading for fun.

The stands were packed. The entire Academy had turned out. And there, in the royal box, her copper hair catching the lantern light, sat Gloria Sparklebright.

She was watching. She was watching.

My event was the Anvil Toss. Simple enough in concept: pick up the anvil, throw the anvil, try not to die. The current record was held by Brokk Hammerfist, a dwarf so muscular that other muscles were jealous of his muscles.

My strategy was different. I'd been reading — of course I'd been reading — a human book on something called "physics." Apparently, if you spin before you throw, you can generate more force through something the humans call "angular momentum." The book had diagrams. The diagrams had arrows. The arrows were very convincing.

I stepped up to the anvil. The crowd went quiet — not out of respect, I think, but out of a sort of morbid curiosity, the way you watch a cart roll toward a cliff.

I gripped the handles. I lifted. So far, so good. The anvil was only slightly heavier than my entire body.

Then I began to spin.

The physics book had not mentioned the part where you need to be able to stop spinning. This, I now realize, was a critical omission.

I spun once. Twice. On the third rotation, the Grand Hall became a blur of lanterns and startled faces. The anvil, which was supposed to leave my hands in a graceful arc toward the measuring pit, instead left my hands in entirely the wrong direction.

Upward. And slightly to the left.

Toward the wall of headmaster portraits.

Time slowed down, the way it does when something truly catastrophic is about to happen and the universe wants to make sure you appreciate every detail. I watched the anvil sail through the air with the lazy grace of a very heavy bird. I watched it clip the gilded frame of Grandmaster Obrak Ironjaw's portrait. I watched the portrait — the largest in the hall, six feet of oil paint and institutional authority — tear clean off the wall and crash onto the refreshment table below, where it landed face-first in a vat of ceremonial stonebrew.

The splash was magnificent.

Stonebrew rained down on the first three rows. A platter of roasted mushrooms launched itself into the air. The portrait bobbed in the vat like a very dignified boat, the Grandmaster's painted face slowly absorbing ale through his ceremonial sash.

The Grand Hall went silent.

Then, from the royal box, came a sound. A single, bright, unmistakable sound — like someone dropping a bag of gold coins down a very pleasant staircase.

Gloria was laughing.

For one shining moment, I thought: it worked.

Then a hand landed on my shoulder. A very large hand. A hand that had gripped that exact shoulder once before, during the Inkwell Incident of Year Three, and I had hoped would never grip it again.

I turned around. Slowly. The way you turn when you already know exactly what you're going to see but your body insists on confirming it anyway.

Grandmaster Obrak Ironjaw stood behind me. The real one. In the flesh. Stonebrew dripped from the hem of his robe. A roasted mushroom clung to his left boot. Behind him, his portrait floated serenely in the vat, gazing up at the ceiling with an expression that somehow looked even more disappointed than usual.

"Hello, Grandmaster," I said, because apparently when I panic, I become polite.

He looked at me. He looked at the vat. He looked at the anvil-shaped hole in the wall where his portrait had been. He looked at the three rows of ale-soaked spectators. Then he looked back at me.

"Borin," he said, in a voice like grinding boulders, "you will scrub every tunnel, every passage, and every refuse chute in the lower levels of this Academy. You will scrub them until they shine. You will scrub them until I shine. And you will begin tonight."

As I was marched out of the Grand Hall, dripping with stonebrew and shame, I glanced back at the royal box.

Gloria caught my eye. She grinned. And she mouthed two words:

"Nice throw."

I am going to scrub so many tunnels.