The afternoon sun shone brightly in the sky, so Glim thought his chances were good of finding the gardener Daryna working outside. Glim walked the same path he walked every morning: out of the tower, around the wall to the stairs, hide to check for others, then sneak down the stairs into the town. Tiptoe down the path that ran between a jumble of buildings assembled from the fallen stones of the fortress walls, and patched with mud and thatch.

The gardens grew over to one side, off the beaten path, a place that Glim had hardly ever gone. In previous years he hadn’t been tall enough to see anything, which bored him. But now he’d grown enough to peer over the maze of low stone walls.

Not entirely stone, however. Brownish-yellow brass pipes and holes ran in neat lines along the wall. Some stained with blue speckles of corrosion. And the stones had been seamlessly fitted. Not patched with mud like the other buildings in town.

“Impressive, is it not?” a voice spoke behind him. Glim jumped, feeling guilty, though he didn’t know why. As though the place had a sacred air to it, and he’d intruded.

He turned to see Daryna, who neither smiled nor frowned from the shadow cast by her wide-brimmed hat. The woman’s hands drew his attention. At first Glim thought the gardener wore gloves. But at second glance, she merely had dirt-stained hands, with leathery lines etched into the creases of her skin.

“Don’t usually get visitors this way,” she said. “Need something? You know I can’t hand out snacks. You’ll have to wait until supper.”

“Um, no, miss Daryna. I don’t need anything really. Not a snack I mean.”

“Oh? What are you looking for, then?”

“I… er, that is…”

“Glim, you aren’t in trouble. What can I do for you?”

“I thought maybe I could take care of a plant? Dastard Willow — I mean, Master Willow thinks it will help me be happier.”

Daryna smirked behind her hand. “Does he now? I suppose he wants you to learn about the really nasty ones that go into potions and such? Slashberries? Mumweed? That sort of thing?”

“No, just take care of some plants is all.”

“I see. In some ways that is simple enough, but it’s also not simple at all. It gets pretty cold around here. If it wasn’t for these,” Daryna ran her hand along one of the garden beds, “we’d have run out of food centuries ago.”

Glim looked at the low stone beds more closely. A grid of some kind stretched over the top; thin pipes with holes, which dripped some kind of goo into the plants below. Neat rows of cabbages with glossy purple leaves sat on the dirt. Pallid, wilted looking ferns of some kind with yellow leaves so thin as to be transparent grew behind them. Reddish-brown beet tops peeked over the soil, which made Glim gag a little. Further down, tall bushes with purple leaves rose above the other plants. Each centered in its own square of pipes. The beds were much more precise than Glim had realized.

“What are they?”

“A legacy given to us by The Elderkin. A system so genius for its simplicity, yet complex in its own right. It takes constant effort to keep it going.”

“What kind of effort?”

“Come, I’ll show you.”

Daryna walked with Glim down the long path through row after row of garden beds. They came to a building with lots of windows, with a sound like fountains within. When he entered, Glim saw massive cylindrical tanks of brass rising from the floor. Metal walkways ran between them.

A potent stench of dirty water and acrid decay hit Glim like a door in the face. Followed by a rot so putrid it made Glim want to retch.

“Lovely, isn’t it!” Daryna laughed.

“What is that smell?”

“See for yourself.”

They walked up a stairway onto a metal walkway. Daryna led him to the edge of one of the tanks, which were much thicker than he’d expected, and lined with a glassy material. Pools of murky water bubbled inside them, burping foul bubbles of gas.

Hanging above the water, Glim found the source of the stench. Dung lures hung from hooks, clustered around a cage stuffed full of rotting meat. Droplets of wriggling white ooze fell from the meat into the water.

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No, not ooze. Maggots. A steady rain of maggots dropped into the water.

“Ewww!” Glim shrieked.

“Still want to take care of the plants?”

“Why is meat rotting in here?”

“It’s for these.” Daryna patted the side of the tank. “Something’s alive down in there, and it needs to be fed. There’s lights on the surface of the water at night, too. The bugs flock to the reflections and drown. I don’t ask questions. I’ve seen dead fish float to the top from time to time. But there’s something even deeper. Not sure what.”

“Something… alive? Down there?”

“Yep. Maggots go into the water, fish eat the maggots, something eats the fish, it poops, the water goes into the garden, and the garden spits it back into the tanks. The plants filter the poop, which cleans the water. The water and waste sustains the plants. There’s more to it but that’s the gist.”

“What’s in there, do you think?”

“Not sure. This whole region used to thrive. If you look at the fossils nearby, it’s clear that this entire region was stuffed full of plants. Lush, tall, and laden with fruit. Most of them long gone from this world. I can only guess what they were. Not just plants. Huge lizards and chickens. Deer of some kind. But the most impressive one I’ve seen is a huge, I mean HUGE, cat.”

“Here? But, it’s too cold for all that.”

“Didn’t used to be. The mountains used to be warm, Hot, even. As far as I can tell this was a tropical paradise to rival Welkin Ring. But the Elderkin foresaw what no one else could. They made this system so long ago that all those things were still alive. There wasn’t any reason to build all this. You could just walk outside and gorge yourself full of food. And yet, here we are.”

“How do you know all this?”

“From the records. They go back thousands of years. Talking about nonsense, mostly. I can’t even guess at what resources the Elderkin used to have. Fortunately, these plants survive. Next time someone hands you beet stew, you should thank Æolia that you have beets in your bowl.”

Glim wasn’t so sure about that. But beets were definitely better than dung lures or rotting meat. He looked around for piles of bones, or some weird creature peeking above the water. That would be worth it. He could casually stroll into the dining hall with a handful of bones and munch on them, right in front of Pyri’s nosy face. Or talk about the monster in the tanks, and how Glim was the only one Daryna trusted enough to watch over it. Maybe the creature would love Glim so much it would follow him into town, like a pet, and growl at anyone who got in his way.

Now more hopeful than ever, Glim scoured the place for any sign of such things. He didn’t find any, but did see something much better. Behind the tanks, tall vines with broad, brown leaves climbed up a grid of metal poles. Glim could just spot a few wrinkled pea pods. His eyes lit up.

“Oh, fine. Take some.” Daryna plucked a few pods and handed them over.

Glim placed a whitish-yellow pea pod onto the tip of his tongue, savoring the fuzzy texture. He chomped into it with gusto. With a satisfying crunch, the peas released their sweet, starchy elixir. Glim sighed appreciatively.

This must be what the Suggested Accumulations scroll meant. The anticipation, the texture, the reward of sweet pea juice… it sparkled his brain. Glim made a note of it in his mind. Chomping peas would definitely go on his list.

“Believe it or not, these aren’t that hard to grow. If you want, I can give you a pot and you can put one on your window sill. One that faces that way.” Daryna pointed south, towards the Avaunt Mountains.

The one place where Glim was not allowed to go.

Master Willow had made it quite clear. If Glim ever crossed those mountains, his fragile gift of plying algidon might vanish forever. He’d told father as much. A boy who plies ice could only have been born here. In this gods-forsaken wasteland where Phyr fears to go. The only pure refuge of algidon in all of Æronthrall. The moment that the essentiæ of Phyr washed over Glim, it might chase the ice away forever.

How many times had he pictured it? Leaving Wohn-Grab in the cover of darkness, hopping onto a horse, and making a dash for the Avaunt Mountains. Down the trail to Summerling Ridge, where this cursed ice would forever melt out of his veins. Then he’d be free of the lessons. Free to join the other kids in their “real work” of doing chores. Or even make a hut among the everbrown trees and live with the rabbits.

But deep down inside, something stopped him. Glim suspected that, if he threw this gift aside, it would break something in his father. He’d see it as a betrayal. Or maybe even spitting in the face of his father’s very purpose. He loved leading the guard. But seeing Glim succeed meant far more to him. The way he got so nervous and tense when he talked about it.

Guilt stirred inside him and Glim sighed. “Yes, miss Daryna. I’d really like that.”

The gardener ushered Glim into yet another building, this one filled with tables. Daryna found a pot just small enough that Glim could carry it without tipping over. Some sort of crushed stone filled it, with specks of black dirt sprinkled throughout. Daryna opened a metal cabinet, pulled out a drawer, and plucked something out of it with her fingertips. She handed Glim a trio of wrinkled yellow dots.

“Push them in about half a finger,” she demonstrated. “Spread them out. In ten days or so you should see two purple leaves pop out. Those are your plants. Keep them moist, but don’t add too much water. If water runs out this hole here you’ve added way too much. Then just keep it warm. If a snowstorm comes, pull it inside so the peas don’t freeze. I’ll give you some special water to dump in there from time to time.”

Glim listened intently and nodded.

His own pea plant? That was worth paying attention for.

Glim waddled out of the garden, hefting the pot and bowing his knees to handle the weight. Carefully walking the stairs, taking a break from time to time, he finally got home. The stairs to his study room nearly made Glim cry. His arms were already wobbly. But he gutted it out, finally heaving the pot onto the wide windowsill that faced south.

Dusty and dirty, with years of grime caked into its rim, the pot rested in it’s new home. Glim had never seen anything more beautiful.