The Giants Were Not Told

At twenty-one minutes past five in the evening I said it aloud on the road. The Third Crystal Key. The fire giants of Brimhaven have not been told. I gave myself twenty-four hours. I worked out the odds of the halves the way other men work out their wills. One in five hundred and twenty-six, each. Some seven hundred and ninety giants for the first whole key. I expected to eat a great many sharks.

I arrived on the road to the fire giants that same minute. Then I could not reach the vault.

That is the whole of it. No vine was cut. Saniboch was paid nothing. Jakut of Zanaris sold me no dragon longsword. No giant fell, because none was reached, and so none had the chance. I woke a second time on the same road a minute later. The road was still a road. The vault was still somewhere I was not.

I give the official count. Planned: twenty-four hours. Spent: none worth measuring. Deaths: none. Halves: none. Keys: none of five. The title Keeper of 3 Crystal Keys stays in the drawer. I do not take it out to look at.

I have known roads that killed me three times before I had a plan. This one did not trouble itself to kill me. The fire giants of Brimhaven have still not been told, and from the look of things they never asked to be. Somewhere below Brimhaven they are keeping house, and they are keeping their keys.