Giant Read online

  THE MERLIN SAGA

  MERLIN: Book 1: The Lost Years

  MERLIN: Book 2: The Seven Songs

  MERLIN: Book 3: The Raging Fires

  MERLIN: Book 4: The Mirror of Fate

  MERLIN: Book 5: A Wizard’s Wings

  MERLIN: Book 6: The Dragon of Avalon

  MERLIN: Book 7: Doomraga’s Revenge

  MERLIN: Book 8: Ultimate Magic

  MERLIN: Book 9: The Great Tree of Avalon

  MERLIN: Book 10: Shadows on the Stars

  MERLIN: Book 11: The Eternal Flame

  MERLIN: Book 12: The Book of Magic

  MERLIN: Book 13: Giant: The Unlikely Origins of Shim

  THE WISDOM OF MERLIN: 7 Magical Words for a Meaningful Life

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Philomel Books,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by T. A. Barron

  Map copyright © 2000 by Ian Schoenherr

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Philomel Books is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  Ebook ISBN 9780593203514

  Edited by Kelsey Murphy

  Cover art © 2021 and design by Tony Sahara

  Design by Monique Sterling, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  pid_prh_5.8.0_c0_r0

  To

  all the little giants

  I’ve known and loved

  CONTENTS

  A Special Message . . .

  1. Big Feet

  2. Twelve Years Later

  3. The Living Mist

  4. Elf

  5. Bright Flames

  6. True Name

  7. Dance of the Giants

  8. The River Unceasing

  9. Flowers of Peace

  10. Marsh Ghouls

  11. No Turning Back

  12. Domnu

  13. Emptiness

  14. Prisoner

  15. Wings

  16. A Voice

  17. The Leaper

  18. Secret Hideaway

  19. Beware

  20. A Plan

  21. Downward

  22. True of Heart

  23. Fortress

  24. The Chase

  25. The Island

  26. The Secret Door

  27. The Last of Her Kind

  28. Bones and Stones

  29. All the Light

  Some Time Later . . .

  A SPECIAL MESSAGE . . .

  Shim is my name—and a grandly name it is, deserving all the praise it never got. Certainly, definitely, absolutely!

  But my original name was muchly bigger. Just as my original self was muchly bigger—a long way from the smallsy, utterly shrunkelled self who first met Merlin. How did that change really happen?

  That is the story I’d like to tell you now. It’s the tale of a verily small person . . . with some verily big dreams.

  1.

  BIG FEET

  “Seventeen boulders!” crowed the midwife Gargolyn. Though she herself was a giant, she strained to lift the squirming baby in her hands. “That’s a hefty weight for a newlyborn, even for a giant.”

  Turning slowly in the sunlight, Gargolyn observed the baby closely, from his pudgy nose down to his unusually large feet. True to the giants’ ancient traditions, the baby’s mother, Vonya, had chosen to give birth outdoors. It had been a long pregnancy, lasting thirteen months—but here they were at last, in the roofless, open-air Birthing Pavilion.

  Set in the middle of a garden and walled by hedges, the Pavilion was encircled by columns that had been carved centuries before from a hillside of silver quartz, the sparkling white rock that Fincayrans called giantstone. Those majestic columns reached skyward to the height of medium-size spruce trees—which is to say they reached only up to the elbows of most fully grown giants. On each column were carvings of paired faces—one belonging to a famous giant, about whom bards had sung songs and told stories for ages, and the other belonging to that giant’s mother . . . who had, in most cases, given birth right here at this very place.

  “Hefty weight indeed,” Vonya declared, a proud smile on her face. Carefully, she raised her enormous bulk higher on the mattress stuffed with willow boughs and rushes. “Now give him back to his mother, you hear? Before you drop that weight on your toes.”

  Wrinkling her leathery brow, the midwife scowled. Even as she trembled with the weight, she grumbled, “I’ve held hundreds of babies in my time, and never dropped a single one.”

  Vonya reached her arms, as thick and sturdy as tree trunks, toward her baby. “I’m sure that’s true . . . but not many of them weighed as much as half a mountain.”

  “Right.” Gargolyn’s scowl melted into a grin. “In fact, none of them was as big at birth as this one.” As she passed the baby over to Vonya, she added, “Half his weight, I daresay, is from these plumpish feet. Just look at the size of them!”

  As if on cue, the baby kicked wildly, almost smacking the midwife’s nose.

  “At least half.” Vonya chuckled as she took the baby and folded her strong arms around him. “I’m tempted to call him Big Feet . . . until he earns his true name.”

  “No, too irreverent,” said the old midwife, shaking her ropes of gray hair. “A young giant deserves a nickname that’s more, well, respectable. Something befitting a member of Fincayra’s oldest race—the island’s first people, the ones our great spirit Dagda carved out of the holy mountain.”

  “I know, I know,” Vonya replied. “But sometimes the old traditions need a new look. Even our creation stories need to be rewritten from time to time.”

  “Nonsense,” Gargolyn sputtered. “What kind of mother would teach her child such silliness?”

  “This one,” declared Vonya. Brushing back her auburn curls, which looked more like a wild bramble bush than a head of hair, she peered closely at her child. His pink eyes stared up at her, bright with life and curiosity . . . and also a hint of mischief.

  “Well, hello, my little jelly roll,” she cooed. “Something tells me you’re going to be writing a whole lot of new stories with your life.”

  The baby giant blinked his eyes, slowly and meaningfully, almost as if he understood.

  Vonya sighed, slumping a bit on the willow mattress. “I only wish your papa could be here to see you.” She wiped her huge forearm across her eyes. “He’d have loved to play with your chubby toes.”

  Like a tall tree that suddenly folded itself down to a smaller size, Gargolyn knelt beside the young mother and her baby. Although her old knees crac
ked so loud they frightened a nearby family of rabbits, who scampered away to hide in the hedges, the midwife spoke softly and gently. “My dear, I feel your loss. Jonkl was a great giant—and he would have made a very fine papa.”

  Vonya drew a halting breath. “He told me to be brave . . . that day when he left to fight against Gawr.” She wiped her eyes again. “He just didn’t say how brave.”

  Gargolyn’s wrinkled hand touched her shoulder. “When our wizardking Tuatha asked us to send our strongest giants to help him defeat the evil warlord Gawr, we all knew there was great risk. And when your Jonkl left, he knew he was fighting for all of us . . . including your child.”

  “I just wish . . .” said Vonya in a whisper that seemed impossibly soft for a fully grown giant, “that I could see him again . . . and show him our son.”

  “Someday you will,” assured the older giant. “In the Realm of the Spirits. Without doubt, he is there right now, standing next to Dagda. And,” she added with a nod at the varied faces carved into the columns, “with the spirits of all these great giants who came before.”

  She paused, looking at Vonya with compassion. “He knows, I’m sure, that his great bravery helped Tuatha win that battle and drive away Gawr.”

  With her free hand, Gargolyn gestured toward the immense stone towers and buildings, fountains and gates, visible beyond the Pavilion. “Thanks to him, we are safe here in Varigal. All of us . . . including his beloved wife and child.”

  Vonya nodded slowly, then turned back to the baby in her arms. Looking deep into his eyes, she said, “Now we must be brave together, you and I.”

  Even as he gazed up at her, the baby giant reached out his hand and wrapped it tightly around his mother’s thumb. Astonished, she caught her breath. Was that just a coincidence? Or had that tiny little hand just made a gesture with giant-size meaning?

  “I daresay,” she told her son, “you will give us some very special stories.”

  2.

  TWELVE YEARS LATER

  “Hold still now, Big Feet!”

  Vonya struggled not to impale her son with her sewing needle, made from the rib of a whale whose body had washed ashore last winter on Fincayra’s southern coast, as she tried valiantly to mend his torn britches. That job was difficult enough because he was still wearing them—and even more difficult because of his enormous size. Though just twelve years old, Big Feet already stood taller than all the other young giants in Varigal, and half a human height taller than the imposing lass whose nickname was Sister Behemoth. Even now, bent over so his mother could work on the ripped barkcloth covering his backside, his rump rose up like a miniature mountain.

  “Why won’t you take these off so I can mend them properly?” Vonya pleaded.

  “Because if I took them off, I’d surely and purely rip them again.”

  “This is the third time this week I’ve had to stitch you up,” she grumbled, pulling on her vine thread.

  “And probobily not the last one, neither,” he declared in his unique vernacular. “I’m muchly good at throwing and stomping and other giantly things . . . but I’m especially good at ripping my britches!”

  Though completely bent over, with his forehead resting on the grassy turf, his whole body quaked as he chuckled at his joke.

  “Quit laughing, will you?” Vonya shook her head so hard that her earrings, consisting of three wagon wheels hanging from each ear, knocked loudly, like tree branches smacking together in a storm. “I need you to stay still.”

  But he kept on chuckling mirthfully.

  “If you don’t stop, I’m going to stab you with this needle.”

  “That would hurtly something awful,” he replied, finally seeing the wisdom in her words. For good measure, he added, “Certainly, definitely, absolutely!”

  A few minutes later, she finished, tying off the vine thread. Giving a smack to his rump, she declared, “All right now. Try to keep these britches intact for at least another day or two.”

  The lad stood up, rising to his full gargantuan height. Though still a young adult, he stood just as tall as his parent. He grinned at her, crinkling his nose, as he decided to give her a special nickname. “I will, my one and only Motherly.”

  Unable to suppress her own grin, she nodded. “Motherly, is it? Well, that’s just as unique as everything else you say. You can call me that . . . so long as I can still call you my jelly roll.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m way too bigly for that now! Can’t you call me something more grownupish? More, you know, maturely?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “Now you go and find yourself some fun. Any ideas?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the mountainous terrain beyond the towering stone buildings. “Well, I’ll just go find something giantly to do. Maybe I’ll throw some boulders at the moon? Or shout thunderly across a canyon to scare some wyverns?”

  Vonya shook her head, clinking her wagon wheel earrings again. “Stay away from any wyverns, you hear? They may be smaller than most dragons, but a pack of them can maim or kill a giant—even one as big as you.”

  He scowled. “No wyverns could everly hurt me. I’m so bigly, more bigly by the day! And someday . . . I’ll be the bigliest giant in history, higher than the highliest tree.”

  With a sigh, she looked at him lovingly. “Probably true. But it won’t happen if you get mauled by wyverns. Do you understand?”

  “No.” Squaring his shoulders, he twisted a bare foot into the ground, crushing several rocks under his weight. “You still treat me like a child—always so worriedly.”

  “That’s because you are my child.” She looked at him soulfully. “My only child.”

  “But I’m not a baby!”

  “That’s for sure,” she said with the hint of a grin. “No baby could hold so much food as you do. Especially—”

  “Honey!” The thought of his most favorite thing to eat suddenly perked him up. “Methinks I’ll go find a munchily log full of honey.”

  “Good idea. Off you go now! Just mind your britches, all right?”

  “Certainly, definitely, absolutely!”

  He turned and strode off, his thoughts already dripping with honeyed anticipation. In less than a minute, he thumped down Varigal’s central street and through the market square, a place that always hummed with activity. On some days, like today, it held merchants’ carts from all across the island; on other occasions, it hosted the giants’ public meetings and boisterous celebrations.

  Seconds later, Big Feet passed through the city’s main gates. He nodded in greeting to the pair of guards, and they tipped their tall treespears in return. Striding past them, he left the walled city and entered the wild lands beyond.

  With a bounce in his step, he headed toward the nearest hill. Pursing his lips, he thought about the conversation he’d just had with his mother. She didn’t understand how much he’d grown—not just in size, but in maturity. Why, he was almost an adult! What he needed now was not protection but freedom. Independence. And something else, something that called to him more every day.

  “Adventure,” he declared as he strode up the slope. “That’s what I’d like, muchly more than anything.”

  Reaching the crest of the hill, he raised his bulbous nose and sniffed the air. Like most giants, he was blessed with an extraordinary sense of smell . . . and this spot offered a rich array of aromas.

  The first smells that came to him were from trees—the sweet sap of spruce, the calming scent of beech, the pungent odor of harshflower. Then . . . an owl’s nest, in the hollow of a tree somewhere nearby, full of crumpled feathers, mouse bones, moist moss, and old eggshells. A family of porcupines out foraging, their quills sticky with sap. The remains of a lightning strike, over on the next hill perhaps, smelling like charred wood and burned grass. A foxes’ den, crammed with meat scraps and sinew from last night’s meal.

 
Suddenly, his nose quivered. An electric thrill passed through him, exciting his whole body.

  Honey! he realized. Not far away from here . . . maybe on the other side of that rocky ravine.

  He strode across the top of the hill, covering the distance in just a few steps of his massive feet. Down the slope he crashed, flattening bushes and windblown branches under his weight. Following the sweet scent, he hopped across the ravine, pausing only to kick a boulder that sat precariously on the edge. It smashed on the opposite side, frightening a herd of deer grazing in the shadows below. Instantly, they bolted off down the ravine.

  The young giant veered to the right, plunged through a grove of pines—and stopped abruptly at the edge of a marsh. He smacked his lips with satisfaction . . . as well as anticipation.

  There, right in front of him, stood the broken trunk of an old sycamore. Hundreds of bees hovered around the trunk, buzzing loudly. For a few seconds, he stood there, taller than the remains of the tree, a hungry gleam in his eyes.

  “Time for hollowings and swallowings,” he declared. Stepping up to the honey tree, he plunged his hand down into the broken top. Shards of wood and bark exploded in all directions, while honey oozed from every knothole. The bees, meanwhile, panicked and buzzed excitedly, swarming around the gargantuan creature who had dared to attack their hive.

  Big Feet, however, didn’t mind. “Noisy little buzzers! Don’t you know my skin is way too thick to get stingded?” For an instant, he wondered how much more vulnerable to bee stings someone smaller would be. “But I is bigly, much too bigly to care!”

  He pulled his hand out of the tree, which made a loud slurping noise. Honey, gooey and golden, pooled in his palm and slid down his fingers. Eagerly, he swallowed the sweet substance. Then he licked his fingers clean and, disregarding the enraged bees, plunged his hand back into the tree. After several more swallows, he grinned happily, his chin dripping with rivers of honey . . . and his craving at least temporarily satisfied.

  Turning to go, he waved to the bees. “Don’t be so angrily, little buzzers. I left you plenty.” His grin widened as he thought, That is, until I come back again.