Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 123 of 619

Ajax kept the ring closed in his fist until Marco came down the stair. Marco had slept in the small back room. His shirt was open at the collar, gold chain against his skin, gold bracelet on his wrist. He stopped at the bar and waited. "Sit," Ajax said. He set the ring on the wood between them. "Tucker had this hidden. You put it on and you wear another man's face, body, clothes, and voice. Chalam says it can't be broken or scried. You'll wear it when the rider comes." Marco looked at the band. He didn't reach for it. "Who should I become?" he asked. Ajax had not thought that far. He had thought about the ring, the bar, the back room, Chalam's ear against the wall. He had not thought about the face. "Someone the rider knows," Ajax said. "Someone he'd walk in easy to." "I don't know his people." Marco touched the bracelet on his wrist, then let his hand fall. "But he does. Let me listen for him on the road. Whoever he pictures first when he sees this door, that's who I wear." Ajax weighed it. It would keep Marco inside the ward. It also meant the door would open to a friend. "You can hold that far?" he asked. "Far enough. I'll go up to the roof at first light. When he's a street away I'll have his face." "And if he brings another man." "Then I'll have two faces to choose from," Marco said. "I only need one." Tucker came in from the back with two cups and set one down for each of them. He did not sit. "He'll expect the ring," Tucker said. "The spiral one. If he asks for it, don't fumble. Say Renn kept it." Marco nodded once. He picked the band off the bar and slid it onto his finger without ceremony. His hair shortened and turned blonde. His beard thinned to stubble. His shoulders narrowed and he wore a fitted leather vest over an open shirt. A leaner man sat where Marco had been. "Voice," Ajax said. "So what do you think" The voice was different, clipped. "Am I as good-looking as I was before?" He pulled the ring off. He put it back on and took the form of a young-looking boy. "This form won't be noticed as I watch for the rider if I'm noticed. I'll try not to be." Tucker went to wake Chalam. Marco climbed the stair to the roof, sat with his back to the chimney, and reached out across the dark street for a rider he could not yet see. The plan had a face now. It just did not have a name.