Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 13 of 619

Ajax stood over the treasure on the dry rock. He had gold enough to hire a crew from any town within a week's ride. He could not use it. Not yet. Bringing strangers here meant showing them the pit, the collars, the paw mark that matched his own. Word would travel. The wrong man would come back for what the mason left. Ajax closed the iron plate over the coin and looked at the cliff at their backs. They needed a roof tonight, and he could not buy one. Chalam watched him think. The wizard's robe hung open at the chest, wet at the hem from the tide. He held the staff loose in one hand. The satchel at his green belt sagged against his hip. He had one vial left in it, and Ajax knew the count. "You want walls before you want builders," Chalam said. "I want walls tonight." "I can raise them. Stone from the shelf. Fitted dry. It will hold weather and hold men out." Chalam paused. "It will cost me the last vial. And two days on my feet after." "Do it." Tucker leaned on a boulder and picked at his mustache. "He drops for two days, we're down a wizard when something comes looking for those collars." "He's up in two days," Ajax said. "Walls last longer." Asher gathered the gold chains off the dry rock and passed each man his own. He held his own chain in his palm a beat before he clipped it back on. "Where do you want the door," he asked Ajax. "Facing the road. Away from the pit." Chalam walked the ground and set chalk lines from his satchel. He marked a square against the cliff, big enough for six to sleep and a fire between them. He drove the staff into a seam in the shelf. He unstoppered the third vial and poured it along the chalk. The oil ran and did not spread. He spoke one word. The shelf groaned. Stone lifted out of the shelf itself in fitted blocks, rising along the chalk lines. Walls climbed to a man's height, then above. Slabs slid across the top and locked. A doorway held open where Asher had pointed. Dust fell from the joints and stopped. The whole working took the time it takes to skin a rabbit. Chalam went to one knee. The staff stayed upright in the seam. His face was gray. Tucker caught him under the arm before he tipped. Ajax walked into the house. The air inside was still. He set his hand on the inner wall and felt the cold of deep rock. He walked back out. "We hold here," he said. "No hired men on this shelf until I know what the collars were for. Tucker, you ride to Southern Oak in the morning. Buy grain, buy salt, buy silence. Marco stays on the pit. Asher stays on Chalam." He had a house. He still did not have a warhouse.