Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 256 of 619

Chalam came to the hall the next morning with the bronze ring in his hand. He had spent the night with the book. Ajax was at the table with Grayson, weighing the last of the cut coin. Aldric sat beside them, the ledger open. "I read it," Chalam said. He set the ring down. "It is a caller. It allows the wearer to send a mental message to someone at any distance.” Aldric leaned in and studied the ring without touching it. Grayson set down the coin. "So it goes in the vault with the rest." "No," Ajax said. He thought of the workings piled in cloth all winter, each one a thing that could turn on a man who forgot its weight. "We have too many unused things sitting sealed. Chalam names them all. Then we decide what holds and what we sell." Chalam went down the row he had wrapped the day before. He named each one plain. The copper armband warmed the wearer. The glass beads lit themselves. The horn dampened sound. The bone-grip knife cut silence. The healing cloth closed one wound. The bracer that hid a man from scrying. The ring that stopped one blade. He named the caller last. "Some earn their keep," Aldric said. "The cloth. The bracer. The blade-stop. Those a man carries and lives longer. The caller earns nothing but a message we cannot answer." Ajax weighed it. He had learned the cost of a working left where a curious hand could reach it. Each one had bought him trouble. "Then we split them," Ajax said. "The useful ones go to the men who can hold them. Marco keeps the bracer. Aldric keeps the blade-stop on him at all times. The cloth to Elara. Give the copper armband to Bran to let him work through the winter. The rest stays in the vault sealed, named in the ledger, drawn only with my word and Grayson's key. The message ring goes to Tucker to wear always. It will help with his trips to the city.” Grayson nodded and reached for his key. "I'll load the sealed ones tonight." Aldric drew a line under the last item and closed the ledger. "Every working accounted for," he said. The house was fed and the vault was clean.