Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 503 of 619

The chains warned Ajax of betrayal now, but a warning came too late if he did not know who sent the traitors. He had caught keepers with charmed silver and merchant coin. Someone kept buying his men. Ajax wanted a face and a name. He found Chalam in the yard at first light, packing his satchel. "You can read a ship's deck across the sea," Ajax said. "Can you read a man who has never crossed my gate?" Chalam did not stop packing. "Scrying finds what I've marked or named. I have no mark on this man." He looked up. "Give me a thing he touched. A charm off a bought keeper. That leads back to the hand that made it." Ajax fetched the fifth keeper's chain from the vault, the one charmed to hide from JD. Chalam laid it on the wall. He drew a chalk ring on the stone and set the chain inside it. From his satchel he took powdered lodestone and a shallow bowl of water. He worked the powder into the surface with two fingers. "This may hold," Chalam said. "Or it may not. The charm on this chain fights me. Whoever made it knew scrying might come." He did not soften it. "If it breaks, I lose the thread and the man learns I looked." "Do it," Ajax said. Chalam spoke low words over the bowl. The water clouded, then cleared. A shape formed. A room. A long table. A man in a red coat counting silver into stacks. Ajax leaned close. He knew the coat. The lean trader in the red coat, from the city beyond the Crossing. The one who bought his cloth and needles at triple the port price. "That one," Ajax said. "He sat across from me. I sold to him." Chalam held the working. His jaw tightened. "He's moving. Something pulls at the charm." Sweat ran at his temple. "He knows a working is near his silver. He's cutting it loose." The water darkened. The image folded and was gone. Chalam sat back hard. "He felt me. I got the face and the room. Not the walls around it." "You found him," Ajax said. "That's enough." Chalam wiped the chalk from the stone. "He'll come harder now. He knows we can see." He closed the satchel. "I'd rather have kept the surprise." Ajax looked south, toward the Crossing and the city past it. He had built walls, towns, and a sea route. Now he had the man working against all of it. The red trader wanted his brotherhood scattered and bought. Ajax would not let that stand. He called for Marco.