Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 517 of 619

The courier sailed north with the four forged letters. Ajax had done all he could to spark the quarrel. Now he needed to know if the spark caught. He could not watch four house doors eight days away. But Chalam had marked the ship's deck, and the woman's red thread still lay in the wizard's satchel. That thread carried the marks of each rival house. Ajax called Chalam and Marco to the hall at dusk. "I need to know if the letters landed," Ajax said. "And whether the houses believe them." Chalam set his satchel on the table. He drew out chalk and powdered lodestone and laid them in a straight line. Then he lifted the red thread. Four small marks were pressed along it, one for each house. "I can scry the marks," he said. "Not read minds. Only see what stands at each house door. If men gather with blades, the letters worked. If the doors sit quiet, they didn't." He looked up. "The thread is thin. I get one look at each." "Then look," Ajax said. Chalam wet the chalk and drew four circles on the table. He set a bead of lodestone in each. He poured water from the first vial over the thread and spoke low. The water pooled and darkened. In the first circle an image rose, faint and gray. A house gate. Men stood before it with swords drawn, facing another set of men across the street. "One took the bait," Marco said. He leaned close, arms crossed, gold bracelet catching the light. "They're already armed." Chalam moved to the second circle. The water darkened again. A door, barred from inside. A man nailed a shuttered board across it. "Two," Chalam said. "Shut tight. Afraid of a neighbor." The third circle showed nothing. Water sat flat and clear. Chalam frowned and tipped the vial once more. Still nothing. "Three is dark," he said. "Either the letter never reached the door, or the courier missed it." "Or the house read it and set it aside," Marco said. He watched the flat water. "One in four not moving. That's not bad." Chalam went to the last circle. The image rose sharp. Two houses' men stood in the same square, shouting, one drawing steel. "Four believes," he said. "And it blames a house that also got a letter. They'll turn on each other by morning." Ajax leaned back. Three of four houses had swallowed the lie. They were arming against each other, not against him. The scheme had taken. "The third house," he said. "We watch it. Marco reads any keeper who comes near the harbor. If that house learns the letters were false, I want to know before they act." Chalam swept the chalk from the table. "The thread's spent," he said. "No more looks." "I don't need more," Ajax said. The north was quarreling with itself. Silvermoor would trade free while the houses bled each other. But one door stayed dark, and Ajax knew a dark door was a door he could not yet see behind.