Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 553 of 619

Chalam knelt at the gate through the morning. Ajax stood behind him and watched the staff move over the stone. The chalk marks came and went. Twice the wizard stopped and pressed his palm flat, holding his breath. Ajax said nothing. He had asked one question and would wait for the answer: could another wizard help, did Chalam know any, or should they leave and come back stronger? By noon Chalam sat back on his heels. Sweat ran down his bare chest. His hand shook where it held the staff. "I've read what I can," he said. "I can't finish it alone." Ajax crouched beside him. "Say it plain." "The ward has three layers. I broke the first with chalk. The second I can force. The third I can't read. It's tied to the maker's blood, not mine." Chalam looked at the mark. "If I open it wrong, the stone falls on whoever stands here. Maybe on me." "Then we bring another wizard." Chalam shook his head. "I know no other who reads bindings this old. The dryads make staffs. They don't cut wards. The one who could is the man who built this." He tapped the curl of lines. "Him. And I've never seen his face." Ajax stood. The sea broke on the reef far below. He weighed leaving. A day's sail home, a season to find help he could not name. All the while the gate sat here, the ground half his and half another's. "Can you weaken it over time?" Ajax asked. "Feed it lodestone, wear it down?" Chalam was quiet. That was the sign he did not like his own answer. "Yes. Ten days, maybe more. The third layer thins each time I strike it. It won't kill by then. But I'll lose days of clear thought. Like before." He met Ajax's eye. "You know what happened before." Ajax knew. The cracked staff. Two weeks lost at an inn, the wizard staring at walls. He would not throw Chalam into that blind. "Not blind," Ajax said. "You strike it once a day. You stop when your head goes soft. I hold you back if you push too far." "You'll lose ten days on one door." "I'll lose the island if I leave it open behind me." Ajax looked at the gate. "No other wizard. That's your answer. So we don't go home. We wear it down." Chalam drew the first numbered vial from his satchel. He uncapped it, poured a line of lodestone across the mark, and set the staff to it. The stone groaned. A thin crack opened along the top seam, then held. "One layer thinned," Chalam said. His voice was flat. "Nine days." Ajax sent word down the stair. His men would camp on the cliff. No wizard would come to help, and none was coming for this ground but him. He would take the gate slow, and take it whole.