Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 562 of 619

The cliffs stood ready, five chambers cut and a training floor waiting. Ajax had told Chalam to bring him a wizard. Two days later, the wizard came—but not the way Ajax expected. He stepped from the library glass at Black Oak and found Chalam standing there with a boy at his side. Not a man. A boy of fourteen, thin in the shoulders, jaw still soft. His eyes darted to the mirror behind them and away, quick, as if it hurt to look. "This is the one," Chalam said. "JD found him at the bar. A drover's son, come to buy salt. JD heard nothing false in his head. But he felt the gift, strong. The boy sensed the collars in the cellar through two floors of stone." Ajax studied the boy. Fourteen. Younger than any fighter he had ever sworn. "Say your name." The boy's throat worked. "Corin." His voice cracked on it. "He cannot hold his own yet," Chalam said, flat. "Near the collars he went white and fell against the wall. My staff steadied him. Without it, he'd have dropped." Chalam did not soften it. "He needs training or the gift will break him." Ajax knew that story. Chalam himself had read a binding too old and lost two weeks of clear thought at an inn. The gift cut both ways. A boy this raw could burn out or drown in a signature and never wake. "Where are his people?" Ajax asked. "A father south. Poor. The boy left to find wages. No one waits on him." Chalam met Ajax's eye. "He is clean. He is alone. And he is the first true gift we have found." Ajax turned to the boy. "You know what you felt in the cellar?" Corin shook his head. "It was like drowning. Like the stone screamed." "That's a god sleeping in iron," Ajax said. "You'll learn to hear it without falling. Or you'll go back to hauling salt." The boy's chin lifted. Fear still sat on him, but under it something held. "I don't want to go back." That was enough. Ajax had built a house of men who chose the wall. He would not force a child through it, but he would take one who chose it himself. "Chalam blood-locks you first," Ajax said. "Then the mirror. You'll sleep on the cliffs and learn from him alone. No one else knows the place. If you break faith, you never leave it." Corin nodded, too fast. Chalam drew chalk and lodestone from his satchel. He marked the boy's palm and spoke low. The mirror's surface dimmed, then cleared. "He can pass now," the wizard said. Ajax stepped through the glass first. Corin followed, one hand on the frame, into the cliff passage lit by torch. The empty chambers had a wizard to fill them at last. "Begin," Ajax said. "Teach him to stand near a binding without falling. The rest comes after."