Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 564 of 619

Corin held his feet through the last binding test, and Ajax judged the boy ready for a season of drilling. That work fell to Chalam now. Ajax turned back to the wider problem: he needed more men with the gift, and he needed to find them before rivals or the unknown maker did. So when Marco called through the ring from the Crossing, Ajax listened. "There's a man at the gate tavern," Marco said. His voice came flat through the bronze. "A wizard. He's using something on the men there. Pulling them to him." Ajax rode to the Crossing at dawn. Marco met him at the wall, arms crossed, watching the tavern door. Marco spoke plain, the way he always did. "He's not hiding it. He sits at the corner table and men drift over. Good-looking. Too good-looking. It reads like a working, not just a face." Ajax brought Chalam. The wizard stood at the tavern threshold and let his staff hang loose in his hand. "There's a charm on him," Chalam said. "An allure working. Bound into him, not worn. Old craft." He watched the corner. "He's drawing coin and secrets from every man he pulls close." Ajax sat across from the wizard and set his hands on the table. The man smiled, easy, and his pull washed over the room. Ajax felt nothing. His father's chain hung cold at his neck. Marco slid onto the bench beside him and went still, reading. The wizard talked. He said he traded on his looks, that men gave him what he asked without knowing why. He said he had walked the coast for years, selling charm for coin. Marco's hand tapped the table twice. Truth. "He has the gift," Chalam said quietly. "Real power under the charm. He could make wards. He could read binding if he learned." Marco tapped once, then leaned to Ajax's ear. "He's frightened. He owes money in three towns. He's running from a house that wants him bound." Ajax studied the smiling man. Here was a wizard with power, alone, hunted, worth more than coin. The kind he needed for his own line of makers. "You're in debt," Ajax said. "You're running. I offer a wall, a bed, and work that fits your gift. You answer to me and no lord." The wizard's smile thinned. His allure pushed harder. Ajax did not move. "That won't work on me," Ajax said. "Marco reads every lie you tell. Chalam sees the charm you carry. Choose. My house, or the road with the house that hunts you." The man looked at Marco, then at Chalam's staff, then at the cold chain on Ajax's chest. His pull faded. He set his hands flat, the way Ajax had. "Your house," he said. Ajax stood. He had come for a boy and found a grown wizard sworn to no one. "Ride with us," he said. "Chalam will test what you are." Another maker for his line, bound by need and choice both.