Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 570 of 619

Eight wizards now answered to Ajax. But eight men in silver chains did not make a line. They stood apart in the training passage, each guarding his own gift, each a stranger to the man beside him. Chalam could teach them binding marks. He could not make them trust one another. Ajax needed something that bound them as a single house, not eight hired hands sharing a hearth. He sent for Tarron Woolwright. The old cloth worker came to the cliffs on the mirror portal, blinking at the strange rock and the hearth carved into stone. Tarron had been a shepherd before he built his loom. He read fleece the way other men read faces. Ajax had marked every other keeper and fighter with a chain, but he wanted more than chains now. He wanted the wizards to look like his. "I need robes," Ajax said. "One for each man. Something that says they belong to Black Oak and no lord." Tarron looked at the eight wizards by the fire. He said nothing for a moment, only studied their builds. "Open at the chest," he said. "Like Chalam wears. Lets them move. Lets them be seen." He closed the subject with one line. "I'll make them the same." He worked six days on the cliffs. He measured each wizard by hand, quick and sure, the way he'd handled sheep. He wove gray wool and blue silk together on a small loom Chalam cut from grove wood. Each robe hung open down the chest, belted at the waist, the sleeves cut close so a staff arm stayed free. On the left breast he set a gold oak leaf, and around it he stitched vines and berries in fine thread, the same ornate hand he used on the council tapestries. When the robes were done, Ajax gave one to each man at the hearth. The wizards pulled them on. The dock man ran his thumb over the gold leaf. The frightened one from the wild city stood straighter. For the first time they looked at each other and saw the same mark on every chest. Chalam watched them dress. "They see a line now," he said. "Not eight strangers." Ajax put them to work in pairs. The boy Corin held a ward while the cart hand fed him lodestone dust. Two others traced a binding mark together, one steadying the other's hand when the divine pull grew too strong. They stopped guarding their gifts. They passed chalk and vials without being asked. By dusk they moved as one crew, not eight men. Tarron gathered his loom to carry it home. He looked at the wizards once more, all in their leaf-marked robes, working the stone together. "Wool holds a flock," he said. "So does a mark they all wear." Then he stepped through the mirror and was gone. Ajax touched the cold chain on his chest. His maker line was no longer eight men. It was a house.