Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 583 of 619

The maker worked at the stone for three days. On the third night, Chalam reset the seal and the lodestone marks held. But Ajax did not sleep. He watched the young man pack his satchel, and he saw the truth plain. He had recruited a hand that cut keys. He had no proof that hand cut only for him. At dawn Ajax gathered his crew inside the cave. "He goes south with us," Ajax said. "But he made a key already sold in a market. A merchant carried it. Anyone with coin can buy his work." He looked at the maker. "A key you cut today could unseal every door I closed. I need proof you won't cut for the highest bidder once you're out of my sight." The maker's jaw tightened. "I never sold that key. I lost it. A woman took it from a house in the west and sold it as scrap." Chalam stepped forward, staff level. "He speaks true. But the key was his. His mark is on it." The wizard did not soften it. "His word is not enough. A man can mean well and still leave his work where thieves reach it." Elara knelt by the maker's satchel. She lifted his hands and turned them to the light. "Chalk and iron dust. Old cuts on the knuckles." She met Ajax's eyes. "He works alone. He has no house, no guard. That's how the key slipped loose. Not treachery. Carelessness." Ajax weighed it. Carelessness could sink him as fast as betrayal. "Then we fix the carelessness," he said. He turned to Kael and Torren. "From now, no key leaves his hands unwatched. One of you rides with him whenever he cuts. Every disc he makes goes into Chalam's satchel, marked, or into my vault." Kael nodded once. "Understood." Torren said, "I guarded a treasury fourteen years. Nothing left the floor unlogged. I can log his work the same." Rowan spoke from the cave mouth. "And I can smell iron on a man from thirty paces. If he cuts a key and hides it, I'll know before he reaches his horse." Ajax faced the maker. "You keep your craft. But you swear it to my house, and my men hold every key you cut until I say where it goes. Refuse, and we part here." The maker looked at the four sworn men around him. He set his satchel down. "I came to close doors," he said. "Not sell them. I'll swear." Chalam bound the oath with a lodestone mark and a silver chain linked to Ajax's gold. If the maker cut a key against his word, the chain would tell. The hunt was truly done now. Ajax had no proof the maker was loyal. So he built proof into the man's chain and put his own hands on every key. The line his father served answered to Black Oak, and now its work would too.