The System Chose the Weakest Man

Chapter 022: Paper Names

The Hunters' Guild hall smelled of ink and wet leather.

Ethan stood in the doorway the next morning with his cap low and his scarf up, and let the noise wash over him. The main floor was a great timber room with a ceiling black from lamp smoke. Hundreds of people crowded it, shoving between long tables, shouting over each other, waving slips of paper. Job boards covered the walls from floor to rafters. Red tags for escort work. Yellow for monster cull. Black tags, high on the wall, that nobody touched.

Between the yellow tags and the red, one notice stood out. It was printed on cream paper, bordered in black, with a silver key at the top. Ethan's eyes slid over it and snagged.

BY ORDER OF THE WARDENS OF THE CROWN: ALL AWAKENERS AGED EIGHTEEN TO TWENTY-FIVE ARE REQUIRED TO REPORT FOR PROTECTIVE REVIEW. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL BE NOTED.

A crowd of young hunters stood under it, laughing. Not one of them was reading it.

"Don't read the notices," Rhea murmured. She stood at his shoulder with her hands in her sleeves, slouched in the way of a woman who mended harnesses. "Don't look at anyone. Walk like you're already tired."

"I am tired."

"Then it'll be easy."

The registration desk was at the back, behind a rail and a bored queue. Behind the rail sat a thin man in a green waistcoat, with a quill behind each ear and a third in his hand. He had a high, anxious forehead and ink on his chin. When he looked up and saw Rhea, he went the color of tallow.

[Bertrand Oake. Human. Level 3. True attitude: Terrified. Obliged.]

"Captain," he breathed.

"Rae," she said, very softly. "Rae Gray. Harness-mender."

"Of course. Of course you are." He dabbed at his upper lip with a handkerchief. "Madam Gray. How may I assist the Guild?"

"My nephew needs papers. A carrier's tag. And a history."

Oake's eyes slid to Ethan, then away, then back again, wide and wet. He glanced over his shoulder. He leaned forward until his forehead nearly touched the rail.

"I saw the notice," he whispered. "At the dock yesterday. They said a woman with your name, your scar. They said she made a speech." He swallowed. "I didn't think you'd come here."

"Neither did I. But you owe me."

"I do. Gods. I do."

Ethan looked at Rhea. She didn't explain, but later, over a mug of cold tea in the Rusty Ladle, she would. Three years ago in the capital, a junior clerk at the Tower named Oake had been found with his hand in the f*e drawer. He had a sick wife and a pile of debts. The guard captain on duty that night, who had no reason to care, had looked the other way and then quietly paid off the bookmaker herself.

He'd begged to repay her. She had told him to keep his job and keep his mouth shut. He'd transferred to Greywatch within the month.

"The crystal," Oake said now, voice dropping. "Every new carrier takes it. It's mandatory. I can't skip that."

"I don't want you to skip it," Ethan said. "I want you to read it."

Oake blinked.

"It'll be dark," Ethan said. "It was dark before. It's dark now."

He wasn't sure why he was smiling. It wasn't a happy smile.

The crystal sat on a stand beside the desk, a clear pale stone the size of an apple, humming faintly in its cradle. The same kind. The same cold glow. Ethan stood in front of it and the whole hall seemed to go very quiet in his head.

Last time he had placed his hand here, a hundred people had laughed.

Nobody's laughing. He told himself that. Nobody's even looking.

He set his palm against the glass.

It was cold and smooth. It hummed against his skin the way it always had. Under his hand the stone stayed perfectly clear, perfectly dark, utterly empty. It didn't flicker. It didn't warm.

Oake leaned over it with his quill poised. "No affinity," he said, in the flat tone of a man reading a list. "Rank F. No magic detected."

Ethan took his hand away.

It was strange. He had expected it to hurt. He'd imagined the old shame rising like bile. But what rose instead was something quieter. He looked at the dark stone and thought, It can't see what's in me. Not magic. Not a system. Not eight levels and four skills and three traces. Only a blank glass that had never had anything to say about him at all.

It wasn't an insult anymore. It was a shield.

"Rank F," Oake repeated, writing. "Carrier class. Name?"

"Eli Gray."

"Place of birth?"

"Millbrook," Tomas supplied, from behind. "Small village. Two hundred people. A mill, naturally. We lost the registry in a flood."

"Naturally." Oake scratched with his quill. "Age?"

While the clerk worked, Tomas drifted along the rail toward a dusty shelf behind the desk, where a handful of cracked books slumped between jars of sand. His whole face changed. He ran one finger along a spine, reverent as a priest.

"Is there a permit for a stall?" he asked, without turning. "A small one. Books, maps. Nothing dangerous."

"Four silver a month," Oake whispered. "There's a gap by the west market. Nobody wants it. It's too close to the Rift."

"Perfect," said Tomas. "I've always liked a view."

"Twenty," Ethan said.

"Parents?"

"Dead."

Oake paused. The quill hovered over the page. He looked up, and for a moment the terrified clerk was gone, and what peered out was something older and sadder.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"It's all right."

"No. It isn't. But thank you." He bent his head again and wrote. His hand was surprisingly neat. Under a plain printed form he drew an elegant seal, a stamp, a signature, and then, with a little flourish, a faded earlier date, so the ink looked three years old. "There. A history, a village, a birth certificate with a water stain. All very ordinary." He blew gently on the page. "Nobody will look twice."

He handed Ethan a small grey tag on a leather cord, stamped with an iron F and a number.

"Wear it where it can be seen," he whispered. "Carriers are paid by the load, by the day, from the hunters' share. Mind the contracts. They are not written to favor you."

"I know."

"I'm afraid you don't." Oake wiped his face. "But you will."

Rhea laid three silver coins on the counter. Oake pushed them back across, quick as a card sharp.

"No," he said. "No, Captain. Never. We're even."

"Bertrand."

"We are even."

She hesitated. Then she nodded, once, and slipped the coins back into her sleeve.

They were nearly at the door when a long grey shadow fell across it.

Ethan stopped.

The man in the doorway was tall, and he wore a grey coat with a silver chain at the collar. His face was handsome in a lazy, forgettable way, and one gloved hand rested casually on the frame, blocking the light. He smelled of lamp oil and cold coffee.

[Warden Liaison Hesk. Level 24. True attitude: Bored. Curious.]

Curious. The text had changed since yesterday.

"Pardon," Hesk said, with a faint smile. "Mister Gray, isn't it? I couldn't help but overhear. A moment of your time."