The System Chose the Weakest Man

Chapter 023: Dead Weight

"A moment," Hesk repeated, smiling. "That's all."

He stepped aside from the door with an easy flourish, as though inviting Ethan into a drawing room. Past his shoulder, the square was already filling with morning crowds. Rhea didn't move. Tomas drew himself up with the book clutched to his chest.

"My grandson is a carrier," Tomas said. "He has a day's work waiting."

"I'm sure he does. This won't delay him." Hesk produced a small notebook from his coat and uncapped a pencil. His gloves were soft grey leather, and a faint scent of lemon oil rose off them. "Standard census, I'm afraid. The Crown has asked every Warden station to register Rank F arrivals. Name, age, birthplace. Quite dull."

"A census," Rhea said. Her voice was perfectly flat.

"Of nulls, yes. Those with no affinity." He didn't lower his voice. Two hunters in the doorway glanced over, then glanced away. "A wise precaution. Rank F individuals are more vulnerable to rift exposure. The Crown wishes to keep track of them for their own protection."

Ethan had heard that tone before. It was Voss's tone. Pleasant, rehearsed, certain.

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

"Eli Gray," Ethan said, since silence would be worse. "Twenty. From Millbrook."

"Millbrook." Hesk wrote. "On the Dun River?"

"Yes."

"I passed through last spring. Lovely little place. The mill burned, I believe."

It was a trap. Ethan knew it the way he knew a loose stair in the dark. The mill burned. If he agreed, and the mill hadn't burned, Hesk would know he'd never been there. If he disagreed, and it had, the same. Millbrook was a name Tomas had pulled out of the air on the barge.

"Not the mill," Tomas said sharply. "The granary. The mill was spared. Old Hargrave, the miller, took the blame because the grain-tax was due. The Lord of the Dun came himself to look at the ashes." He sniffed. "A terrible business. Fourteen years ago, not last spring. Anyone from Millbrook would know that."

Hesk's pencil stopped.

"Fourteen years ago," he said softly.

"Yes."

"I must have been thinking of another village." Hesk smiled. His eyes stayed on the old man for a long moment. Then he closed the notebook with a soft snap. "How embarrassing for me. Forgive an old soldier's memory."

"You're thirty," said Tomas.

"I age quickly in this work." Hesk turned to Ethan. "Mister Gray. One last thing. The Wardens are offering free protective reviews for all Rank F carriers in Greywatch. A cup of tea. A few questions about your health. It takes an hour." He tucked the pencil behind his ear. "Two days from now, at the Guild hall. Do come."

"I'm not sure I can spare the time."

"Naturally. Everyone is busy." Hesk's smile didn't change. "But it isn't optional, I'm afraid. For anyone of your rank. It's simply a matter of keeping everyone safe."

He touched two fingers to his forehead, a mock salute, and strolled away into the sunlight.

Ethan realized he had stopped breathing.

"Two days," Rhea said, very quietly.

"Yes."

"We'll talk tonight." She let go of his sleeve, which he hadn't noticed she'd taken. "Go and be a carrier."

The Yard was a wide, trampled lot behind the Guild hall, fenced in rough logs and ringed with wooden benches. Every morning at the bell, hunters and parties gathered there to hire porters. It was a market, though no one called it one. Parties walked up and down the line, looking at carriers the way a farmer looks at oxen.

Ethan stood in the line.

There were about forty of them. Men and women in grey tunics, standing with their arms at their sides. Some looked fifty and some looked fifteen. None of them looked at each other. A few had iron tags like his.

[Porter Hal Dunning. Level 4. True attitude: Resigned. Hungry.]

[Porter Wrenna. Level 2. True attitude: Ashamed. Furious.]

[Porter Tobb. Level 3. True attitude: Afraid.]

He counted. Level 2, 3, 4, 5. Barely anyone above Level 6. And here he stood, Level 8, with four skills, wearing a tag that said he was nothing.

A party strolled along the line. Four of them, bronze badges, loud. The leader, a big man with a red beard and a studded jerkin, stopped in front of a broad-shouldered porter and prodded him in the chest. "This one. He'll do." He moved on. Stopped at Ethan. Looked him up and down, from the cap to the boots.

"Skinny," he said.

"I carry well."

"They all say that." The man snorted. "Rank F?"

"Yes."

"Null." It wasn't an insult, exactly. It was an observation, delivered the way a man might say wet. "Where's the gain in that? Take him, he'll buckle at the first hill. Take him, he'll die in the first pit, and then I'm out the cost of a pack." He flicked a copper coin at Ethan's feet. "Go find a cart to push."

They walked on.

Ethan didn't pick up the coin. He stood where he was and looked at it lying in the dust.

Null. The word still stung. But it was a smaller sting now, more like a bruise pressed in a place already healing. He thought of Level 8. He thought of the Stalker in the sluice, shivering under his hands. He found that, strangely, he was almost amused.

They can't see me.

It was an odd kind of freedom. Nobody expected anything of him. He could stand in a line and learn.

So he did.

He watched them all morning, party after party. He noticed which ones kept their eyes on the porters, and which looked through them. Which leaders wore their badges high and which kept them tucked. Which ones struck a porter for a slow answer. Which ones, when they thought no one was looking, slipped a spare ration into a carrier's pack. Appraise made the list in his head as fast as he could read it.

By noon he had hired himself out to a pair of mid-rank hunters for a half-day haul. Six silver bars from the east smelter to the Guild vault, a cart's worth, four trips in the heat. They paid him a copper for each. By the end he was black with ash, soaked in sweat, and his shoulders felt like they'd been hit by a plank. But he had counted the eight hunters who passed him on the road, and each of them twice, and he knew exactly how many looked back.

Two.

He walked home at dusk through the cinder streets with a pocketful of coppers and a throb in every muscle. Lamps were being lit. The Rift glowed on the horizon like an eye half-open. Smoke curled from a hundred chimneys, and the clatter of cups rose from every tavern door.

Stalker's Instinct woke a quarter-way down the lane.

A light breath, fast and shallow. Behind him. Not close, perhaps ten meters. Then six. It matched his step, a half-beat behind, almost perfectly silent, the way a person walks who has spent a long time learning not to be heard.

Ethan did not turn.

He kept walking, slouched, tired, cap low. The pulse came closer. Four meters. Three. He felt it slide up to his left shoulder, a small warm presence at the edge of his senses.

A hand, very light, slipped toward the coin purse at his belt.