The System Chose the Weakest Man

Chapter 037: The Guildmaster

Ethan stood in front of the desk with his cap in both hands and tried to think.

Lying was out. He could see that at once. She had a skill that knew, and she had put it on the table between them like a loaded crossbow. The worst of it was that she hadn't threatened him. She hadn't called a guard. She sat there with the pipe in her fingers and waited, the way a patient woman waits for a pot to boil.

Then tell the truth, he thought. As much of it as you can afford.

"My name is Ethan Vale," he said.

Crane's face didn't change.

"I was born in the lower ward of the capital. I took the awakening exam at twenty, two years late, and the crystal stayed dark. I'm a null. That part is true." He took a breath. "While I was in the Awakening Tower, a seal broke in the basement. A Rift Stalker came up. I was in the lower corridor, where failed candidates are sent. Everyone else escaped. I didn't."

"And?"

"I killed it."

"With what?"

"A guard's dagger." He didn't smile. "And a lot of luck."

Crane let that sit. Her pale brass eyes moved over his face, slow and thorough. He felt it like a hand pressed against his skin.

"That's true," she said. "Go on."

He told her about the next three days. The hide cart, the boatyard, the wanted poster. He told her about the roster Rhea had copied, though he left the name off, and about the Stalker's release order, dated the very day of his exam. Authorized: Insp. L. Voss. He told her the Wardens had sent eight collared Stalkers to hunt him down in a sluice. He didn't tell her about the system, and he didn't tell her how he'd broken a collar. He said, "I got out," and let it stand.

Crane held up one finger.

"There's a gap," she said.

"Yes."

"Something you haven't said."

"Yes."

"Is it a lie to leave it out?"

Ethan looked at the floor. His heart pounded.

"I don't think so," he said. "I'm not telling you something that isn't true. I'm not telling you anything. I can't. It's not mine alone to tell."

Silence.

Then, slowly, the Guildmaster of Greywatch put her pipe down on the desk.

"No," she said. "It isn't a lie." Her voice had gone quiet. "A silence isn't a lie. I've lived sixty years on that distinction, and most people never learn it." She leaned back, and the old chair groaned. "Keep going. Tell me what the Wardens are doing in my town."

He told her about Mira's sister. The nineteen names. The eight carriers who had gone into the back wing of her own hall, and not come out. He said "Cinderfall" and watched her jaw tighten. He said "labor," and she looked at the window.

"I knew some of it," she said, when he'd finished. "I didn't know the shape of it."

"You allowed the review."

"I was ordered to allow the review." She said it flatly. "By the Crown, under a statute from the last Council session. I wrote three letters of protest. They came back unsealed." Her hand moved on the desk, closing slowly into a fist. "One of the eight was Ivan Tobb. He carried my packs for ten years before I took this chair. His mother made me soup once, when I was in a bed with a lung full of ash."

Ethan said nothing.

"I'm not telling you this so you'll feel sorry for me." She opened her hand. "I'm telling you so you'll understand what it costs me to sit here."

Marsh was called in a few minutes later.

He came through the door with his sunburned face scrubbed and set, and his two bronze-badged friends trailing in behind him like dogs at a heel. They stopped when they saw Ethan. Marsh's mouth dropped open.

"You," he said. "I knew it. Guildmaster, that's the--"

"Corvin." Crane didn't raise her voice. "Sit."

He sat.

"You're a hunter of some skill," she said. "And in debt, I understand. To a gentleman in the Smelters' Row who has an unpleasant habit of breaking thumbs."

Marsh went the color of cheese.

"I took a look at the books this afternoon." She laid a small leather purse on the desk. It clinked. "You'll find it's a bit under a hundred silver. The Guild keeps a fund for hunters who've been hurt in the line of duty. I'm told you were struck on the head by a falling sign this afternoon. A very nasty bump. You seem to remember the wrong face."

"Guildmaster, I'm not--"

"Corvin."

He closed his mouth.

"You were mistaken," Crane said. "You were mistaken. A man with a broken nose is a man with a broken nose, and there's a hundred of them in this town. I'd hate to see anyone make a fool of himself in front of the Wardens over a poster." She nudged the purse across the desk. "Take it. Pay your friend in the Smelters' Row. And forget what you think you saw."

Marsh looked at the purse. At Ethan. At the woman across the desk, who had not blinked once.

He picked it up.

"I was mistaken," he said, in a very small voice.

"Good. Take your friends and get out."

They went. The door clicked shut. Ethan let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

"That wasn't legal," he said.

"No." Crane picked up her pipe. "I've been breaking the rules for fifty years. At my age you get good at it."

"I'm not going to turn you in," she said, when they were alone. "I want that understood. But I'm not a fool either, and I've been a Guildmaster too long to think that it's free."

"What's the price?"

"Two things." She counted them off on thick fingers. "First, you owe me a favor. Of my choosing, at a time of my choosing. I don't know what it will be. I will not ask for anything that would hurt a person who's done me no wrong."

"All right."

"Second." She leaned forward. "You'll deal with the thing that's coming. The letter was not the only thing the courier brought. There was a second page, in a different hand." She slid it across.

It was shorter. A single paragraph. The ink was fresher.

The Wardens have dispatched Hunter Rook of the Ironkeep to assist the Guildmaster in the matter of the fugitive. He will arrive within the week. His methods are not subtle. The Guildmaster is advised to extend every courtesy.

Ethan's mouth went dry.

"Hunter Rook," he said.

"Level thirty-three. Rank C, silver badge. He's the Wardens' best collar-hunter." Crane's face was unreadable. "He doesn't carry a bounty notice. He carries a leash. Some of his prey come back alive. Most don't, and the ones that do don't speak afterward."

"And you're letting him come."

"I can't stop him. He has the Crown's seal." She folded her hands. "But I can ask a Guild member, a livestock handler, say, to be somewhere other than my town when he arrives. Away from the walls. In a place with no witnesses." Her eyes held his. "I won't be asked to choose between a boy and the Charter. Don't make me."

"You want me to fight him."

"I want you to survive him. What you do after is your own affair."

A knock sounded at the door. It was Oake, white and breathless, with a quill still stuck behind each ear.

"Guildmaster," he whispered. "Forgive me. It's urgent."

"What?"

"The gate warden just sent word." Oake swallowed. "There's a man at the east gate. Silver badge. Long coat, a coil of chain on his belt. He says his name is Rook."

Crane looked at Ethan.

"He's early," she said.