In the hour before first light the bell of morning prayer tolled across Greyleaf, a single deep stroke that parted the silence and set the air trembling.
Thin sunlight, pale as winter memory, pierced the low clouds and lay upon the ground; and with it came a north wind that carried away somewhat of the heavy, sweetish reek of decay which clung ever to the streets.
In the Middle Ward, in the shadowed way called Yeastward Lane, there stood a lowly dwelling hard by the walls of the great Brew-house.
Within its rough timbers Máric awoke of a sudden, pierced by a chill that struck to the bone.
He opened his eyes and lay a moment still, face blank as one new-risen from deep and dreamless sleep. Then a shudder ran through him, and he lifted hard hands to rub his cheeks until the skin burned.
White mist clouded from his lips as he breathed, and his mouth twisted in wry discomfort.
Ten days had passed since he came into this world.
Though he counted himself steady of mind and swift to turn with fortune's wheel, the gulf between his former life and this was wide, and the spirit quailed to cross it in so few days.
He raised himself from the straw pallet; the dry stalks pricked him like thorns. The coarse woollen covering slipped away, and the cold took his limbs as a living thing.
"If this be my lot henceforth," he murmured low, "frost shall claim me before long, and none shall heed."
With a half-swallowed oath he threw the blanket aside and rose, unsteady.
In the world he had known he had never trusted to chance alone to lift him from low estate.
Now, having taken the memories of the body he wore into himself, he had bent his old skill in the reading of hearts and the shaping of words to his need.
Among the throng of outlanders in the Outer Ward he had come to the fore, and so won the humble place of apprentice in this Brew-house.
By that deed he had crossed two bounds of standing: from the Outer Ward into the Rim-lands themselves.
The man whose life he had taken had been all but invisible even among his own kind; yet when it became known that the apprentice's smock was his, eyes turned upon him, some in wonder, some in doubt, and not a few in dark mistrust.
Yet Máric saw clearly that this swift rising bore hidden peril, as a fair path may hide a snare.
For this land was in many ways like the old kingdoms of Men in days long past: Greyleaf, though small, lay beneath the hand of a lord of ancient line, and its people were rooted deep through many generations.
Crafts passed from father to son by right of blood; and even where no such claim ran, the men born here held the first voice. For a stranger out of far places to thrust himself into their order was a labour scarce less hard than the climbing of high and trackless ways.
Máric had come from Raven's Watch upon the Eyrie Crag, far to the southward.
By claiming the apprentice's place he had taken what might have been given to one born in Greyleaf.
Had he not swiftly learned the courtesies of speech and bearing, soft-spoken, yielding where need was, he might long since have drawn upon himself the silent enmity of many.
Creak
The worm-eaten door groaned open.
Máric drew his thin and threadbare garments close and stepped forth into the grey dawn.
Light was but newly come, by the reckoning of his old world, the sixth hour past midnight.
The Brew-house lay still; none moved save he, the least of its servants.
A sharp wind passed, bearing the living, bitter scent of yeast that ever hung about the place.
Straightway he went to the great vats wherein the wort lay working. Nearer he drew, and the low, unceasing bubbling rose to his hearing, patient as hidden waters labouring in the dark.
His tasks were simple in kind, yet needful beyond all else.
From first light until high sun he had but two duties: to scour the wooden vessels clean, and to hew and stack the firing-wood.
He sat upon a round stool of stone, cold as midwinter, chafed his numbed hands, and took up the stiff brush of bristle.
The work seemed light to name, but it suffered no carelessness.
Each vat he must wash within and without with water fresh-drawn from the well, until no trace of yesterday's leaven remained.
For upon the cleanness of those vessels hung the life of the brewing; and ever had such toil been laid upon the youngest hands.
One sour remnant, overlooked, might turn all to waste.
And if waste came, the fault lay upon him who had scrubbed; and his doom was certain, cast forth once more into the cold.
This Máric could not endure; therefore he laboured with unsparing care, stroke upon stroke, until all was rightly done.
The water bit like ice, and the cold crept inward until his fingers seemed no longer his own.
Yet the toil brought no warmth; rather it bound limb and joint the tighter.
Then came the sound of feet upon the stones without.
The great door swung wide, and two entered.
"Gilmir, Jarnor! good morrow," said Máric, lifting his head.
"Máric."
"Ever first at the labour, I see."
They answered with ready smiles, voices easy and kind.
Young they were, scarce past boyhood, yet broad and strong of frame, unlike Máric, who still bore the slighter build of his former days.
Though their acquaintance was short, Máric's old art in the ways of men had served him well; in few days he had won their goodwill.
Gilmir sprang from good stock: his father bore spear in the town guard, his mother plied needle in Tanning Row; theirs was a fair dwelling upon Smith-street.
Jarnor's kin stood yet higher: clockwrights through long generations, and men said the iron timepiece in the church tower had been wrought by their fathers of old, so that honour clung to their name in Greyleaf.
Both were of the sturdy middle folk of the place; and Máric marked them as possible friends in a land where he had none.
Ten days only had he dwelt in this world of stone and shadow, and great designs he had not yet framed.
Yet deep within he was never one to rest content in narrow bounds.
With the coming of Gilmir and Jarnor the work went forward swiftly.
Many score of vats they cleansed together, and turned then to the hewing of wood.
It was hard labour, and Máric's frame was not stout; already his palms bore the angry marks of blisters earned.
Bang!
As the axes rose and fell there came a heavy stroke upon the outer door.
Máric looked up.
There stood Ulfang the master-brewer, he whose face was ever stern as winter stone; yet now he smiled broadly and bowed low.
"Lord Aethan, I pray you enter."
His voice carried a careful reverence.
"These three are the apprentices of the house.."
He would have said more.
But the lord raised a hand, and Ulfang fell silent at once, stepping aside with head bowed.
Lord Aethan entered slowly, his gaze passing over the three and resting, nay, fixing—upon Máric.
More truly upon the pale gold of his hair, which shone strangely among the darker heads.
He looked long upon him, then spoke in a low voice:
"What is your name?"
Máric checked a breath, then steadied himself.
He who could so bend proud Ulfang to courtesy must be of great place.
In a moment he set down his axe, rose, and bowed.
"If it please my lord, I am called Máric."
"You are of the South?"
"If it please my lord, I am come from Raven's Watch upon the Eyrie Crag."
Lord Aethan inclined his head, as one who weighs a matter of small import, and turned his eyes away.
In that instant a trembling seized Máric; his limbs shook as with ague.
He bowed yet lower, lest any mark his disquiet.
Lord Aethan questioned Gilmir and Jarnor briefly; they answered in haste and fear.
None saw Máric's plight.
Ulfang noted the shaking, but deemed it only the awe of youth before greatness.
But Máric alone knew the truth.
For as he spoke his last word to the lord, a pane of light, thin and clear as glass, had appeared unbidden before his eyes:
[Prestige: Lv.0 (Unknown 49/50) → Lv.1 (Slightly Famous 50/100)]
[Dead Soldier Summoning System successfully activated]
Though his head was bowed, the words burned bright within his sight, as though graven upon the air itself.
[Dead Soldier Summoning System]
[Host: Máric]
[Prestige: Lv.1 (Slightly Famous 50/100)]
[Physique: 0.8]
[Spirit: 1.2]
[Death Warriors: None]
[By virtue of Prestige at the First Degree, the Host may call forth two Death Warriors each day. Their strength of body shall match the Host's own. Each shall bear one gift of craft and one deed of skill, granted by chance.]
[First Gift of the Soul: Consciousness Transfer (The Host may divide his thought and send it into a Death Warrior,)]
[Second Gift: Indestructible Soul (Though the body decay and fall to dust, yet while one Death Warrior draws breath, the soul of the Host shall not perish from the world.)]
Máric set his teeth hard; his fingers clenched until the nails bit flesh.
His frame quivered still, and his heart beat as a great drum within his breast.