Mechanic Garrick

Forty-five-year-old Garrick, a former mechanic, huddled among three thousand Convicts.

The top of his head gleamed bald, while the few wisps of hair around it had frozen into stiff little spikes. His puffy eyes were far too lively; one look told you he was no model of good behavior.

A cold gust slipped down his collar. He sniffed sharply, nearly sneezing again.

That near sneeze brought back the whole miserable business from a few months ago.

Garrick had been much better off then.

He had been a senior technician for the Church, skilled with his hands and smooth with his words. He specialized in repairing the delicate, intricate machines owned by the rich and powerful.

That day, he had been invited to a priest's private residence to fix a faulty clock in the bedroom. For him, it should have been a simple job.

The trouble was, he was not alone. The priest's young mistress happened to be there, draped in a thin layer of silk, lounging by the window with a drink as she watched him work.

Watching was one thing, but she kept talking. First she praised his nimble fingers, then his strong arms.

As she went on, her meaning grew clearer. Garrick had never been a saint, and with that cloyingly sweet perfume in the air, he failed to restrain himself.

What happened next needed no explanation. But they had barely made it into bed when the priest returned home early.

In their panic, she shoved Garrick under the bed. If he had kept still and held his breath, he might even have escaped with his life.

Unfortunately, a long-haired animal pelt lay beneath the bed, and Garrick happened to be allergic to it.

So at the one moment when he absolutely had to stay quiet, he let out a tremendous sneeze. It was so loud the priest could hardly pretend not to hear it.

There was no need to dwell on what followed. In the end, they threw him into a condemned prisoners' wagon and hauled him all the way to the Graymist Defense Zone.

At the memory, Garrick's eye twitched. He forced himself back to the present.

The wooden bowl in his hands was empty. He had scraped up every last drop of the hot wheat porridge he had just received, and at last there was a little warmth in his stomach.

To be honest, he was moved. In a place like this, a bowl of hot porridge with actual flecks of oil was a rare thing.

Garrick had even begun to think this young silver-haired lord might truly be different. The Grace Value above his head ticked up a few points.

But at the Eternal Night Wall, kindness never came without a reason.

Mechanics and craftsmen held fairly respectable positions within the Eternal Night Wall. Once sent to the wall itself, though, they usually had to crawl into the most dangerous spots to repair things.

Their deaths were not necessarily any prettier than those of the soldiers charging at the front. Often, they were worse.

Since arriving at the Eternal Night Wall, he had learned a thing or two about staying alive.

For instance, he could not seem too useful, or he would be dragged to the most dangerous places. But he could not seem too useless either, or someone would decide he was wasting food and drag him off to fill a gap in the line.

The safest thing was to be an ordinary laborer who knew a little craftwork. People like that tended to die a little later.

With that in mind, Garrick immediately bent down, scooped up two handfuls of foul-smelling mud, and smeared it hard across his face. He rubbed some onto his neck and cuffs too, making himself blend in with the other Convicts.

But luck was not on his side.

Several knights pulled back the tent flap without warning. Before Garrick could react, a large hand had hauled him to his feet.

A dozen or so other Convicts who looked just as sickly were dragged out with him. Most of them did not look like ordinary Convicts.

Garrick's heart sank.

But the executioner's axe he expected never fell. Instead, the group was ushered into a row of newly built stone houses.

Braziers blazed inside. Heat washed over them, melting the chill from their faces at once.

Thick, dry wheat straw covered the floor. Several large bowls of meat stew sat on a rough wooden table in the middle, with even a few jars of strong liquor beside them.

The smell of meat hit Garrick's nose, and even he nearly lost his composure.

The dozen or so Convicts who had come with him stood at the door, stunned into silence.

Several had tears in their eyes as they stared at the hot stew and braziers. One even knelt to thank the Most Holy.

Garrick, though, felt a prickle down his back. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

He had spent his life moving among the Royal Capital's elite, and he had learned one thing: when someone suddenly treated you well, it was usually not because they liked you. They wanted something from you.

Here on the Long Night Defense Line, they were giving Convicts warm rooms, hot meat, and strong liquor?

This looked less like mercy than a condemned man's last meal.

Garrick's legs nearly gave out beneath him. He almost dropped straight into the straw as his mind, ever quick to imagine the worst, began racing.

The young silver-haired lord must have received some secret, unspeakable order. He had singled out these unusual Convicts to torture them to death.

At that thought, even the stew lost its appeal.

That night, the stone house was as warm as one of the secular kingdoms within the Great Wall, and the braziers crackled.

The others hesitated at first, but the smell of meat won them over. They ate bite after bite. Some even drank, then leaned against the wall and soon fell fast asleep.

Garrick alone wrapped himself tightly in the blanket he had been given and huddled in a corner. Eyes open, he endured the whole night in a haze of fearful half-sleep.

Early the next morning, gray light slipped through the narrow window.

Before Garrick, dark circles under both eyes, was fully awake, two expressionless knights took him by the arms and dragged him out of the stone house.

This time, they took him alone. Garrick's last scrap of hope vanished.

A heavy curtain closed behind him, shutting out everything outside.

He raised his head with a shudder and met the gaze of the silver-haired young man behind the wooden desk.

When those icy-blue eyes settled on him, Garrick's scalp prickled. It felt as though every thought in his head had been laid bare.

Without thinking, his knees buckled, and he dropped to the floor with a thud.

He did his best to act like an old, beaten dog, hoping the young lord would decide he was beneath notice and spare his miserable life.

While Garrick made his calculations, Shien examined the Grace Value above his balding head and spent Reward Value to search for information on him.

Feeling that gaze fixed on his head, Garrick soon broke out in a cold sweat across his forehead.

Then Shien spoke, a hint of amusement in his voice. "That long-haired animal pelt in the priest's bedroom really was fine stuff, wasn't it, Garrick?"

The words struck Garrick like a muffled thunderclap. His eyes, which had been darting about, froze. He even forgot to breathe.

Impossible. There was no way that story could have reached this place.

Only the priest and that woman had heard me sneeze under the bed. No one else should know.

The priest couldn't be stupid enough to spread such an embarrassing story. And that woman? How many lives would she need before she dared tell anyone?

Then how did this lord know?

He even knew a detail as small as the long-haired pelt. That could not be explained by simply gathering information.

Garrick did not dare think any further. He only felt a chill creep up his spine to the back of his head.