Chapter 540: The Growing Shadow
The courier’s knees buckled as he was mentally dragged into the golden office. The great chamber was lit by braziers of blue fire reflecting across the polished bronze panels that passed for walls. He was trembling, his lips pressed tight as though by force, eyes darting in frantic, terrified glances. A street rat dragged too far from its burrow.
At the desk sat Alþjófr, the dwarf who had founded and ruled the Auctioneers. His white-gold beard draped down his chest like a waterfall of coins, rings clinking on his stubby fingers as he tapped the polished desk. Behind him in front of him were the Golden Automata: his prized golems, statues of block-shaped perfection.
"You are a Courier," Alþjófr rumbled. "What is your name?"
"It...it doesn’t matter," he said.
"Excellent reply." Middle of the ladder. Mediocre, not yet a Master. "This is how you’ve survived, by keeping your lips tight. You’re competent enough. Tell me—" His eyes sharpened like chisels striking stone. "—do you know of the masked man who has been whispering through our halls?"
The courier’s head jerked up. For the briefest moment, there was hope in his wide eyes, a chance to prove himself useful, to speak and be rewarded. His lips parted—
"Hngggh!"
—but he gagged, a strangled gasp as fire seared his throat. He clawed at his neck with both hands, skin turning red, veins bulging.
Alþjófr leaned back, stroking his beard. "Ah. So that’s the case. Not quite a Contract of Obedience... no, this is far weaker. Some kind of enslavement seal. Every word against its master burns you alive."
The courier nodded desperately, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. He wanted to scream, to beg, to say something—anything—but the seal strangled all disobedience before it could form. His silence was a prison, and the key rested with a master he could not name.