Ezra was on his way to the Master of the Rolls' office when a messenger intercepted him, bearing a letter fresh from the avarium.
Before Rycharde had departed with the convoy to deliver the press, the two of them had discussed the possibility of interference by Whisperers. Ezra had investigated the potential limits of their abilities beforehand. Aside from simply controlling animals, he theorized it might be possible for the controllers to establish two-way communication with the beasts they manipulated.
He had tried to gather as many books on the subject as possible. However, neither the castle library nor Galwell's merchant connections yielded any useful information beyond what was already common knowledge. Ezra had tasked Galwell with sourcing more obscure texts, but even with the heavy influx of merchants coming into Bren, they found nothing. Ezra had a sneaking suspicion that if any detailed, tactical knowledge regarding Arcanist capabilities existed, it was buried in a restricted dossier in Rexasticus.
Lacking the sufficient material, Ezra had opted for a more direct route. He sent a message to the Demon Hunters, inquiring about their operational knowledge of Whisperers.
Today, he received their reply.
Lord Ezra,
House Blackfyre lent us good steel. I have not forgotten. I will give you what we know of the southern Arcanists, though it is little.
You ask if a Whisperer can see through a beast's eyes or hear through its ears. My brothers have killed their beasts and split them open. We treat them as hounds. If such a bond exists, it leaves no mark we can find. We have seen no proof that the beast can answer the master. The master breaks their will, points them at a target, and lets them loose.
Do not measure them by our Circles. When a Whisperer grows strong, their magic does not change. It only spreads. They control a larger pack. They push them further. They hold them longer. That is the absolute limit of what we have proven in the field. But we do not know what feats they can do when they reach a higher realm of magic. The Whisperers have always been elusive in combat and they are rarely seen in battle other than from the creatures they control.
Tell Rycharde to watch the tree lines. A pack that moves as one is danger enough, even if the master cannot see what they see.
Tread carefully.
— Sir Deimos
It seemed that, according to the Demon Hunters' intelligence, they had no proof that animals under a Whisperer's control could report back. Thinking back to the events at Anticourt, there was no proof of two-way communication there either just attack upon attack. But then again, there wasn't any proof of the opposite. Ezra needed proper intelligence but didn't know how to start a network right now; perhaps it was a spot he could fill out later.
When he arrived at the office of the Master of the Rolls, the sharp scent of melting sealing wax and ink met him at the door. Inside, junior scribes moved quietly between tall wooden racks packed tight with scroll tubes and bound ledgers. Kestel met him at the threshold, stepping away from a clerk holding a stack of fresh land deeds.
"Lord Ezra," Kestel bowed. "It has been a while since you visited my office."
"It has," Ezra nodded.
"It seems the Press Office is taking up much of your time."
"Not as much as my father would want me to, but I find ways," Ezra scoffed.
Kestel gave him a curious look, as if trying to decipher the meaning behind the words. He gestured for Ezra to follow him toward his heavy oak desk at the back of the room.
"What is the purpose of your visit, Lord Ezra?"
"Remember the bet I had with Lord Father?"
Kestel nodded, taking his seat. "The one regarding the deaths of children."
"I need the information. Do you have it for me?" Ezra asked.
"Yes." Kestel did not search. He reached directly into a specific drawer and pulled out a stiff-backed notebook. "I had a scribe collect the information you asked for. It's been six months instead of three." Kestel chuckled. "It seems that your father doesn't mind the expenditures as long as the coin flows in and the expenditure actually saves lives, and your contraption has proved a steady source of coin."
"What are the numbers?"
Kestel slid the notebook across the polished wood of the desk. "I had a scribe compile the tallies exactly as you formatted your initial study," he said. "He included the Imperial standard numerals next to your base-ten notation, as requested by the Chancery."
Ezra opened the notebook. The binding cracked slightly. The ink was neat and structured in sharp, ruler-straight columns.
BASELINE (PRIOR YEAR AVERAGE) Eighth Ward (monthly avg child burials, under 10) 42 : XLII Twenty-Seventh (Dockside Tenements; monthly avg, u10) 55 : LV Total (both wards; monthly avg, under 10) 97 : XCVII
TRIAL PERIOD (SIX MONTHS) Month One Total (both wards) 34 : XXXIV Month Two Total (both wards) 18 : XVIII Month Three Total (both wards) 9 : IX Month Four Total (both wards) 5 : V Month Five Total (both wards) 3 : III Month Six Total (both wards) 2 : II Deaths attributed to Flux or Pale Fever (Month Six) 0 : -
Ezra looked at the numbers. The drop was significant. The sand filters and activated charcoal box worked.
"The scribes checked the reports three times," Kestel said. He leaned forward, resting his hands flat on the desk. His voice was even and his eyes were fixed entirely on the boy. "Usually, a single ward sees forty to fifty child burials a month. In the last three months, the two wards combined barely had any. The flux is virtually gone from the Dockside Tenements. Impressive when you think about the volume of people there."
"There were also personal reports that the water tasted better," Kestel continued, picking up a brass paperweight and setting it squarely over a loose sheet of parchment. "And though there were fights pertaining to the usage of the clean water, the Keeper of the Peace has resolved them. I also brought this data up to your father during a meeting. He said he would allocate the coin to implement this across the rest of the wards immediately. He just seemed to have a lot on his mind, which is why he delegated it directly to the offices."
"Wait, so you already talked to my father about this?"
"Yes, during a council meeting. Allocations from the Master of Coin have already been made, and the Master of Works has already taken care of the project's expansion, using your exact measurements."
Ezra stood perfectly still. The ambient scratching of quills from the outer room seemed to fade for a moment. He didn't know the project had already been set into motion. He thought he would have to remind the offices, draft new proposals, and push the bureaucracy inch by inch. But Reitz's whole council had acted upon the data immediately. It proved to Ezra that these people actually took initiative. The machine worked. While Reitz did seem a bit greedy regarding coin, he still prioritized infrastructure that would benefit the people of Bren.
"Was there anything else, Lord Ezra?"
Ezra broke out of his stupor. He closed the small notebook.
"When did this start?"
"Actually, two months ago."
"I wasn't told."
"Well, we thought that you had enough on your plate. I didn't think we needed to. We saw benefit and your father just signed off the papers and gave Maester Draffen the project. "
"Maester Draffen didn't even mention it to me."
"You know him," Kestel adjusted the cuff of his sleeve. "He doesn't need to be told what to do if he sees something works. He also has a lot on his plate, so I don't think it was intentional."
Ezra nodded. "Thank you, Maester Rowan. I shall be on my way. I want to check what is happening to the new kiln."
Ezra exited the office and went to the outer ring with his retinue in tow.
When he arrived, the cordoned-off works yard near the river was a hive of controlled, heavy labor. The air smelled of cold soot, crushed limestone, and wet mortar. Laborers pushed wooden wheelbarrows filled with stone along the packed dirt paths.
The structure dominated the center of the yard. A towering chimney had formed, reaching high above the nearby smithies. The outer shell was built of thick cut stone and Imperial concrete, but the inner structure, visible at the top where the masons were still working, was lined with Kilnmaster Halvork's specialized firebricks, which used the recommended formulation from Ezra's prior experimentation.
Heavy wrought-iron straps bound the outside of the chimney at regular intervals to hold the structure against the outward pressure of the heat. A sturdy wooden ramp spiraled up the back of the tower, built for laborers to carry the heavy loads of ore, charcoal, and limestone to the mouth of the stack. Down at the riverbank, a large wooden waterwheel sat in the current. A thick timber linkage connected its axle to a set of massive, double-acting leather bellows at the base of the furnace.
Scaffolding surrounded the upper half of the tower.
Master Surveyor Albrecht, Master Smith Arran, and Kilnmaster Halvork stood near the base. They were looking at a wax board Albrecht held, deep in discussion. Ezra approached quietly to listen in. As soon as he had arrived, he activated AMP to check if there were any glaring deficiencies, but there were none. So far, after walking around, Ezra didn't find any deviation from the plans that were drafted for the blast furnace.
A smith ran his hand over one of the heavy wrought-iron straps binding the tower. The hammer-marks from the forge-welds were visible, and the metal bit so tightly into the concrete that the edges of the stone were faintly scorched.
The smith looked at Arran and nodded, a sign that he was finished.
"The iron is set," Arran said, his arms crossing over his leather apron. "Fitted white-hot. The shrinkage pulled the stone together tight. The masonry will not burst when the pressure builds inside."
A carpenter wiped grease from the thick wooden camshaft connecting the waterwheel to the massive leather bellows. He threw his weight against one of the heavy counterweights, watching the leather fold and rise smoothly before giving Albrecht a nod.
Albrecht, seeing this, made a mark on his wax board. "The linkage is finished," he said. "We ran the wheel this morning without a fire. The cams strike in rhythm, and the draft through the tuyeres is continuous."
Halvork pointed up at the top of the stack. "The masons will finish sealing the top of the outer shell in two days. After that, we must stop. We need to let the new concrete and the lime mortar cure so the moisture escapes. If we load the charcoal and blast it with heat while the stone is still wet, the steam will expand inside the walls and crack the entire lining."
"Two weeks to cure," Albrecht agreed. "Then it will be ready to fire. I will instruct the foremen to begin stockpiling the raw iron ore, the crushed limestone, and the charcoal in the yard while we wait."
"Master Albrecht. Master Arran. Master Halvork," Ezra said, stepping into their line of sight.
The three men turned and offered slight bows. "Lord Ezra," Albrecht greeted. "The masons are laying the final sections of the upper chimney."
Ezra stepped closer to the base of the furnace. He activated AMP again, checking to see if he might have missed anything closer to the ground.
The golden grid appeared in his vision, snapping over the physical structure. He checked the internal dimensions of the hearth and the inward taper of the belly where the ore would roast. He checked the angles of the bronze tuyeres where the bellows would push the air. He checked the exact downward slope of the channels meant to separate the liquid iron and the slag.
Everything aligned with his drawings. The measurements were exact down to the millimeter. The masters had executed the plans flawlessly.
Ezra deactivated AMP. The geometry was correct. The mechanical and structural components were perfectly in place.
"The measurements are exact," Ezra said. He looked at Halvork. "But, I don't think we should wait the full two weeks in cold air. We can light a small wood fire in the hearth after the first week. Just a suggestion of course."
Halvork frowned for a fraction of a second, processing the instruction, before his eyes widened in understanding and nodded.
"Aye, if we keep it low and feed it slowly, it will draw the dampness out of the upper mortar at a controlled rate without boiling the water trapped inside the stone," Halvork said, nodding approvingly. "A curing fire. Yes. It will bake the joints safely and harden the inner firebricks before we hit it with the main blast.
Albrecht added the note to his board. "I will schedule the dry wood delivery with the carters."
Ezra looked up at the towering blast furnace. The infrastructure was almost complete. In two weeks, they would load the charge, light the main fire. So far, everything was going exactly according to plan.