Demesne 341 - Worth The Price (Patreon)

The bound tool had been covered with a canvas sheet, and a bench was next to it, probably because it kept people from propping things up against it otherwise. Still, while the canvas had acquired the light dusting of sawdust everything does when carpentry is being done, when Master Yhosed pulled off the sheet the bound tool underneath was in good condition.

Something clattered as the sheet was pulled off.

Master Yhosed looked down and sighed. “Edjrond, you left your chisel on the bound tool! I told you to check here! Get over here man, and next time I tell you to check somewhere, you colors check there!”

As Master Yhosed verballing castigated the carpenter who’d apparently left his chisel on the bound tool, I examined the device in question. It was vaguely lathe-shaped, and to my surprise the table that held it up had the look of new wood. Had they dismantled it to bring it aboard the ship? Well, if they could, they probably did. Standing at about stomach height, it was supported by widely spaced legs. The legs had boards on the bottom on which rocks had been placed, weight down the tool and making it hard to move and tip over.

A rectangular metal frame was supported on the table, anchored to the wood by bolts. The frame was half a pace wide and two paces long. On either end where the lathe mounts, one of which could be moved by a screw that ran the length of the frame. Alone one long side of the rectangle was another track, on which a vertical track that a round device was mounted. From the pivot and markings, the device could be angled up and down as well as raised and lowered. On one side of the frame was a recognizable bead receptacle, while next to it was a coil of what I recognized as wire sheathed in deadspoken leather. That would be the contact a Whisperer—or whichever sort of wizard was needed to imbue the bound tool but it was often a Whisperer—would use to imbue the bound tool in lieu of a bead. Just behind of the stationary lathe mount on one end was a semi-circular protrusion on a relatively flat, table-like section.

I was still examining the bound tool when Master Yhosed finished with his little disciplinary matter. “Sorry about that,” he said gruffly, making me look away and meet his gaze.

“It’s fine, I understand,” I said. “Can you talk me through what your bond tool can do?”

Master Yhosed nodded. “This part,” he gestured to the semi-circular protrusion, “is a saw, for cutting beams and planks down to size. The rest of it is, at heart, a lathe.” He gestured towards the mountings. “We can turn a length of wood up to thirty yustri wide as well as core it out, and with this head,” he gestured to the track on the side, “we can also do boring, routing and drilling.”

That…was actually pretty good for making a water screw. “What do you usually use it for?” I asked.

“Cups.”

I blinked. “What, really?”

Master Yhosed nodded. “About once a month I get young Remia to come over so we can use this, and we do a run of cups for a traveling merchant. It’s fast enough that it’s worth it to pay the wizard for the day. The rest we spend trimming down what we can for the month while she’s still on the clock.”

“Huh… I can see it. You’d think people would be more careful with cups, though.” I glanced at the bound tool. “If you had the beads to run it full time, what would you use it for?”

“What we planned to use it for,” Master Yhosed sighed, giving the bound tool a frustrated look. “Turning, drilling, mortising and cuttingg. We have a treadle lathe that can also be used as a saw, but it ties up two people to use, and the hand drills and saws are slow. With this…” he sighed.

“All that but faster, and not needing as many people,” I said, nodding. “Do many other carpenters have a bound tool they can’t use?”

“Vov a few shops down has one that’s a saw and planer. We all chip in a little so we can hire young Remia or Lastrin to run it once a week for getting everything we need ready. A few streets over, I hear they have a saw too, though I can’t recall the name of who has it at the moment.” He let out an annoyed breath. “If I’d known how little use I’d get out of this thing, I’d have sold it for more tools.”

“Last year, I heard that the only beads accepted here were Covehold-issued beads and old continent beads” I said, “but from the sound of it, Covehold really isn’t issuing its own beads, is it?”

“Oh, that. They’ve been saying that since I came here ten years ago, but so far the only new beads anyone sees come in on the ships from the old lands. I suppose none of the Dungeon Binders there wanted to share how it was done.”

We both shook our heads, probably for different reasons, but the same sentiment.

“Well, here,” I said, handing him the wispbead Lori had made. She was going to be so smug when I confirm that at least the Dungeon Binder of Covehold hadn’t figured out how to make beads. “Let’s see if everything needed for our commission is working.”

Master Yhosed hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t have anything smaller, Master Rian?”

“It’s fine. This one doesn’t have any denomination marks anyway, so it’s not good for anything but bound tools and being swallowed,” I said.

The carpenter sighed the sigh of a man who’d done what he could to keep his conscience clear and took the bead from my hands. He slipped it into the bead receptacle, and the bead rolled down to the bottom where the metal contact was. I watched as he moved the switches on the bound tool, activating the driver on one of the lathe mounts, the driver on the track-mounted drill, router and borer, and, once he flipped over the protective cover, the driver on the bound tool’s circular saw, which all began to turn rapidly. Each driver activated only briefly, likely so as not to consume the bead more than necessary,

I watched as he handled the operated the bound tool, paying particular attention when he turned some knobs which seemed to increase the speed at which the driver on the side track rotated. That… all right, I’ll have to tell Lori about that, because I had noidea how she might possibly replicate that with the bound tools she was making. Though there weren’t any glass components visible on the bound tool, so I had to wonder why she kept insisting that was necessary, but maybe it was an internal component I couldn’t see.

Master Yhosed moved all the switches the other way, apparently deactivating all the drivers, then tipped back the bead receptacle so that the wispbead would roll back to the wider end and be scooped out.

“Thank you,” I said as I accepted the bead. “I think you have exactly what I’m looking for. Do you have an office where we can discuss details?”

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Master Yhosed didn’t have a proper office, but there was a room above the shop where, as I had surmised, he, his family, and some of the other carpenters slept. At the moment, it contained his wife and his daughter, who was getting the food ready for everyone’s lunch. The two glanced at us curiously, but apparently this wasn’t an unusual occurrence, because they went right back to cooking. I found myself salivating slightly at the smell of something that wasn’t just stewed beast or seel meat.

The carpenter led us to a table, where I sat, while he drew out an abacus, a leather sheet, and a charred stick before he joined me.

“Now, how big do you need the waterscrew to be, Master Rian?” Master Yhosed said.

“Actually, I have an apology to make, Master Yhosed,” I said, laying the bead we’d just tested the bound tool with on the table. “You see, I needed to speak to you in private about something else. As much as I’d like to bring home a water screw—” we could probably used it one the third floor to make it easier to fill up buckets, or eliminate at least one of the bindings Lori had to maintain in the baths, “—we don’t really have the budget for it.” I placed the bead in my hand between us. “Please accept this for your bound tool along with that apology, to make up for your time.”

Master Yhosed as frowning now, but he glanced at the cloudy white wispbead between us, picking it up warily.

“It’s unmarked, so you can’t buy anything with it, but you’ve seen it’s a real bead and you’ll be able to use it to run your bound tool downstairs,” I said.

“Then what did you come here for?” he asked, looking at the bead critically as if worried I’d switched it when he’d been looking for his implements.

I took a deep breath. There really wasn’t a way I could get around to this without revealing some measure of the truth. “As far as I know,” I said, “that bead has never been in a Whisperer’s stomach, nor has it been used to power a bound tool until we used it downstairs. My Dungeon Binder gave it to me like that.”

Master Yhosed’s frown deepened, and he looked intently at the wispbead. The very smoothwispbead.

“If I had to guess,” I mused allowed, “back when people were still being free with using beads for their bound tools, they probably used the wispbeads that were small and small-mid denomination, because those would be worth the least compared to everything else. Mid-large kinds of beads, no matter the size, might be too valuable to use. So the beads used for the bound tools would have been large small-mids at the most… Does that sound about right, Master Yhosed?”

The carpenter nodded slowly, his gaze finally coming back to me.

“That’s a large bead, but since it doesn’t have any denomination markings, I can’t use it to buy anything” I said. “Since I’m not a Whisperer, all I can do with it is find someone to home it’s worth something.” I tilted my head. “How much work can your bound tool do with a large wispbead, Master Yhosed.”

“A large bead would last the bound tool a day or more, used sparingly,” Master Yhosed said in a slow, contemplative voice. “Half that if we kept it working the whole time.”

My head bobbed in a nod. “Would a large small-mid bead be worth the price of running your bound tool for two days, used sparingly?” I asked.

“It might…” he said slowly. “Only two days?”

“It’s all I have on me,” I said. “If you need more… well, we can meet again in a day or so, once you’re more sure the beads are worth the price. Perhaps tell you friends about how sure you are, so they can come with you?”

Master Yhoed glanced down at the wispbead I’d given him again. “I’ll have to see if they work on the bound tool first,” he said. Yes, he was clearly concerned I’d switch be bead for glass.

For the first time since meeting the man, I let myself smile.

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A little while later, I stepped out of the carpentry workshop, my belt pouch two more wispbeads lighter and a heavier by a small talkbead. I had been pleasantly surprised when Master Yhesod had insisted on paying more for the two beads once we’d proven on their bound tool that they were the real thing. Multaw and Cyuw were waiting outside, some mican peels kicked to the side as they tried to stay under the shadow of the workshops overhang.

“You done, Rian?” Multaw asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Come on, I’ll tell you how it turned out later.”

I needed to find a quiet corner to get more beads out of my pouch and slip them into my handkerchief. The day wasn’t over yet, and there were more workshops around. Not Vov a few shops down, he was too close, but perhaps a few streets over?

Cyuw handed me a mican. “Why don’t you eat first, Rian?”

I took the fruit, nodding in agreement. “All right, eat, then I tell you how it turned out.”

Up above, the sun told me how much longer it was before we were to meet with the others on the Coldhold.