The merchant guilds had ruled this province not with armies nor swords, but with parchment, ink, and coin. In the great halls of trade, where the banners of the Five Guilds hung from vaulted ceilings, power moved like smoke: slow, unseen, and suffocating.
But now, a storm had broken in from the east—and its name was Kalem.
They'd ignored him at first, thinking him some eccentric smith with a flair for theatre. Then they heard of the battlefields—of the Forest of Death, of Sol's fire, of the Red Oath scattered like chaff. Fear crept into their bones.
And worse than fear: irrelevance.
"He gives his tools for bare coin," said Guildmaster Vheren of the Silver Chain, spitting the words like sour milk.
"He teaches children to build!" snarled Mistress Raell of the Bell-forged Guild. "Children! Do you know what that will do to our craft licenses?"
Guildmaster Tharro of the Sun-weighted Bank steepled his fingers. "One man should not be allowed to move the tides of trade so freely. We must bring balance back."
"Balance? By force?" asked another. "He defeated Ardra. Ardra."
Silence fell for a time.
Then Tharro spoke again.
"We do not need to face him in battle. We need only choke the roots he's watered."
And thus, the Five Guilds moved. Not openly, but in quiet waves.
Across the province, subtle hands worked against Kalem's wind.
Roads were blocked under pretense of "construction."
Caravans carrying his blueprints were taxed into collapse.
Iron shipments were "misplaced."
Guild-backed scribes published scrolls warning of the "unproven danger" of unlicensed mechanisms.
Apprentices found themselves blacklisted if caught using his designs.
Even worse, the people were confused.
One man in a small forge in Peltry Vale returned Kalem's gear-driven mill clamp.
"They said if I use this, I'll lose my license," he muttered, eyes downcast. "I've got mouths to feed."
A potter's daughter, who once proudly built a wheel-pedaled grinding wheel from Kalem's diagrams, broke it herself after her mother's shop was fined.
"What have I done wrong?" she wept.
Kalem said nothing.
He fixed what they broke. Quietly. Repaired what had been shattered. Then kept walking.
But Garrick saw the signs: Kalem was growing tired.
Not of work.
Of fools.
One evening, near the amber sands of the southward market plain, Kalem stopped a group of traveling tinkerers, who had tried to build a seed-sower using his early drafts.
"Too many moving parts," he said, squatting beside their cart. "You'll lose strength in the axle. Try this instead."
He sketched a new design on the side of a wooden crate, fast and precise.
The tinkerers watched in awe, nodding.
Garrick, nearby, turned to a local merchant watching the exchange with disdain.
"Why do you frown?" he asked.
"That man is destroying centuries of regulation," the merchant said. "If every lad with a hammer can build, what use is a guild?"
Garrick only chuckled.
"If your guild fears a hammer in a child's hand, then it was never strong to begin with."
That night, back at their campfire, Kalem sat cross-legged, disassembling one of his older devices.
"Too bulky," he muttered. "I can shave half the weight off."
"Is it wise to keep giving them more?" Garrick asked. "The guilds are striking back."
"They always would," Kalem replied. "They hoarded tools like kings hoard crowns. And now that I've shown you can build a plough without kneeling to their parchment? They're frightened."
He held up the device—a grain crank, reduced and refined, light enough to lift with two fingers.
"But frightened men make mistakes."
He set it down.
Then Kalem stood, walked over to his satchel, and pulled out a small metal tablet—etched deeply with new symbols, a hybrid language of drawings, numbers, and instructions.
"What's that?" Garrick asked.
Kalem smiled. "A language for building. For those who can't read words, but can understand lines and levers."
Garrick blinked. "You mean to give this to the illiterate?"
"I mean to give this to everyone."
Garrick sat back, whistling. "They'll burn cities over this."
Kalem shrugged. "Then I'll build ones better."
But elsewhere, the Guilds had no intention of waiting.
In a tall, fortified manse overlooking the junction of three rivers, the Guildmasters met again—this time with shadows in the room, not merely men.
A whisper moved behind the banners.
"Shall we send the Grey Blades?"
"No," Tharro said. "Assassins will make him a martyr."
"Then what?"
The whisper smiled.
"Let us give him what he loves most. Let us build."
The Guildmasters leaned in, frowning.
And the whisper continued:
"Let us craft a machine of such grandeur, such awe, that the people forget he ever existed. Let them worship a new marvel. One bearing our name."
Mistress Raell's eyes gleamed. "And if we can't?"
"Then," said the whisper, "we bury him in law."