Tinker [On Hold]

2. Resourceful But Careless

Jared awoke with a throbbing headache, not knowing how many hours he was out. Wrists still bound in rope, but body otherwise free, he quickly began looking for a way out. Jared lay on a hay pallet in a room hardly wide enough to house it. The opposite end of the room held a thick wooden door with a square window, thick iron bars spanning the opening. The only light source within range of the room was an oil lantern outside the door which, to Jared's displeasure, showed the other three walls to be unyieldingly solid.

Careful not to rustle the hay, Jared swung his legs off the pallet and slowly sat up. He strained his ears to check if anyone else was around, but heard no one. Having no desire to waste any more precious time, Jared pinched the bottom edge of his tunic with his right hand. Slowly drawing the fabric between his right thumb and index finger, he pulled until he found the fabric hollow between his fingertips. Feeling this pause in the garment's rigidity, he peeled back the tunic edge and produced a thin, silver metal rod, embedded there by him for just such occasions. Repeating the procedure several more times left Jared with six such rods, each roughly the length of his hand.

Still listening for motion outside the room door, Jared began twisting the rods together with his hands, willing them together with his mind. The rods gave way under his fingers uncertainly at first, but as his concentration deepened, so did the malleability of the metal. At the peak of his focus – when his normally light grey irises took on a more solid, metallic appearance – the rods melted without heat, becoming a single glob of argent liquid in his palms. No longer manipulating with his hands, Jared traced the surface of the viscous form over and over with his eyes, flattening and elongating it with will alone. The desired outcome familiar to him, the form of his trusty knife quickly took shape: an intricately patterned blade curving towards a straight spine, a smooth handle with a ring for his forefinger, and two quillons spaced perfectly to accommodate the rest of his fingers. Once satisfied, Jared allowed his concentration to waver, watching the metal solidify.

A press of blade to rope and a twist of his forearms later, Jared sat on the pallet rubbing his sore wrists. Taking the knife into a backhand grip in his right hand, he slowly raised himself from the pallet, tensing his body in anticipation. To both his pleasure and his dismay, the only sound to be heard was that of his own light breathing.

Slightly relaxing his grip on the knife, Jared dared to approach the door. Still hearing no one else, he risked a peak at what lay beyond. His room, it seemed, was just one of a dozen or so cells lining the walls of a hall. Looking at the door across from his, Jared understood the latch mechanism keeping his door closed. Focusing on his knife, he drew out the metal into a shaft the length of his arm, adding an elbow near the handle and a wide hook at the other end. Jared then stuck the resulting tool through the space between his door's iron bars and carefully dragged it across the door's outer surface. No more than ten seconds later, Jared felt the tool's hook catch and opened the latch with a simple flick of his wrist.

Assuming himself still alone, Jared triumphantly waltzed out into the hall and turned towards the exit at its end. Within two steps, he was startled by the voice of a young man standing at the other end of the hall.

“You know, such carelessness usually costs a person their life...”