Thurig Wrightmaster

The elected Wrightmaster of the Stonewright Moot — a slab-built old mason who keeps the Karth Bridge chain-works standing, fixes the price of stone and iron from the deep galleries, and ledgers a clan's grudge into a debt that can be paid.

Thurig came up cutting foundation-stone for a clan that no longer exists, lost two fingers to the chain-works he now maintains, and was raised to Wrightmaster because no clan trusted any other clan's candidate more than they grudgingly trusted his. He speaks little and never twice; a stone-price he sets stands a season, a claim he registers stands until the rock gives out, and a debt he ledgers gets paid slow but it gets paid. He is unsentimental about the great works — he keeps Karth Bridge up because the north moves on it, not because the empire that left it was worth a damn — and unsentimental about gods, the Old Reckonings, and anyone who says the old stone means more than its weight. His private dread is plain and material: every winter fewer prentices come down to the galleries, and a craft that isn't taught is a bridge that isn't kept.