The oil lamp on Corin Petch’s desk sputtered with a faint green hiss. It cast long, trembling shadows across the high pine wainscoting of the customs office. Outside, beyond the frosted glass panes of the front windows, the southern mountain wind was rising, rattling the heavy corrugated iron canopy that covered the transit roadway. Every few moments, the muffled voices of the four guards stationed around the coal fire bowl carried through the timber walls. They were followed by the dull clink of a carbine butt resting against the iced cobblestones.
Bram Ash stood in the center of the room, his left hand resting on the back of a heavy oak chair, his wounded right arm tucked rigidly against his ribs beneath his torn uniform coat. The fever was burning hotter now, flushing his cheeks and making the skin across his temple feel tight as parchment. But his gray eyes remained fixed on the young clerk with unbending focus.
Corin sat with his wire-rimmed glasses resting on the sheepskin blotter, his thumb slowly tracing the brass metal ring of his penholder. His face was pale, his mouth slightly parted as the reality of Bram’s words sank into his mind. For six years, Corin had measured his existence by the arrival of the dispatch coaches, the collection of transit scrip, and the formal filing of quarantine manifests. The country city court had been the only reality he had ever known. A vast, unmoving building of official seals, stamped forms, and armed…
