The canvas litter was set down upon the granite flat stone slabs five paces from the Dawn Registrar’s stone base.
Len Vey lay propped against a bundle of folded wool awnings, his right hand resting flat across his stomach to steady the shallow, burning rhythm of his breathing. The cold mountain gale was scouring the open terrace, drying the sweat on his forehead and turning the greasy sulfur grime on his cheeks to a stiff, chalky crust. In the east, behind the black, jagged teeth of the Guard peak, the sky was no longer indigo. It had turned the pale, semi-clear gray of skimmed milk, edged along the granite crest with a razor-thin wire of molten amber light.
Suddenly, a clean, sharp shaking rang in the center of his skull.
It wasn’t the oily, nauseating static of an approaching double, nor was it the greasy pressure that had pulsed through his temples whenever he walked near an active anchor line. It was a crisp, tactile pulse. A sensation like an iron tuning fork struck once against stone and held against his temple.
The office ledger of Rookvale was recognizing a completed transaction.
Before Len’s eyes, hovering in the freezing mountain air three feet above his chest, a charcoal-gray screen slate crystal-hardened out of the predawn grayness. It was exactly forty characters wide, bounded by the austere, squared borders of country office record-keeping. He carried the legal text of the Dawn Registry:
