Inside the twenty-foot dark rock recess, the granite overhang blocked the direct whip of the northern gale. That left a pocket of dim, frost-lit stillness that smelled of wet wool, singed ash wood, and cold stone dust. Outside the low stone brow, the three pale blades of Heaven’s Measure circled thirty feet above the slope in a slow, searching triangle. Their white glare reflected off the newly welded bronze collar of Approval Socket #1 in the southwestern trench. None of the eight survivors wasted the lull on speeches. While Bel Sar tested the tarred hemp wrapping around the split belly of his Ash Reed staff and Hall Mistress Soran ran a thumb along the five-degree bend in her iron spear, Vaska Ren knelt over a flat slab of dark shale near the center of the shelter.
With the ungloved index fingernail of his right hand, the mute former Chief Judge smoothed a layer of grey stone ash and crushed rock dust across the three-foot stone slab. His scarred neck rose and fell with a quiet, dry whistle each time he drew breath into his lungs. The permanent physical cost of the lamp-coal he had swallowed at the lower road shrine six nights earlier so Reth Mal’s relay couldn’t commandeer his voice. Yet his hand moved across the ash with the crisp, unhesitating care of a master drafter who had spent twenty winters calibrating the Hollow Summit’s timing tables.
