With Varo safely loaded into the cradle, Corvin Hest turned to the bronze counterseal box bolted to the central stone stand. In his hand he held the heavy, four-notched iron key that Davin Sorell had worn around his neck for forty years.
Sorell stood three paces away. He leaned against the cold casing of the gear housing, his face fully drained of color, his hands hanging limp at his sides. He didn’t move to stop him. He watched with the dull, unblinking stare of a man watching his own execution.
Corvin pushed in the key into the master lock-tumbler. The gearwork was stiff with dried graphite. But it turned with a deep, heavy, satisfying clunk as the inside brass dogs slid back. Corvin lifted the hinged iron lid, reached inside. Then he grasped the four-inch glowing-bronze disk of the Sovereign Counterseal.
He twisted the disk one half-turn counter-clockwise, breaking the clockwork empty pocket seal. A soft, clean sigh of displaced air whispered from the housing. It was followed by the immediate, total collapse of the leftover magnetic hum that had shook through the platform for four decades. The Hollow Crown was dead. Corvin slipped the heavy bronze disk into his satchel, latched the leather buckle. Then it looked at his former teacher. “The shift is over, Master Sorell. Step into the sled.”
