The charcoal blueprint lay pinned beneath the iron mallets on the trestle table, catching the warm, flickering radiance of the birch fire. Outside, the northern wind lashed against the fortress battlements, driving freezing pellets of sleet against the shuttered embrasures.
Above the gallery arch, the fresh white chalk read one hundred and sixty-two hours. Six days and eighteen hours remained before the Last Guest reached maturity behind the ninth door.
Noll Vey’s stone-sense lingered upon the heavy sheets of parchment. His awareness, trained by weeks of feeling the load-bearing stresses of granite lintels and lime mortar, traced every joint and bearing Ossa Flint had drawn. The lines were sharp, uncompromising, and stripped of ornamental vanity.
“The Hall of Witness was constructed during the First Delving of Orren,” Cale said, pulling a heavy transcribed tablet onto the bench beside the blueprint. His ink-stained thumbs were black to the cuticles, his spectacles perched low on his nose. “Long before the Crown established the Survey Chancellery, the mountain guilds settled disputes under the law of open assembly. The language on the foundation stones is explicit. A host who petitions for a hearing must physically step within the debtor’s circle. If the petitioner attempts to speak through an acoustic conduit, a pipe, or an enchanted wall, the carved face treats the speaker as an absent party.”
