While Hobb carried the four-pound wheel of ceiling cheese upstairs to slice it onto flat-loaves for Luma’s eight children, Noll Vey stepped inside the circular iron witness rail at the center of the Hall of Witness and let his new Dominion sense drop into the floor.
It was nothing like the damp-mortar sight of his first days as a Seed, or even the deep foundation load-sharing of Bastion rank.
As his stone boots settled onto the black-and-white flagstones inside the rail, the three grated masonry channels beneath the amphitheater opened to his awareness like three giant organ pipes laid beneath the skin of the valley. His mind rushed outward along the ancient survey lines—not claiming ownership of the town or the fields, for the civic bond had explicitly barred him from playing landlord over free neighbors, but feeling the weight, the water, and the sworn words resting upon the stone.
To the north, his sense ran half a mile down the hillside culvert to the iron market well at the center of Mere’s cobbled square. He could feel the cold groundwater lapping twenty feet below the well-curb, the vibration of iron bucket chains knocking against the wet stone lining, and the faint, anxious murmur of townsfolk gathered around the pump-handle in the afternoon sleet.
