Prit’s knee was sharp as a dry wedge beneath the slate.
He sat on the lowest stone riser of the witness gallery, his grey wool stockings worn thin at the shins, his spectacles balanced on the bridge of his narrow nose. To his left, on the clean-swept surface of the witness rail, his three chalk stubs lay in the order he had maintained for eleven years of municipal audits: white filing chalk for material transactions, grey audit chalk for contested testimony, and red hazard chalk for debts carrying immediate forfeiture of life or limb.
The red chalk was worn down to a thumb-width nub. The grey chalk was fresh.
Across the chamber, twenty paces of grey flagstone separated the witness ring from the unfolded doorway of the ninth room.
Standing in the center of the ring was Noll Vey. From the back, the stone host looked like a damaged monument dragged from an abbey cellar. The left arm was gone, sheared off at the elbow, leaving a jagged stump that spilled white lime dust whenever the actor shifted his balance. The left shoulder drooped two inches, the faux-velvet carving of the coat lapel cracked along the collarbone, and through the seam in the left ribs, the cold blue glow of Core Chip #2 flickered like a candle in a draughty barn.
