The midnight bell tolled from the cathedral towers of Val-Khorat, its deep bronze deep ring shaking through the bedrock sixty feet beneath the city.
In Cell Four, the candle had burned down to a pool of animal fat on the check shelf. Outside in the hall, the two town court guards had fallen asleep over their pipes, their snores echoing down the damp limestone hall with steady, rhythmic safety.
Ren Vale was kneeling in the center of the cell, his sleeves rolled to his shoulders.
The purple-black veins of Ink-Rot along his forearms were pulsing with dull, feverish heat. But he ignored the pain. In his right hand, he held his carved mammoth bone awl, its silver-wired tip resting against the mortar joint between two massive granite flat stone slabs.
Beside him crouched Magistrate Ren and Unit Ren (The Machine-Grafted).
The sixth summon—showed up quietly into the physical world through the Speculum’s sixth tier—stood as an unbending monument to heavy-duty sacrifice. Unit Ren stood six feet tall, his left arm and shoulder replaced with blackened, high-pressure steel pistons. His chest heavy with was heavy brass pressure-valves that hissed with tiny releases of steam. His single living eye was cold, grey, and analytical. His clockwork left eye was a rotating brass sky-slit that clicked as it measured crushing weight-bearing tolerances.
