The underground vault was deathly quiet as Scribe Ren knelt beside young Ren Vale at the dark rock altar.
The eighth summon unscrewed the cork stopper of the ox-gall phial with his teeth. The sharp, bitter-salt stench of bovine bile and rectified spirit filled the small circular chamber, cutting through the hundreds of years-old dust of the tomb.
“Watch the pressure of the awl, Ren,” Scribe Ren instructed. His voice dropped into the quiet, hypnotic rhythm of an old master craftsman guiding an apprentice’s hand. “Ancient black lacquer is brittle, but under-aged thick parchment is stringy. If your angle exceeds fifteen degrees, the silver wire will catch the underlying ink and scrape the original Latin verbs away. You must float the solvent across the surface. Let the ox-gall dissolve the resin. Don’t force the blade.”
Ren Vale took a slow, deep breath, fighting the violent trembling in his ink-poisoned wrists.
His forearms were burning with a sharp, feverish agony, the purple streaks of Ink-Rot throbbing like live coals. But he touched the silver tip of his mammoth bone awl to the drop of ox-gall. Then, a strange, total calm dropped over his nerves.
A keeper doesn’t panic when the thick parchment is torn. A keeper becomes the ink.
