The sun had climbed high enough to turn the white salt-crust of the tiered arena into a blinding, heat-streaming pan by the time Kezra Venn, Yseld Arken. Fellis Dain reached the outer edge of the abandoned pump station.
Across the circular rock basin, shimmering heat mirages rose from the white chalk-stone flats like semi-clear waves, bending the dark stone castle walls above into warped towers. The air smelled of desiccated salt water, hot iron oxide, and the bitter stone dust of ancient washouts. Every step across the crust needed delicate balance. Beneath the three-inch white crust lay dry, powdery silt that would puff upward in thick grey clouds if a heel struck too hard, signaling their approach to anyone watching from the upper slits.
Kezra walked with her weight shifted forward over her toes, her boots making a dry crunching sound that blended with the constant whisper of the wind through the canyon scrub. Beside her, Fellis held his folded coat over her shoulder to shield her borrowed quarry pad from the glare. Meanwhile, Yseld scanned the high rim with her staff held ready.
The Old North Pump House stood on a low terrace of dressed limestone blocks fifty paces out from the canyon wall. He was surrounded by dry drainage ditches and tumbled heaps of rusted iron pump rods. The stonework had been laid forty years ago during the peak of the stone boom. It used two-foot courses of grey pale limestone block held by lime mortar that had…
