First light on Day eighty-four revealed the full stone-built grandeur of the Needlehouse map hall.
Seen from the southwestern courtyard, the building rose in two massive tiers of dressed grey pale limestone, fifty-eight paces long on its north-south axis and fifty-eight paces wide from east to west. High arched high window row windows pierced the upper writing hall. Meanwhile, the ground floor was buttressed by four pairs of heavy stone pilasters designed to withstand the crushing lateral thrust of winter snowdrifts.
Kezra, Fellis, and Yseld stepped out onto the frosted flat stone slabs. She carried their knotted sixty-four-pace Reach outer edge cord and a basket of red and white chalk blocks. Before laying down a single line of chalk, Fellis stopped at the southwestern stone base where they had unbolted the cedar water channel at midnight.
The nineteen-year-old ropewright knelt in the frozen grass. His braced left arm was held securely against his chest. Meanwhile, his good right hand brushed away the loose shale grit along the foundation apron.
“Hold the cord, Kez,” Fellis called out softly, his voice sharp with suspicion. “Look here.”
The Needlehouse map hall was an ancient monument to a forgotten philosophy of building. Unlike the utilitarian stone huts and defensive forts built by the Cairn Host, this two-story vaulted structure had been designed by scholars who believed that mapmaking was an act of civic stonework.
