The flame of Paxa Sel’s safety lamp cast warm, amber shadows across the stacked flaky rock slabs of Oren Vail’s cairn. In the deep silence of the four-hundred-and-twenty-pace landing, the only sound was the rhythmic, whispering scrape of charcoal against stringy rag paper as Kezra Venn made her rubbing.
She had pinned a sheet of heavy drawing thick parchment across the headstone slab. She used four brass drafting tacks pressed into the hairline fissures of the rock. With a broad stick of willow charcoal held flat in her right palm, she swept across the stone with long, slanted strokes. The black dust adhered to the high ridges of the flaky rock. Then, the recessed grooves of Davren’s carving emerged in sharp, stark relief. The incomplete split triangle at the top, the ragged block letters of Oren Vail’s name, and the final, touching line. KEPT SAFE BELOW THE FROST.
The physical craft of charcoal rubbing needed delicate, unrushed pressure. If an artisan pressed too hard, the soft willow charcoal crushed into black paste that smeared across the paper, filling the recessed lettering and obscuring the chisel lines. If she pressed too lightly, the tooth of the thick parchment failed to catch the delicate surface texture of the flaky rock. Kezra worked with the calm, steady concentration of a potter centering a lump of clay. Her thumb held the charcoal stick at a shallow thirty-degree angle. She swept back and forth in smooth, level passes across the pinned thick parchment.
