Inside the roofless granite walls of the ruined tool storehouse, the wind dropped to a low, hollow moan across the window slits.
Paxa set a flat slate slab across two empty butter firkins to serve as a drafting table. Meanwhile, Voss pulled dry juniper roots from his pack and built a small, smokeless fire in the corner hearth. The heat was meager. But it kept their fingers from stiffening as Kezra spread three sheets of heavy rag paper across the stone.
The smoke from the juniper roots smelled sweet and pungent. It filled the cold room with the clean aroma of wild resin. Paxa boiled water in her battered tin kettle. She dropped dried willow bark and pinches of coarse salt into the cups to make a hot, astringent tea that thawed their chilled gullets. Outside, the afternoon gale whistled through the empty window embrasures. But inside the four-foot granite walls, the air was still enough for parchment to lie flat.
On the left of the slate slab lay a charcoal rubbing of the lower saddle pillar: N. REL— with its arrow pointing fifteen degrees into the headwall. In the center lay the rubbing of the tablet they had uncovered under the coping stone: N. REL. BENCH — 400 P. EAST. On the right lay the rubbing from the upper post: N. REL. SHELTER — PASS.
