Night came to Empty Choir with a bitter, biting frost that turned the surface flat stone slabs to polished iron. Inside the barrel-vaulted western shelter, the small sheet-iron camp stove glowed cherry-red around its lower draft vents, filling the low stone chamber with the fragrant, crackling warmth of burning juniper root and melting mutton fat.
The shelter’s thick granite walls muffled the howling of the gale that swept the open plateau outside. Even so, the narrow stone window slits beveled into the stonework continued their steady sound vigil. The treble flutes sounded a constant, high whistling chord that rose and fell with every gust. Meanwhile, the low bass slot sent a rhythmic thrum through the bedrock under the slate hearthstones. Kezra sat on a low wooden bench near the fire, her stockinged feet resting on a warm slab of flaky rock, her bonded notebook open across her knees.
Beside her on the bench lay two ancient items Voss had carried up from the eastern shelter’s check cellar before the freeze set in: a pair of bronze sighting alidades and a tarnished copper height plate stamped with the crest of the old survey corps. The plate bore the engraved notation STATION IV TO BRACKENFORD ROADWAY — GRADIENT AND CULVERT SCHEDULE — YEAR 112. It was the very route they intended to verify tomorrow.
