While the morning sun climbed above the eastern rim of the Spine, flooding Empty Choir with pale, golden light, Bram and Orel worked with cold chisels to shape three heavy capstones from slabs of dense gray baked flint-rock they had hauled up from the western ravine.
The capstones were not meant to seal the anchor sockets permanently. They were protective lintels designed to shelter Kezra’s freshly carved split-triangle marks from falling talus, wind-blown grit, and winter ice-wedging. Bram dressed each eighteen-inch slab with a three-point seating rim. That let the capstone bridge across the rock stone base without touching or abrading the delicate chisel cuts inside the socket.
Kezra stood beside the south-western anchor stone base. She watched the quarrymen test the fit of the first capstone. Bram set the heavy baked flint-rock slab over the socket. Then, it rested firm and flush, shielding the anchor mark while leaving a half-inch drainage gap on the downhill side so meltwater could escape freely.
Voss leaned his weight against his iron pry-bar, chewing a corner of dried salted beef. He watched Kezra audit the open pages of her bonded notebook.
“I’ve been thinking about that ledger, Cartographer Venn,” Voss said, squinting across the sunlit terrace. “You have eight slots in that book. Eight live addresses allowed to you at any time. Right now, you have Empty Choir sitting in slot one, and seven blank lines below it.”
