Before the sun cleared the eastern tooth of Mount Sunder, Tomas sat upon a flat slab of limestone at the edge of the terrace. Then he opened his master ledger case.
The slate within his inner vision glowed with the quiet, iron-gall monospace characters of the Last Claim. The screen didn’t flicker like magic or crackle like lightning. It was as steady and unbending as a piece of dry sheepskin pressed under a brass screw-press. He felt the familiar dull warmth spreading through his chest. Not a burst of divine energy. But the heavy, grounded sensation of a legally recognized burden settling onto his shoulders.
He dipped his reed pen into the horn inkpot. He wiped the surplus against the rim, and laid down the entry in his physical book, matching the characters that inscribed themselves onto his mind.
Claim Seventeen registered, Tomas thought, blowing gently across the wet black ink.
The original locked deposit bond of fifteen hundred silver crowns had been deposited in the Canton Vault in year nineteen, pledged by the province to guarantee the complete clearance and permanent drainage of the mountain drain tube. For twenty years, that coin had sat in the trust account. It drew interest that had been siphoned off by the Dragon-Slayer patrons. Meanwhile, the work remained unperformed. Under the laws of the Last Claim, an unperformed contract couldn’t be dismissed by passage of time so long as the original physical grievance endured.
