The iron padlock on the intake pylon was not merely a physical blocked path. It was an instrument of sovereign extortion.
Tomas Reed knelt on the sun-baked granite footing of the stonework pylon, his canvas-trousered knees resting on the dry settled mud that had settled in the doorstep. The air smelled of hot dust, scorched moss. The rotten-egg tinge of rotting algae trapped in the dried crevices. He slipped the leather straps of his ash-wood pack frame from his shoulders. He set the seventy-pound load down against the cut stone blocks. The familiar release of weight sent a sharp tingling sensation down his spine, followed right away by the dull, familiar throbbing in his left forearm.
He unbuckled the calfskin wrist brace, feeling the damp heat trapped against his skin. The jagged white scar, dragging from his mid-forearm to the base of his thumb, pulled taut against the underlying gristle. He stretched his fingers one by one. He felt the clockwork stiffness where the tendon sheath had fused during the long winter in the low under-road drains. With his right hand, he drew a small tin jar of rendered goose grease and calendula salve from his satchel. He rubbed a pea-sized dab into the scar tissue until the white skin turned supple and pink. Ten minutes of carriage without the brace would cause his grip to slip below forty pounds. With the brace cinched to the third eyelet, he could haul an eighty-pound survey box across rough scree.
