The flame of Tomas Reed’s animal fat lantern cast long, trembling shadows across the lead ceiling of Bastion-Nine. Above the bolted pine desk, the third plate hung like a sheet of dark water, its rolled surface covered with the furious, chipped lettering of Captain Danel’s final working log.
Tomas stood upon the pine bench, his fingers tracing the three-sided needle-point arrow grooves where the metal had been gouged out by eighty pounds of manual pressure. The air in the underground cellar smelled of cold rainwater, decayed spruce floor beams, and the sharp stone tang of raw lead shavings.
Nessa Vale stepped up onto the lower rung of her land-mapper’s ladder. She held her brass sound horn toward the plate. Meanwhile, her notebook lay balanced on her forearm. Behind her, Hester Quill held a clean sheet of rubbing paper, her glasses reflecting the yellow wick-flame.
“Read the entry at noon, Tomas,” Hester said. Her voice shook with the disciplined excitement of a scroll-keeper who had found the lost charter of an empire.
Tomas placed his calloused thumb beneath the jagged block capitals of the fourth day of Autumn. He cleared his throat, his breath puffing white in the underground chill, and read the words carved eighteen years before:
