Sarev Tal Oradan's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Sarev carried the sealed batch up from the vault at midday. The mixing vessel weighed like wet stone against his hip. Inside lay his first true match of the deep mix: mineral binder, aggregate, and the bronze-black fibers he had raked from the colony below. Enough to cut the pier and set the repair. He climbed toward the central span with the sack of spare fiber over his shoulder. Then he saw the men at the stair mouth. Maedra Veyrhal stood among them. She was small and square, silver-haired, wrapped in dark burgundy. She held a heavy brass-and-ceramic seal in both hands. Two workers waited beside a slab of fitted stone, ready to lower it over the vault door. Sarev had crossed her before. She had let him work only under her eye, touching nothing without her word. Now her eye had found the one thing she wanted kept. "You knew what was down there," she said. "You didn't tell me." "I told the record," Sarev said. "The fiber's finite. One harvest. It can't be taken twice." "Then it's mine to spend." She lifted the seal. "Not yours. Not the councils'. Not the buyers circling my stoneway. I seal it today." Sarev set the batch down slowly. "Seal it, and I finish the pier with what's in this vessel. That's all I get. If I've measured short, the span shears within two seasons." "Your writ gave you access. It didn't give you my colony." That was true, and Sarev knew it. The writ covered inspection and repair. Not the living stuff on the walls. He looked at the sealed batch, then at the sack. He had exactly one attempt. Teren Vask came up the maintenance road then, breathing hard. The foreman was broad and gray-mustached, thirty years on this waterway. He worked for Maedra. He had also slipped Sarev the access route days ago, knowing the cost. He stopped between the surveyor and the seal. "Baroness. If that span goes, the settlements below lose their water in a night." He wiped his hands on his belt. "I've felt it move. He hasn't lied about that." Maedra looked at her foreman for a long moment. Something passed and closed. "Finish the pier," she said to Sarev. "Today. With what you carry. Then the vault seals with you outside it." Sarev nodded once. He hauled the batch to the span and worked without stopping. He cut the pier, packed the deep mix into the old bed, and pressed it home with his short-fingered hand. The batch ran out as the last course closed. Nothing left over. No margin. Behind him, the workers lowered the slab. Maedra pressed the brass seal against the vault stone. The door was shut for good. Sarev stood by the finished pier. The repair held. But the colony was gone now, locked away. If his measure was wrong by even a little, he could never mix another batch.