Location: Kaelport — the slip, the weighbridge corner · the long shed and its back room
Date: 14–15 Emberwane 9943 AZI, Hammerday night into Temperday, after midnight
Realm: Lower Realm
Tar, and cold water, and the gut-smell the slip gave off at night when the wind dropped, and there was nothing to carry it away.
Vukan had been asleep in his coat. He didn't hear the door. What he heard was the older man stop inside it, which was a different sound, a weight settling on a board that had been taking no weight a moment before.
"Bring your book."
He brought it. The chandler's wife was snoring through the wall, and the stair was steep, and he went down it with one hand on the rope rail and the satchel against his hip, and at the bottom the cold came up off the water and into his chest and woke the rest of him.
