Early the next morning, Lorne did not take Lutia to North Street.
Instead, he led her into the archives behind the old assembly hall and pulled the route map from the day she arrived in Goosebell City out of a stack of entry records.
Once the map was spread out, Lutia recognized the North Gate, Mist River, and Longchime Bell Tower. The other streets were marked so densely that they looked like a mass of tangled lines.
Lorne tapped the area outside the North Gate with the tip of his pen.
“You passed through here before entering the city?”
“Yes.”
“The carriage from the Border Reception House came along the northeastern post road, then entered through the old road outside the North Gate?”
“That’s right.”
“It stopped once along the way.”
Lutia looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“The driver’s record says there was a delay of half a quarter-hour.”
“Humans write down even when a carriage stops?”
“Government carriages do.”
Lorne pushed another sheet of paper toward her.
It contained only a few lines of hurried handwriting, mentioning that the road outside the North Gate was blocked and that the accompanying personnel had helped clear the obstruction.
“What was the obstruction?”
“A rock.”
“How big?”
Lutia demonstrated with her hands, then realized the tabletop was not wide enough.
“A little longer than a carriage, and about as high as my chest.”
Lorne’s pen stopped.
“That isn’t called a rock.”
“It was a rock.”
“Most people would call it a boulder.”
“You change its name according to its size?”
“Sometimes.”
Lutia lowered her head and looked over the route map again.
The rock had been lying in the middle of the old road, its surface caked with mud and dry moss growing along both sides. The driver and the accompanying personnel had walked around it once, but no one could get the baggage-loaded carriage past.
Someone had asked whether she could help.
So she had used the wind to lift the bottom of the rock and move it to the side of the road. The entire process had taken fewer than ten breaths.
“Who asked you to move it?” Lorne asked.
“An engineering worker.”
“Name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Description?”
“Human male. Black hair, with some gray. Dark blue coat. Cloth wrapped around his wrist.”
Lorne glanced at her.
“You saw Xivier in the hearing room.”
Lutia remembered the man seated in the Engineering Office’s section.
“He looked very similar.”
“Very similar, or was it him?”
“He was wearing a hat then, and there was mud on his face. I can’t be certain.”
Lorne wrote “possible” on the paper.
“What did he say?”
“He said it was an old boundary stone washed over by rain and that it no longer served a purpose. The Engineering Office had originally planned to send someone to deal with it, but the carriage bringing me arrived first.”
“He knew you could move it?”
“He asked whether I was a seasonal apprentice.”
“So he knew who you were.”
“Someone at the Border Reception House may have told him.”
Lorne did not respond. He simply wrote down what she said.
“What resonance did you use to move the rock?”
“First-circle wind resonance. The objective was to lift the boundary stone off the road surface, with the spell boundary limited to the stone itself. Once I set it down, the borrowed wind dispersed along both sides of the road.”
“Did it touch anything beneath the ground?”
“No.”
“What about beneath the rock?”
Lutia thought about it.
“I didn’t look.”
“Why not?”
“The carriage needed to get through. Once the rock was moved, they immediately told the driver to continue.”
“What about the engineering worker?”
“He stayed behind.”
Lorne’s pen stopped again.
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t look back?”
“I was looking at the city gate.”
That was the first time she had seen Goosebell City.
The copper goose above the North Gate gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. From inside the city came the sounds of bells, wagon wheels, and market hawkers. At the time, she had thought the hardest parts of adapting to a human city would be the streets being too narrow, the sounds being too numerous, and everyone walking too quickly.
Before the first day was over, half the city had started snowing.
Lorne put away the entry records.
“We’re going to look at that rock.”
“Now?”
“The Engineering Office’s people are already waiting at the North Gate.”
“They agreed to let me get close?”
“Greta approved it. You can sense only. No casting, and no touching underground facilities.”
Lutia stood.
“What if my resonance really is underground?”
“Record it first.”
“And then?”
“See what the record can prove.”
“A record won’t make the snow stop.”
“At least it’ll tell us which section of ground to open. We won’t have to tear up the entire road first.”
Lutia did not argue.
When the small gate beside the North Gate opened, the guard first checked their investigation permit.
The wind and snow left behind by yesterday’s probing had already covered a short stretch of the old road outside the city. Two posts tied with red cloth marked the outer edge. Today, Lutia could remain only within the affected area. She could not cross the posts, nor could she move too far from the city wall.
The snow lay loose below her knees, and every step sank into it. Lorne walked more slowly than she did. His right leg looked slightly stiff whenever he put it down, yet he refused her help again.
The old boundary stone was less than two hundred paces from the North Gate.
Lutia remembered moving it to the side of the road. Now the stone was closer to the city wall, propped up on several thick logs, and facing a different direction from when she had set it down. Snow covered its surface, leaving only a small patch of gray-black stone exposed at the center.
Two Engineering Office workers had already cleared the spot where the boundary stone had originally stood.
One held a long-handled shovel. The other crouched on the ground, brushing snow and mud from the joints between the paving stones. A pry bar, wooden wedges, and a roll of measuring cord lay nearby.
Xivier was not there.
Lorne presented the investigation permit signed by Greta.
“What was the scene like when you arrived?”
The engineering worker with the brush stood up.
“The boundary stone was already here. There were no fresh footprints from this morning on the surface, and the ground hasn’t been disturbed. We waited for you to confirm things first.”
Lorne turned to Lutia.
“Where did you put the stone?”
Lutia walked to the boundary stone and stopped two steps away.
She examined the stone’s direction, then turned to compare it with the road.
“Not at this angle.”
“How different?”
She pointed toward the old road.
“I placed its long side along the road. Now its short side faces outward.”
The engineering worker asked, “Are you sure?”
“When the wind lifted it, the heavier end faced north. I did not make it rotate.”
Lorne walked around to the other side.
Three pieces of lumber supported the bottom of the boundary stone, each half buried beneath the snow. Scratches marked the wood’s surface. The cut ends were very pale and had not yet absorbed enough water to darken.
“These weren’t here the day before yesterday,” he said.
The engineering worker crouched for a look.
“The lumber is fresh.”
Lutia looked down at the pieces of wood.
“There was nothing beneath the stone when I set it down.”
Lorne took out his notebook.
“Someone moved the boundary stone again after you left.”
“It could have been someone from the Engineering Office.”
The man with the brush immediately shook his head.
“The official work order was only opened yesterday. Once the blizzard started, all work outside the North Gate stopped. At least, it wasn’t handled under any current work order.”
“How is this stone registered with the Engineering Office?” Lorne asked.
“Old city boundary stone,” said the other engineering worker. “It hasn’t been listed for maintenance since the new city expanded.”
“Who determined it didn’t need maintenance?”
“The old maps don’t show any connected utility lines or facility number.”
“Did you bring the map?”
The engineering worker pulled a folded map of the North Gate’s water and heating lines from his tool bag.
The map showed the city wall’s drainage, the guardhouse water supply, and two abandoned pipes beneath the old road. Lutia could not understand the numbers, but she could see that there were no markings at the boundary stone’s location.
“Start clearing it,” Lorne said.
The two engineering workers first shoveled away the surface snow.
Lutia stood beyond the boundary line and watched the ground beneath the boundary stone gradually emerge.
It was not a continuous paved road.
A rectangular gray stone was set into the center, with narrow gaps between its edges and the surrounding pavement. The gray stone was darker than the paving stones around it, and its surface showed little sign of weathering.
The engineering worker swept a brush through the gaps.
The moment the bristles touched the stone, a thread of snow powder slipped down through the crack.
Lutia took half a step forward.
The guard immediately raised a hand to stop her.
“Don’t cross the line.”
“There’s wind down there.”
The engineering worker stopped brushing.
“I don’t feel anything.”
“The wind is moving downward.”
Lorne looked at the crack.
“Can we confirm that without casting?”
“Yes.”
“Permission to sense. Limit it to the gray stone and three paces around it. Don’t extend beyond that.”
Lutia removed her left glove.
The wound on her right palm had only just scabbed over, and she did not let the cold wind blow directly over it again. She held her left hand above the gray stone without touching the ground.
The cold immediately pressed against her.
It was not seeping outward from underground. It was flowing from North City behind her, sinking into the crack along the edge of the stone. Her resonance lingered throughout the surrounding snow, and those tiny resonance echoes were being drawn in the same direction. The closer they came to the gray stone, the clearer the flow became.
Lutia withdrew her hand.
“The wind and snow are moving downward.”
“The gray stone is absorbing it?” Lorne asked.
“The gray stone is only a lid. Once the force enters, it flows southwest.”
The engineering worker unfolded the utility map.
“Southwest is the wall foundation. Beyond that is North City.”
“It goes farther,” Lutia said. “The direction approaches the bell tower.”
The two engineering workers exchanged a glance.
“Can we open it?” Lorne asked.
“First we need to confirm whether there’s a hollow space underneath.”
One of them lightly tapped the gray stone with a hammer.
The first strike sounded dull.
The second, closer to the center, produced a much deeper echo.
“There’s a space underneath.”
They inserted a pry bar into the narrow gap along the edge, but it could not penetrate at either of the first two positions. On the third attempt, they moved to a corner near the city wall, and the pry bar slid in half an inch.
The man with the brush stopped.
“This corner has been cleared.”
He wiped a fingertip along the gap.
The other three sides were packed with hard mud, gravel, and old moss roots. This side was almost free of debris. Several scrape marks along the edge of the gray stone were still free of dust.
Lorne crouched down.
“Opened recently?”
“At the very least, someone cleared the gap.”
The engineering workers inserted two pry bars side by side, set wooden wedges beneath them, and slowly lifted the gray stone.
As the slab rose from the ground, a blast of cold wind whipped out through the gap.
The cold wind surged upward for only an instant before turning and dragging the surrounding snow powder downward. The hem of Lutia’s cloak pressed toward the ground, and several snowflakes that had just fallen spun once in midair before slipping into the dark gap.
“Stop,” Lorne said.
The engineering workers braced the pry bars and did not lift any farther.
A short length of dark red metal showed beneath the gray stone.
Its surface was covered in verdigris, but the edge near the opening had been polished bright.
“Copper,” the engineering worker said.
“A wind duct?” Lorne asked.
“Looks like one, but it’s much wider than an ordinary ventilation pipe.”
They added more wooden supports and raised the gray stone high enough to fit a brace beneath it, then extended a lamp toward the opening.
A copper passage extended inward beneath the city.
The opening was long and narrow, with several angled metal plates arranged along the inside, presumably to adjust the direction of the wind. Old stone bricks surrounded the passage. No water had collected in the joints, but a thin ring of frost had formed there.
Snow powder continued to slide in from the ground.
The moment it fell into the copper duct, it vanished behind the angled plates.
Lutia stood beyond the boundary line, still able to feel her resonance being carried away with the snow.
“It doesn’t just let air through,” she said.
“What else does it do?” Lorne asked.
“Snow carrying seasonal resonance enters faster.”
The engineering worker took a small pinch of dry grass from his tool bag and placed it beside the opening.
The grass only trembled slightly. It was not immediately drawn inside.
Then he grabbed a handful of snow and placed it in the same spot.
The snow grains quickly slid toward the gap.
All three of them saw it.
The engineering worker holding the dry grass lowered his head to look at the map.
“There’s nothing like this on the utility map.”
“What about older maps?” Lorne asked.
“We’ll have to check the Engineering Office archives. The city wall in this area has been repaired many times. Some old facilities may have been covered by later paving.”
“Can we seal it temporarily?”
“Putting the gray stone back would reduce the amount of snow getting in.”
Lutia shook her head.
“Don’t seal it completely.”
“Why not?”
“The resonance has already entered underground. If this is part of a cycle, blocking one point could redirect the flow to another entrance.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure.”
She looked at the thin frost inside the copper duct.
“That’s why we can’t seal it completely.”
Lorne looked at the engineering workers.
“Can we reduce the amount of snow entering while keeping it open for observation?”
“We can add an iron grate and leave a gap. At least that will keep the whole mass of snow from dropping straight in.”
“Do that for now.”
The two engineering workers began measuring the opening.
Lutia crouched beside the boundary line, her gaze fixed on the inside of the copper duct.
The angled metal plates bore marks where they had been wiped clean. The two closest to the opening were almost dust-free, and dark grease still clung around their screws. Farther inside, thick verdigris covered the metal, clearly showing that it had not been cleaned in years.
“Someone touched this recently,” she said.
The engineering worker holding the lamp moved the light closer.
He touched the grease beside one of the screws with a small piece of wood.
“The grease is still tacky.”
“How long ago?” Lorne asked.
“Hard to tell. It could have been within the last few months, or more recently.”
“Would a disused wind duct need to be oiled?”
“No.”
“Does the Engineering Office have inspection records?”
“The duct isn’t even on the map. There wouldn’t be any current records.”
Lorne wrote that down in his notebook.
Lutia stood and walked to the other side of the boundary stone.
She did not cross the boundary line. She only lowered her head to examine the side that had originally rested against the ground.
Most of the boundary stone’s side was covered in old mud and moss stains, but a large area near the bottom bore clean scrape marks. Several parallel scratches extended from the bottom of the stone to its edge, spaced about as far apart as the pry bars used by the engineering workers.
“Lorne.”
He came over.
Lutia pointed to the scratches.
“When I moved it, the wind held up the entire stone. The bottom never scraped against the ground.”
Lorne crouched to examine it.
He then walked to the center of the old road, looked at the distance between the gray stone and the monolith, and turned toward the fresh lumber propping up the boundary stone.
“You set it at the side of the road, without wooden supports, and didn’t turn it,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Now the stone has been pried up again and propped on lumber, and someone cleared the opening beneath the gray stone.”
The engineering worker stopped what he was doing.
“You mean someone came back after she moved the boundary stone?”
Lorne did not answer immediately.
He flipped back to the driver’s entry record and glanced at the line reading “old boundary stone washed over by rain.” Then he wrote a new record in his notebook.
After Lutia Windgarden moved the boundary stone, it was pried up again, turned, and raised.
The unregistered copper wind duct beneath it had recently been opened and maintained.
The people involved and their purpose remain unknown.
When Lorne finished writing, he closed the notebook.
Wind and snow blew in from North City and sank into the copper duct through the gap beneath the gray stone.
Lutia looked at the monolith she had moved with her own hands.
She remembered the engineering worker with the cloth wrapped around his wrist standing by the roadside and telling her that the boundary stone had long since served no purpose.