Linkenden: Carriers of lanterns, candelabras, and torches for stronger parties. Always the first down a darkened hall, sent to scrub away the clinging shadows. Light is precious, to cutters, for the realms in which they labor are rarely graced by the weal of the sun. The dark is the deadly advantage of the enemy, of ragwretches and grues and the eyeless thralls of foul sorcery, and it must be lifted for their banishment to be prosecuted. For this reason, the light always goes first.
The consortium doors banged open. Noses lifted from oaken counters, distracted from their paper-stamping and coin counting. Three pairs of boots stamped in, trailed mud and snow. They clicked, hobnailed, on the stone tile. The leading pair belonged to a cutter in a leather duster. A considerable amount of something red and drying clung to his […]
A cigarette wobbled under the clerk's scrubby mustache. "Next," he said, bored. A young woman stumbled to the counter, shoved by the queue. Mousy brown bangs curtained her face, brushed in an attempt to conceal the veiny, wine-red blotch around her left eye. The clerk fixed her with a rheumy stare. "Have you worked with […]