Location:The Ashmarch Gate and the passage
Date/Time:12 Sparkfall 9943 AZI, Restday, first light,
Realm:Mid Realm, into the Lower
The departures side smelled of wet wool.
Forty people in a hall at first light with the rain still on them, and the roof holding the warmth of them up under it, and Cangwei stood eleventh in a line that moved at the speed of a man looking at a piece of paper.
The satchel was for the clerk's benefit, because a woman with no luggage is a thing a clerk remembers. In it: two changes of linen, a comb, a wooden case of the sort registry clerks carry pens in, a half loaf, and a purse with nothing in it that any house on this world had ever put its mark on. Nothing she would mind losing.
Under her coat, against the ribs, the oilcloth wallet.
Marit Aldren. Six years in the registry office. Passed over twice.
