SLARVATHOffice of Off-World Correspondence

Bureau of Returning Persons — area sheet

Hesk

Hesk in watercolour, drawn at the moment of clearing: a wide stone basin seen from above its rim, dry grass along the lip, the inside of the bowl falling away in weathered strata, and fog standing in the bottom of it to one flat level with a clean edge, like water lying in a bowl. A cut stair descends from the left between two walls and goes under the fog. Seven standing stones lean the same way on the basin floor and two of them stand with their tops clear of the fog. To the right, a single mass carved from the basin wall with a broad flat top, one long window slot and a dark door on an unbroken plinth; one dark line runs level across its face, and the building's own edges are not parallel with it.
Cf. FilmThe ground the plate is drawn from.

Cf. WalkThe basin, at the clearing.

HESK

the day is counted here

The day is counted here. It is not counted anywhere else.

You came down into the basin and the fog was at the mark or it was not. If it was, you waited. The mark is one line on the wall of the counting house that faces the stair, set to the plumb line and not to the floor, which is why it does not look level, and why it is.

When the fog clears the mark the count begins. Two hundred kadd later it clears the mark again, and that is the day. A kadd is a share of the clearing. It is not a share of anything in the sky, whatever the Office enters beside it.

The counters at Hesk are the only persons in Slarvathia who do anything to a schedule. They are not to be spoken to during the count. They may be spoken to after it, and will be, at length.

The hollows below the stair open with Oddren. They have taken the first breath before the count begins, and they have had it by the time the mark is clear.

FrameA circle cut flat across the top. The fog fills to a line, and the frame stops where the fog does. ViewpointDrawn from above, as inhabited areas are, at the moment of clearing.
Key
  1. 11 The mark one line, set to the plumb line
  2. 12 The counting house the count is kept here and nowhere else
From here

How far is not recorded. How long is.

Office annotationThe Office has established that the count is not exact. The count has not been corrected. The Office does not correct counts.