Adventures of David Clarkson

David Clarkson pushes the heavy oak door and steps into the counting room.

A stonemason guild master snaps upright at the desk, pages torn in his fist, scraps drifting like ash across the floor.

He clamps a folded document to his chest, white-knuckled, eyes fixed on David.

Outside, hard boots strike the corridor stones, slow and certain, drawing nearer to the room.

The document is the only thing he is trying to save.

The guild master half-turns toward a locked coffer, then back to David, waiting for help as the footsteps stop at the door.

David Clarkson shifts to the side of the doorway and leaves the path clear. The guild master exhales once, sharp and shaky, and slips the folded document toward the mouth of the locked coffer.

The boots outside stop. A hand thuds against the corridor door, measured and deliberate.

He presses the document inside the coffer and lets the lid fall half shut, fingers trembling at the rim.

Another knock lands, firmer this time, and the iron latch rattles under the force from the other side.

David Clarkson eases back against the stone wall, staff resting at his boot, his eyes fixed on the rattling latch. The door answers with another hard thump from the corridor side.

The guild master flattens himself beside the coffer, one hand on the half-closed lid, the other hovering uselessly over the keyhole. His breathing goes thin and fast.

Outside, a lower voice speaks through the wood, calm and official. The knocks stop at once.

The latch gives a wet metallic jolt, and the door begins to swing inward a finger's width.

The guild master turns toward David Clarkson, white-faced and rigid, one hand still on the coffer as if he can hold the whole room shut by force.

David Clarkson steps out from the wall and puts himself between the guild master and the doorway, calm as if he has been expected.

The corridor door opens wider on a soft scrape, and two inquisitors show themselves in the gap, their faces hard with official patience.

The first inquisitor studies David Clarkson, then lets his gaze drift past him to the coffer. The lid gives a tiny, traitorous click under the guild master's hand.

David Clarkson lifts one hand and points, calm and plain, to the coffer by the guild master’s knee.

The words land hard. The guild master’s grip slips from the lid as if the wood has burned him.

The first inquisitor steps in, and the second angles his body to bar the door behind him. Their attention fixes on the coffer at once.

With the room laid open, the first inquisitor crouches and reaches for the lid latch. A seal ring at his finger catches the light as he finds the hidden catch the guild master missed.