Zale’s confidence had returned. His grin hadn’t. 🔎
THE BOOK OF TAD
PAGE 20
WHAT THE BREAK HELD 🪨
TurboTAD stayed beside the half-buried marker.
“How sure are you?”
Zale glanced at the broken base. “Sure enough to check before I make another speech.”
“Merciful,” Glint said.
A faint smile crossed Zale’s face.
Travellers worked farther along, keeping the lane open. TurboTAD nodded to the stone. “Zale, show us. Glint, stop us if we’re damaging it.”
Zale eased silt from the break. Glint leaned close, his lantern still dark.
“Stop.”
TurboTAD steadied the straight edge, careful not to rub the shallow carved line. Glint lifted one crushed root. Packed inside the broken base was a thin crust of pale, gritty clay.
Glint pressed one grain beside the lane’s soft black silt. “Not from this bed.”
TurboTAD checked beneath three nearby weeds. Each one hid more black silt.
“Could it have washed in afterward?”
Zale paused. “Not into that break while it was buried underneath.”
Glint nodded. “The clay was there before the marker reached this spot.”
Zale let out a breath. “So I wasn’t guessing.”
“You were,” Glint said. “Now you’re not.”
Zale laughed, quieter than usual.
“We leave it here,” TurboTAD said. “Keep the lane clear, then ask whether anyone knows a place with pale clay.”
“Until then, we don’t have an answer,” Zale said.
“No. But now we know what to ask.”