Gabriel watched the quarry work.

Stone moved from cut to cart in a steady rhythm, driven by repetition rather than haste. Picks and sledges worked the rock in time, and the lifts hauled loads up the terraces as chains rattled and pulleys turned without pause. The site remained quiet. There was no shouting, no panic, and no urgency beyond what the labor required.

The Church had organized it well.

Guards stood where they needed to stand, not as a line or a wall, but at narrow points where paths crossed and workers passed close. Their placement controlled movement without interrupting it, enough to reinforce ownership without slowing the work.

Gabriel stayed above them.

He lay against the cold stone and measured the site the way he measured streets. It was the same method he had used in Eldenreach, back when Hanitz had taught him to stop looking for meaning and start accounting for function.

Count first.

Two guards held the main cut, spears low and short swords at their belts. One stood near the storage sheds with a loose posture, attention drifting before returning in brief corrections. Another remained by the lift anchors, older and heavier, chin tucked as if expecting trouble even if experience had never given him reason to.

Four guards in sight.

There would be more inside.

Gabriel shifted his attention to the terraces.

Workers moved in small groups, usually pairs, sometimes three or four. The smallest groups drew the most attention. Larger clusters were left alone. It was not kindness. It was arithmetic. You did not run when noise and bodies surrounded you. You ran when you were quiet and alone.

His gaze moved to the tunnel mouths.

Three access tunnels had been cut into the cliff face, their openings framed by rough beams and reinforced with iron bands where the stone had threatened to fail. Each entrance bore a posted sign, though the lettering was too distant to read. One tunnel was watched by two guards who rotated in and out of shadow. The other two had no direct watch, but their approaches fell within the overlapping sightlines of the guards at the cut and the lifts.

The coverage was intentional.

Gabriel waited.

A bell rang below. It was not a church bell, but a work signal, iron striking iron to mark the shift.

The pace adjusted without stopping. Carts aligned. Lifts paused long enough to swap hooks. A foreman walked the upper terrace with a ledger board in one hand and a stick in the other, directing movement with brief gestures instead of raised voices. Men moved where he pointed.

The guards rotated.

Two stepped away from the main cut and were replaced by others. The exchange was casual and unstructured, a few words traded as one man rubbed his shoulder against the cold. The gap lasted three breaths.

Gabriel counted them.

During that window, he tracked where sightlines failed. Stacked stone cast long shadows. Scaffolding created blind strips beneath its platforms. The lift anchors, thick timbers sunk into the rock, blocked angles near the cliff wall and left a narrow wedge uncovered.

Wide enough for a man to pass with proper timing.

He watched again when the next bell rang.

The pattern repeated.

The same gap.

Routine.

Routine meant predictability.

Predictability meant entry.

Gabriel shifted his focus back to the workers.

There were boys among them, not many, carrying lighter loads and running messages between terraces. Their faces were grey with dust, their movements fixed. None of them moved like they had choices. They moved like they had instructions and consequences.

An apprentice emerged from the eastern tunnel with a crate too heavy for his shoulders. He stumbled once, corrected his grip, and continued on without help.

He was not the apprentice Gabriel was here for.

Gabriel did not react.

He continued watching.

A cart rolled to a stop beside the storage sheds. Two workers unloaded it while the nearby guard watched. He did not examine the stone. His attention stayed on the men. He looked for fatigue, for looseness, for the brief hesitation that turned labor into decision. He found nothing, and the work continued.

A man coughed hard enough to bend at the waist. The foreman struck the ground near his boots with the stick and pointed him away from the cut. The man stumbled off without protest. Another worker stepped into his place before the space cooled.

Gabriel followed the coughing man with his eyes.

He did not enter the tunnel. Instead, he moved toward a narrow building set against the cliff wall, half-hidden behind stacked stone. It had a low roof, a single door, and no windows. A guard stood near it, not posted like the others, but placed with intention. His attention stayed on the path leading to the door, and more often on the door itself than on the people passing by.

That was different.

Gabriel marked the building and watched who approached it.

No one entered while he observed.

That made it more important, not less.

He shifted position with care and moved along the ridge until the angle changed. From there, the rear of the structure came into view. A second door sat partially concealed behind a stack of timber. The approach narrowed into a tight passage where stone piles pressed close, forcing movement into a single line.

The funnel was unguarded.

Because nothing was expected to reach it.

Gabriel watched.

The bell rang again.

A small group emerged from the western tunnel. Three men, followed by a fourth who limped as he walked. His sleeves were rolled up, and his forearms were wrapped in dirty cloth. He moved as if his wrists hurt, as if stopping would let the shaking show.

A boy followed behind them, carrying a water bucket that sloshed with each step.

He was younger than the others, with narrow shoulders and a jaw smeared with dirt. His hair had been cut short, uneven, as if done quickly and without care. As he passed the guards, he glanced at them once, quick and automatic, then lowered his eyes and kept moving.

That mattered.

Someone who feared guards had learned to do so.

Gabriel followed the boy's path.

He did not go to the main cut or the storage sheds. He walked straight to the low building and stopped at the front door. He waited there, holding the bucket, and knocked. The guard by the path did not stop him or speak. He only watched.

The door opened partway.

The boy slipped inside.

The door closed.

Gabriel stayed still.

He waited for the boy to come back out.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

The bell rang again. Another rotation. Another gap in the watch.

The door remained closed.

The boy did not emerge.

Gabriel's attention shifted to the rear door.

Nothing happened.

He waited another five minutes.

Then the door opened.

The boy stepped out with the empty bucket. He moved quickly, head down, back straight in a way that suggested correction had been learned the hard way. He did not look behind him. The door closed as soon as he cleared it.

That was enough.

Not certainty.

Direction.

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