A complete series · Free to read

The Drift Survey

Where the Register says a thing is, there it is in law.

The ground is moving. The maps say it isn't. One surveyor with a bad knee and an honest chain is about to find out which of them the Crown will believe.

Year
C.412
Chain
66 RODS
Drift
EAST
Register
SETTLED
GazetteerThe Shalemark

The Shalemark

A continent of stone leaves, each the size of a province, floating on the Deep: a black sea far underground. The leaves drift. In the west stands the Shield, true bedrock that never moves. In the east is the Lip, where the land tips and breaks away into the dark.

The Crown Survey

Every deed, debt, border and tax in the realm is fixed by the Survey in Orme, measured from brass true-marks and proved against the Standard Chain.

The Wells

Listeners press their hands to the stone at the bottom of deep wells and hear the leaves grind. The Wells license them, and keep their reports.

Astral fixing

Finding your place by the stars. Banned sixty years ago as unreliable and seditious. Nobody remembers quite why.

The Ledger House of Aske

Holds the loans on nearly every deed east of the Pale. Its money is only as good as the Register's word on where the land is.

The SeriesComplete · Three books

Chapters

Book One: The Drift Survey

Book Two: The Rising Leaf

Book Three: Other Wheels

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