Three measured strikes sounded against the waystation’s door. The station keeper approached, keenly aware of how all other sound had vanished. Wind no longer scraped along the station's walls; the kettle ceased its low rattling on the stove. Even the fire seemed to draw inward.

“How many?” the keeper called.

“Three,” came the answer. The voice was hoarse, but close.

“Which route?”

“North passage. We lost the markers after the split stone.”

The keeper waited until the silence passed. Wind returned in a long breath, carrying grit against the shutters.

He opened the door.

The traveler fell inward before the keeper could step aside.

He was a young dwarf beneath the dust. One sleeve of his mountain coat had been cut open above the elbow. The flesh beneath was bruised almost black.

“Where are the others?”

“Behind me. I could hear them.”

“How far?”

The traveler looked toward the closed door. Whatever answer he had faded before he could give it.

The keeper helped him onto the nearest bunk. The arm was not broken, but the traveler shivered despite the station’s heat.

He gave a family name first, then his own.

“There are three of you?”

“Yes.”

“Brothers?”

The traveler managed a tired smile.

“Unfortunately.”

He drank half a cup of broth before his hands began shaking too badly to hold it. The keeper caught the cup, spilling broth across the front of his coat, then settled him beneath two blankets and moved the lamp closer.

Outside, footsteps passed the station.

The traveler opened his eyes.

“There.”

The keeper listened. The steps sounded from the western wall, continued around the back, and faded somewhere beyond the eastern shutters without ever approaching the door.

“Those are not close,” the keeper said.

“They were behind me.”

“You can look for them in daylight.”

The traveler tried to rise. His injured arm folded beneath him, and the keeper eased him back down.

“If they knock, let them in.”

“If they answer properly. They know the rules, same as you.”

That seemed to comfort him. He closed his eyes.

Before dawn, his breathing stopped.

The keeper checked twice, then sat beside the bunk until the eastern slit turned gray.

The ground was too hard to dig alone. The keeper wrapped the body, carried it into the coldest room, and placed the traveler’s pack beside him.

One of three expeditioners arrived from the north passage. Severe bruising of the left arm. Died before dawn. Two remain unaccounted for.

The next evening, shortly after the Black Bowl went silent, someone knocked three times.

The keeper rose.

“How many?”

“Three.”

“Which route?”

“North passage. We lost the markers after the split stone.”

The keeper paused despite himself.

A fourth knock came, lighter than the others.

“Station keeper?”

He opened the viewing slit.

The same broad nose, the same line through one eyebrow, the same pale break in the beard greeted him. The dead traveler stood outside.

Only the arm was different.

This traveler held his right arm against his chest.

The keeper kept the door barred.

“Your name.”

The traveler gave the same family name, then another given name.

“There are three of you?”

“Yes.”

“Brothers?”

The same tired smile.

“Unfortunately.”

The keeper let him in.

He searched the traveler first. His pack held survey cord, marking chalk, dried food, and an empty leather loop fitted for some missing tool.

“Where are the others?”

“Behind me.”

“You heard them?”

“Until the last turn.”

The traveler studied the room while he spoke. His attention lingered on the bunks, the table, the stove.

“Have I been here before?”

“No.”

“You keep looking at me as though I have.”

The keeper considered lying.

“A man came through last night. He gave your family name.”

“That could be any of us.”

“He had your face.”

“So did the man walking behind me.”

The keeper waited for more. The traveler gave none.

He drank broth and slept badly. Near dawn, the keeper stepped outside to refill the water basin.

When he returned, the bunk was empty.

The outer bar had been lifted and set carefully beside the door. No footprints remained on the stone apron outside.

On the table lay a folded scrap torn from the back of a survey sheet.

Thank you for the blanket.

Beneath that, after a long gap:

Do not let me sleep in the rear room again.

The keeper frowned. The rear room was the coldest, at the back of the station. The traveler had never…

The keeper checked the body. It remained beneath the bedcover, the left arm dark with bruising. The man’s pack still rested beside him.

He added a second entry to the ledger, then crossed it out because he could not decide whether to list the visitor as missing, departed, or never properly arrived.

By the third morning, the dead man was eating porridge at the keeper’s table.

He had arrived sometime during the night.

The keeper remembered opening the door. He remembered asking the questions. He remembered the same family name and a third given name.

This traveler had only a split forehead and a stiff ankle.

“More?” the keeper asked.

The traveler glanced at the pot.

“If there is enough.”

The keeper served him another portion.

The cold-room door remained shut behind them.

The traveler had the same hands as the corpse, down to a missing nail on the smallest finger.

“How many of you entered the Bowl?”

“Three.”

“Are you certain?”

The traveler stopped chewing.

“Yes.”

“Did you see the others after the split stone?”

“One ahead. One behind.”

“Which were you?”

The traveler frowned.

“In relation to whom?”

The keeper had no answer.

The traveler finished his breakfast, cleaned the bowl without being asked, and tightened the straps on his pack.

At the door, he paused.

“You should request relief.”

“My assignment ends in twelve days.”

The traveler considered this.

“That is longer than I would stay.”

Then he thanked the keeper for the food and walked south between the spires.

The keeper watched until the black stone hid him.

Near sunset, after inventorying the station, he checked the cold room.

The body remained. The pack remained.

Three men, the keeper thought.

One dead. One gone before dawn. One walking south.

A single strike at the door interrupted the thought.

The keeper opened the viewing slit without asking the questions.

The first traveler stood outside.

His left arm was bruised. His face was tired. There was a dark stain on the front of his coat where the keeper had spilled broth while helping him drink.

Neither spoke for several breaths.

Then the traveler said, “I left something here.”

“What?”

“I came back for it.”

The keeper opened the door.

The traveler crossed the room slowly, pausing at the bunks, the table, and the stove as though expecting recognition.

“What do you remember?” the keeper asked.

“Walking north.”

“You came from the north.”

“I know.”

“Where are the others?”

The traveler glanced toward the walls.

“Behind me.”

The keeper almost laughed. The sound caught in his throat.

The traveler touched the empty leather loop at his belt.

“Something fits there.”

The keeper had found the matching instrument in the dead man’s pack. It rested beside the body in the cold room: a narrow route glass, black-framed, with a weighted needle suspended inside a clear ring.

“You carried it when you arrived,” the keeper said.

The traveler looked at him.

“Then I did come here.”

The keeper went to the cold room alone and closed the door behind him.

The body lay as he had left it, the left arm bruised black. Beside the pack rested the route glass.

The keeper returned to the main room with the instrument in hand. For a moment, he did not offer it. The traveler stared at the glass with such relief that the keeper finally held it out.

The man fastened it into the empty loop at once.

“I thought I had dropped it.”

“You did not.”

“Then thank you for keeping it.”

The keeper studied the broth stain, the damaged arm, the scar through the eyebrow.

“Did you sleep here?”

The traveler looked toward the nearest bunk.

“I remember lying down.”

“And waking?”

“Yes.”

That was all he would say. Or all he could.

He left before full dark, taking the southern route used by the man who had eaten breakfast. The keeper watched him pass between the nearest spires.

For a moment, another figure seemed to follow several paces behind him.

Then the Bowl went silent.

When sound returned, the path was empty.

The keeper shut the door.

He waited until the kettle rattled again before entering the cold room.

The bedcover lay flat upon the stone.

The body was gone. The dead man’s pack had vanished with him.

He returned to the ledger and read the first entry.

One of three expeditioners arrived from the north passage. Severe bruising of the left arm. Died before dawn. Two remain unaccounted for.

The keeper considered adding another line.

Instead, he closed the ledger and began packing.

His replacement was due in twelve days. The keeper left enough flour, oil, and medical cloth to last twice that long. He placed the second traveler’s note between the pages recording the first arrival, though it did not belong there.

At dawn, he locked the station behind him and took the southern path.

He had been assigned to the Black Bowl for three months.

He had served one hundred twenty-three days.