Beneath the Sunstone

Previously

…He ran a calloused thumb over the smooth, cool surface of a stone block, its edges perfectly squared, its face ready for the sculptor’s touch. This was his first day as an apprentice, a raw recruit in the army of men who would raise a monument to touch the very heavens. His master, a burly man named Horemheb whose beard was perpetually dusted with white stone powder, had already given him his tools: a copper chisel, a wooden mallet, and a small leather pouch of abrasives. They felt impossibly heavy in his hands, a physical manifestation of the responsibility that now rested upon his young shoulders. He was no