The true horror of the high-pressure repair on Level Five was that the underground flood didn’t remain freezing cold.
Deep within the fractured limestone wall thirty paces behind the burst lead water chute, the pressure from the high Star tower core was seeking an outlet through the mountain strata. Four miles to the north, perched on the highest granite pinnacle of the range, Chancellor Morn’s self-running safety bypasses—designed forty years ago by royal engineers to prevent the twelve-foot quartz sphere from exploding under twenty-three bar of working head—were venting backup steam flushes through the abandoned drainage shafts. The scalding steam, forced under huge pressure through ancient hairline fissures in the limestone bedding planes, collided directly with the cold underground water table feeding Level Five.
The rock face shuddered with a deep, hollow groan that shook through the bedrock like the rumble of an underground train. From hairline cracks between the limestone courses, thin streams of boiling water began to spray outward. It hissed as they met the cold, standing flood. The water turned from a dark, clear mountain runoff into a turbid, milky gray froth, soaked with dissolved white spar-stone, crushed sulfur crystals, and hot thick tar.
Suddenly, without the slightest tremor of warning, the water swirling around Melli Dorn’s hips began to bubble, hiss, and churn with violent, churning eddies.
