Len Vey stood in the narrow junction hall between the Gate transit sub-level and the central governor gallery. His right hand was pressed against the sweating dark rock wall to steady his balance.
The physical consequences of uncoupling the sixth anchor were echoing through the entire mountain core. Beneath his boots, the granite floor felt strangely light, stripped of the heavy, dragging friction that had characterized every hall in Rookvale. It was as if a massive, invisible hand that had been pressing down upon the province for twelve years had suddenly lifted its fingers. That let the bedrock expand into the cold mountain air.
Above his head, in the ceiling of the junction hall, sat an old box-shaped watching skylight that had been sealed with sheets of corrugated boiler plate twelve years ago.
The elastic relaxation of the southern bedrock had buckled the frame. The four-inch iron bolts anchoring the sheet metal to the granite had snapped. It tore a three-inch gap between the rusted iron and the stone doorstep.
Len stopped. His breath caught in his throat.
Through that three-inch gap, cold, clean mountain wind was pouring into the hall. Air that tasted of wet shale, frost-bitten juniper needles, and the crisp, clean void of high height. It was fully free of the greasy stone oil and sulfur steam that choked the lower galleries.
