Beyond the Hall of Unchosen Limbs, the cavern roof dropped low again, funneling the warm brine down a steep, stepped limestone trough toward the deepest level of the valley.
Halfway down the steps, the gouged drag-tracks ended in a tangle of splintered copper coils, cracked dark glass, and wet black stone.
The portable cage holding the central bell clapper had slid off a slick four-foot shelf and wedged sideways between two massive boulders of dark dolomite. When the two-hundred-pound black-stone frame slammed down onto the lower step, it had landed squarely on top of the delicate brass-and-glass bond-severing apparatus Edris had strapped to its underside. Crushed sealed glass tubes, snapped copper needles, and spilled mercury lay scattered through the gravel like a dropped clock.
Inside the intact black-stone bars, the heavy bronze bell clapper hung crooked from one remaining iron chain link, humming a low, steady note against the wet rock.
Beside the boulders lay Precentor Edris Keth.
His fine gray temple coat was torn from hem to hip and soaked black with mineral slush. When the cage had pitched over the four-foot shelf, he had gone down with it; his left leg lay twisted outward at an ugly angle just below the hip joint, the upper thigh bone snapped clean through and already swelling inside the split wool of his trousers. Even so, he had dragged himself three body-lengths across sharp dolomite gravel on his right elbow and right heel until his right hand could grip the bottom bar…
