Freezing autumn drizzle washed across the melted rock waste hills outside Gu Ning’s eastern castle walls. That turned the coal dust into slick black grease.
Lu Chen crouched beneath the rotten timbers of an abandoned ore-crusher, motionless as a carved dark rock milestone.
The ruins of the Old Imperial Mint sprawled across the ravine before him.
Two hundred years ago, this work-yard stamped dragon-crested silver coin for three country prefectures.
Thousands of smelting furnaces had once roared day and night along the stone gullies, melting river silver and mountain copper.
Then the deep miners breached an ancient underground catacomb.
A tide of weeping specters flooded the lower smelting chimney pipes in a single night.
The Great Yong Dynasty sealed the iron gates with lead rivets, abandoned the shafts. Then it let the valley drown in weed and rot.
