Two inches above the limestone mortar line at the northern face of the black bronze pillar—directly beside the head of sixteen-year-old Halin’s bed—sat the first of the three small triangle marks the Balance abbey’s founders had stamped into the base collar three hundred years ago.
Underneath that stamped triangle was the soft tin-lead braze seam Osen Tal had just named from his upkeep sketches. He sat directly over the northern granite tripod pier.
Seyun knelt on his sound left knee. Meanwhile, his stitched right leg stretched stiffly behind him across the shaking floor. He didn’t try to drive Elder Hesh’s first copper foundation needle into the solid spirit-bronze of the upper shaft. Even a Jade blade could barely scratch the main wall of the column. Instead, holding the three-inch copper needle between his split, blood-slicked right thumb and forefinger, he angled the blunt taper thirty degrees downward into the soft tin-lead solder joint at the northern triangle and struck the butt of the needle home with the heel of his bandaged left palm.
Thock.
The copper point bit two inches deep through the soft braze alloy until its tip touched the cold granite lip of the northern Balance tripod lug underneath the pipe hub collar.
