“Look at the brass ring pipe hub around the base of the pillar,” Mina said. She pointed with the handle of her metal tongs at the seven heavy silver-sheathed channels that radiated outward from the black bronze shaft to the seven stone couches. “When Nara Soth stepped out of the main socket on Day 1, Vaska balanced the leftover load across all seven couches at once. If we disconnect Sela on couch six right now without giving the pillar somewhere else to dump that seventh of the load, the pressure won’t vanish—it will shift clockwise into couch seven, where Senn is already at the limit of his dorsal wall.”
From his stone block near the southern screen, Chief Examiner Vaska nodded heavily. He lifted his bandaged right hand an inch. “She’s reading the pipe hub correctly,” Vaska rasped. “The summit pillar sits directly over the main three-branch stone steam vein that feeds the mountain. When we built the ring, we used the twelve testers’ spirit veins as living spreading chambers to keep the vein’s pressure smooth. If you pull six spreading chambers off the ring one by one, the seventh chamber bursts.”
Hall Mistress Soran frowned, resting her hand on the iron shaft of her spear. “Can we sever the main base ring all at once with Daro’s handle and my spear, the way we cut the floor cable in the cellar?”
