On the fourth morning of the countdown, the center of the abandoned seal court was occupied by an instrument that Chief Examiner Vaska Ren had originally brought up the mountain to measure tester obedience. Bolted to a heavy iron tripod at the intersection of the chalk lanes stood the Aperture Court’s test pressure lens. A concave disk of ground mountain quartz three arm-lengths across, suspended inside three nested gimbal rings of dark, spring-loaded bronze.
Before Hall Mistress Soran and Commander Keth Or gripped the outer bronze power-coil handles to spin up the lens, Seyun walked a slow circle around the heavy iron tripod to understand the physical craftsmanship of the Court’s instrument. At first glance, the three-arm-length disk of concave mountain quartz looked like a sky-high mirror from a city star tower. Up close, however, he could see hundreds of hair-thin nested grooves ground into the crystal face, each filled with a dull silver-lead amalgam that channeled cultivated breath from the outer bronze gimbal rings toward the focal center.
“How did the Court transport a three-arm-length quartz disk up the mountain without cracking the bezel?” Bel Sar asked, leaning on his staff beside the western pillar and squinting at the thick bronze spring housings.
