The boiling steam was cut. Then, Eren Tal went to work on the weakened rock ledge with the speed and care of a veteran harbor mason. From his canvas roll he drew three bags of rapid-setting water-setting fiery cement. A high-pressure mortar imported from the southern islands that cured rock-hard under cold water.
Mixing the dry fiery ash with river silt and clean gravel in an iron bucket, Eren tamped the stiff gray mortar into the dissolved cavity behind the limestone face. He drove three forged iron rods spikes into the sound bedrock to anchor the patch.
He faced the new ledge with four heavy slabs of blue-gray freestone dragged from the rubble fall, bedding them into the fiery grout with rhythmic blows of his wooden maul. Within forty-five minutes, the high-pressure cement had set solid under the cold water, transforming the crumbling heat trap into a stable, four-foot-wide stone walkway capable of bearing four tons of dead weight.
‘That ledge will outlast the High Terrace, Pella,’ Eren said, washing the gray cement from his calloused thumbs in the pool. ‘You could march a Clydesdale team across those flat stone slabs and not crack a single joint. Now let’s put up the cable.’
