Up on the shuddering six-sided platform of the Hollow Crown, Master Davin Sorell was drowning in his own isolated madness. The sulfur steam from the snapped pier was so dense that he could barely see the three technicians huddled near the marble stone stand, their clothes soaked with grease and water, their faces gray with total terror.
“Ren! Kael!” Sorell screamed, waving his ivory rod toward the backup charge bank that was sparking wildly behind the gear housing. “Engage the backup lightning metal sleeves! Shunt the reserve power into the central turbine! We can re-pressurize the extraction cage before the lower water chutes starve the drain tubes!”
Technician Ren, a senior academy mechanic who had kept the Crown’s bronze bearings for twelve years, stood up on the shaking granite flags. His hands were held out in front of him. “Master Sorell, look at the spirit gauges! The memory matrix is gone! The entity has dissolved its outer strands! If we engage those backup metal sleeves, the feedback loop will detonate the storage crystals! The platform is already tilting three and a half degrees! We have to pull the emergency disconnect and run for the service ledge!”
“Disconnect?” Sorell laughed—a shrill, manic cackle that made the skin crawl. “There’s no disconnect! This is a royal installation! You’re sworn academy technicians! You’ll engage those metal sleeves or I’ll have you stripped of your guilds and hanged for high treason before the High Senate!”
