The building pavilion at the western bend of the Seven Cascades smelled of dried river reeds, fish glue, and damp slate.
Unlike the calm office halls where Su Ling’er governed or the iron-and-sparks yard where Tie Shan hammered his anvils, the water building pavilion was a domain of quiet, careful measurement. Wooden drafting tables were covered in hand-drawn cross-sections of riverbeds, tiny watermills turned in artificial water chutes built from hollow bamboo, and glass vials filled with soil samples from across five river basins lined the cedar walls.
At the center of the largest drafting table, Land-mapper Lu-Lu stood upon a wooden stool.
The elder of the Silver-Stream Otter Clan was barely four feet tall, covered in sleek, silver-tipped gray fur that repelled water like polished jade. He wore a patched oiled-leather vest fitted with small brass callipers, magnifying loupes. A line weight carved from clear river quartz. His long, sensitive white whiskers twitched rapidly as he unrolled a massive topographical map stitched together from cured sturgeon skin.
Beside him stood three senior otter scouts, their webbed paws clutching measuring compasses and vials of settled mud.
“Bring the spirit lantern closer, Ah-Bao!” Land-mapper Lu-Lu chattered, his voice a rapid, high-pitched warble that carried the energetic rhythm of a mountain torrent. “Not that one, the cold-light pearl lantern! Hot oil will warp the fishskin!”
