The sound of rushing ice-slow water echoed behind them, growing fainter as the expedition dropped deeper into the world-size crust.
Da Shi led the party down a massive spiral stairs carved directly into the inner core of an ancient dark rock fiery pipe. The stonework here left from the polished, calm black glass of the upper writing hall. Here, the stone was rough-hewn, banded with streaks of scarlet iron-ore, and heavy by huge bronze rings twenty yards in width that bound the upright shaft against earth-shaking warping.
With every hundred steps they dropped, the surrounding air underwent a dramatic transformation.
The damp, cool mist of the aqueduct water chutes gradually evaporated. The air grew dry, crisp. Then it charged with a rising radiant warmth that smelled of scorched minerals, rotten-egg vapor, and old hearth fires. Through massive arched windows carved into the fiery pipe at regular intervals, the companions caught their first breathtaking glimpses of the deep geosphere.
Miles below, vast underground canyons wound through the darkness, bisected by roaring rivers of blazing bright orange and brilliant yellow magma. The molten rock flowed like liquid sunlight through the underground deep pit. It cast an amber glow against rib-vaulted granite ceilings thousands of feet overhead.
