The cellar beneath Old Cauldron Workshop was reached by a narrow, ladder-like stone stair cut into the dark rock foundation.
It was ten paces long by six paces wide, cold, damp. He smelled of coal dust, stale groundwater. The sour chemical bite of raw stone deposits. Stacked against the slow leak-stained walls were sixty heavy hemp sacks of fuel, piled in three uneven tiers that threatened to collapse into the central drainage channel.
Old Monster Gui stood at the top of the stone stairs. He leaned heavily on his hickory cane, his breath puffing into pale clouds in the morning chill.
“Every winter,” Gui rasped down into the gloom, “the cartel jacks the price of coal by thirty percent. Qian Tong claims the swamp freezes and the haulers demand hazard pay. Last month, fuel ate forty-four spirit stones out of my treasury. If we burn coal at this rate, by midwinter we’ll be burning the drying racks to keep the kettle hot.”
Gui waved his cane toward the sacks.
“Count the inventory. See what the cartel delivered. If Sun San cheated us on the sack count, I’ll take it out of their next delivery.”
“I’ll audit the stock,” Pei Jing called up from the cellar floor.
