A century of sandals had worn the steps smooth. Pei Jing stayed on the outer edge, where the rock still gave his soles something to hold. He turned one shoulder in whenever a pack mule passed so the cleaver wouldn’t catch its load.
The first terraces smelled of agarwood and snow. Jade channels carried clean qi through the courtyards of the great guilds. Bronze chimes hovered at the gates. Sentries wore silver armor. To rent a courtyard for a season would cost thirty to fifty mid-grade stones. In Great Yan, that could buy a county.
Three hundred paces down, the merchant district was dark with coal smoke. Apothecary warehouses and foundries pressed against four-story teahouses. Caravan agents argued over freight and insurance inside.
Pei Jing kept going. The North Basin Ramp curved down to the Underground Flues, six hundred feet below the rim.
Old lava tubes made up the streets. Red lanterns burned fish oil on chains across the passage. Tarred pipes carried waste from the upper tiers. Steam hissed out of cracks in the walls. The heat smelled of brimstone.
In the alleys he passed hunters with missing limbs, former sect apprentices sick from cheap pills, and men with ink-stained hands who could draw arrays. Most kept their hoods up. He stopped outside an iron-banded door under a rotten sign for North Nine rentals.
