The western fissure grew hotter the farther Pei Jing went. Twelve hundred paces below the surface, the stones beneath his boots gave off a dull red light. Heat blurred the other side of the cavern. He could barely tell where the rock ended and the air began.
He settled into Five-Viscera Turtle Breathing and took only enough air to keep moving. The sulfur would have burned an ordinary man’s lungs. Years of hardening his skin and organs let him go without the constant drain of a protective ward. Even so, salt dried white on his neck before he could wipe away the sweat.
He leaned against a shelf of cooled black glass and tightened the straps on his blade. The lead gourd he carried had thick walls and a heat-sealing array cut into the metal. He put it down beside the Black Mountain Whetstone and brushed grit from his palm with two passes against the cool stone. Then he put the whetstone away, clipped the gourd to his belt, and looked over the edge.
The Abyssal Magma Siphon ran thirty paces below him. Thick clots of rock burst on the surface and went under again. Three iron pipes hung on chains above the flow. Burning Sun Valley drew heat up through them to its foundries. The pulleys clanked as the chains shifted.
