Pei Jing spent the fifth day on Pylons 16 and 17. By the sixth, he had followed the eastern circuit under Central Cloud Crag, four hundred arm-lengths below the lower courtyards.
The cave was as hot as a baker’s oven. Veins of white quartz ran up the black walls. Far above, through cracks in the ceiling, he could hear the bells, the morning chants and once in a while the crack of a wooden sword on a practice dummy.
Pylon 18 stood in a pool of hot mineral water. The spirit-steel column rose eighteen feet from the pool. Silver channels reached from its crown toward the upper terraces. This was the fourth of the eight pylons in the eastern circuit.
Pei Jing’s tunic was wet through from the work of reaching it. He wiped his brow and rested the Astral Bone Blade against the pylon’s last live connection. Silver carried the edge’s vibration away as heat. If he pressed harder, he would warm the silver without doing much else. He had to find the note the whole bundle answered to.
He closed his eyes and let his Golden Core turn. The pulse came down his arm and reached the star iron. The edge began to scrape. He held it where it was until the silver gave a little. One channel fell into the pool with a hiss, then another.
