The Central Heavenly Auction Tower rose out of the clouds in nine tiers. Its lower walls were black basalt and its gallery rails were polished copper. The Grand Appraisal Portal stood fifty paces above the drains, a white marble arch with twelve iron puppets on guard.
Pei Jing showed his voucher at the lower entrance. The portal admitted consignors from every ring. Inside, the air was warm and smelled of sandalwood. Hunters stood in roped lanes with wrapped carcasses of two-headed snow badgers. Prospectors held bags of thunder copper. A clan steward went by with both arms around a sealed cedar box.
Pei Jing joined the line for Window Nine. For two hours he watched at Window Nine and the two windows beside it. He picked a sample at each turn, used his senses to guess what the lamp would find, then checked his guess against the clerk’s reading. After the third bad root, he could tell when the lamp was reading a dry surface and missing what lay inside. A good root could look spoiled if it was badly dried. A spoiled one could look good until the clerk turned it over.
The man ahead of him had a bundle of spirit grass. The clerk lifted the roots with ivory chopsticks and threw them back.
