The arena grew colder when the platform stopped. Forty-eight lamps above the stage turned toward the black shroud. Their light picked out the folds of the felt and the dull gleam of the chains.
Two technicians unlocked the chains with long brass wrenches. Each one hit the floor with a thump the front rows could feel through their feet. Two senior assayers climbed onto the platform. Both wore padded lead mesh, with thick quartz over their faces.
The auctioneer came to the lectern with his gavel at his side. His voice had been warm for the earlier sales. Now he waited until the golems had gone quiet.
“Honored patriarchs, envoys and masters of the Four Seas. Lot Three Hundred and Sixty. The final lot of the auction. Recovered eighty-two years ago from the central crater of the Great Western Barrens.”
Across four thousand seats, people leaned forward. Three ancient empires had died in the Barrens during the Age of Disaster. The guild had used thirty thousand conscript miners and three airships to bring the relic up. Even with those numbers, the work had taken six years.
The auctioneer raised his hand. The assayers pulled the shroud away together.
The slab was five feet tall, three feet wide and nine inches thick. Its ragged sides looked as if it had been torn from something much larger. It shone in places like metal that had passed through fire. The damp beneath the Barrens had left no rust on it.
