The descent into the earth was measured in eighty cold, hollow treads.
At every tenth step, a tallow dip flickered in a shallow niche carved from the dark limestone wall, casting greasy yellow circles against the damp rock. The procession moved in silence, broken only by the scrape of boots on shale and the heavy, rhythmic clanking of the oak charter chest as the four guards negotiated the steep turns. Behind them, Ossa Flint walked with her hand planted flat against the walnut frame of the register chassis, her single eye fixed on the barrow wheels as they bounced down the wooden ramps her apprentices had laid over the rougher ledges.
At the third landing, where the mountain’s natural drainage fissure crossed the stairwell in a narrow, dripping culvert, Ossa called a halt.
“Set the chocks,” Ossa ordered her apprentices.
Two young delvers from Mere dropped to their knees on the wet flagstones. Working with brisk, practiced movements, they fitted three thick, wedge-shaped blocks of tempered copper between the chassis axle brackets and the iron-rimmed wheels. Ossa drew a heavy, short-handled club hammer from her belt and drove the wedges home with three ringing strikes that sent bright sparks dancing across the damp rock.
