A dull metallic clang echoed from the lower terraces of the cavern.
It was not an imperial weapon. It was the stubborn, rhythmic strike of an iron-shod pry-bar hammering against rusted metal.
Down by the southern embankment of the turquoise lake, Elder Sterling stood knee-deep in cold black mud.
His gray robes were soaked to his armpits, plastered with wet gravel and rotting moss. His knuckles were raw and bleeding, clutching his iron-shod staff like a lever.
In front of him lay a collapsed sluice gate of ancient dark iron.
The ten-ton slab had slipped from its stone grooves centuries ago, wedged tight beneath a massive fall of fractured limestone.
Behind the jammed gate, millions of gallons of glowing spirit water churned in a deep, stagnant basin.
In front of it stretched twenty acres of terraced root-beds, dry and cracked like desiccated reptile skin.
