Thirty hours after the lunar seal, thirty leagues upstream from Seven-Tower City, the White-Jade River curved through a jagged canyon of black basalt.
On the mist-slicked gorge, fifty imperial saboteurs moved with silent discipline. Each wore the dark leather of the Imperial Censorate, their faces hidden behind oiled silk masks.
Before them rested five hundred iron-banded casks, stamped with the wax seal of Grand Chancellor Vaelen.
“Open the valves,” the censorate captain commanded in a harsh whisper.
Iron chisels bit into the bung-holes.
A thick, viscous sludge poured into the rushing mountain current. It was fifty tons of Crack-Grade Pill-Poison slag, the toxic tailings skimmed from three hundred imperial alchemy cauldrons.
The clear river water turned a bruised, iridescent violet.
The toxic slick churned downstream, carried by the autumn current directly toward the municipal intake grates of Seven-Tower City.
