The brass chariot door swung open with a heavy metallic groan.
A thick cloud of sulfurous steam billowed onto the terrace, followed immediately by an iron-shod war boot. The First Pill-Moon Tax Warden stepped down onto the marble, his golden-trimmed crimson breastplate gleaming beneath the high-altitude sun.
He was a broad-shouldered man with a face carved like weathered granite. A deep crimson mantle fell from his pauldrons, embroidered with the burning furnace insignia of the Hall of Edicts. His Saint Vessel Peak aura radiated in waves of dry, oppressive heat, baking the cold mountain wind until the stone balustrades shimmered.
Behind him, fifty mounted bailiffs dismounted in synchronized precision. Their void-chargers snorted silver sparks as the guards formed a wide semicircle, leveling heavy hooked halberds at the resting vanguard.
Four bailiffs drove heavy iron stakes into the terrace marble. Crimson ribbons fluttered from the iron points, establishing an official Hall of Edicts audit perimeter that locked the spatial pathways behind them.
The bailiffs sneered at the scouts huddled on their wool blankets. To celestial soldiers accustomed to floating palaces, these ascenders looked like destitute wanderers begging along a provincial highway.
“Twelve lower-world ascenders,” the Warden announced. His voice was deep and resonant, carrying the trained cadence of an imperial magistrate accustomed to reading death warrants. “You crossed the Heaven-Step Bridge without registering at the boundary beacons.”
