The blind cross-hall of Entry hall 200 was a cul-de-sac of giant stone dark rock where no water had flowed for a thousand cycles.
It was an eight-sided hall sixty paces across, surrounded by sheer, dressed dark rock walls forty arm-lengths tall, roofed by a shallow dome of linked granite keystones. The only entrance was the narrow drain tube portal through which Qiao Ming had just stepped. The opposite wall was a solid, unpierced retaining inner wall twelve feet thick, designed to resist the ground-shaking settling of the outer hull.
In the farthest corner of the hall, huddled against the massive stone base of an uncarved monolith, were the two students.
They looked small, broken, and pathetic beneath the huge stonework of the House.
Their fine ivory silk coats were shredded into filthy grey rags, stained with black drain tube slime, dried blood, and white spar-stone powder. Brother Hu was slumped against the stone, his hands clamped over his face, weeping in silent, shuddering gasps as the sharp fragments of crushed quartz ground into his eyelids. Beside him stood the second student, swaying on trembling legs, clutching a broken spirit-talon—a three-pronged iron fork with two tines snapped off—waving it blindly into the gloom.
