The paper inside the shark-skin codex crackled faintly as the binding opened, releasing the dry, sweet fragrance of ancient cotton rag.
The sheets were thick, handmade rag-paper sized with bone-gelatin and smoothed between zinc plates. Each leaf was a flawless ivory, free of foxing or mold, its deckled edges cut straight by a binder’s plow. Along the margin ran the faint red guidelines that land-mappers ruled with red stone ink to keep their entries plumb.
Qiao Ming leaned over the opening page, his horn lantern held three inches above the script.
Across the head of the first leaf, written in bold, square-cut characters with a stiff hog-bristle brush, ran the title stone carving:
THE DIURNAL SOUNDINGS OF THE DROWNED DAO · BOOK XII.
Land-mapper AND KEEPER: QIAO MING.
Started AT THE Moon-tide line-up OF THE TWELFTH CYCLE.
Beneath the title lay the daily ledger entries, written in standard land-mapper’s shorthand with dense, black silt-ink. Qiao Ming read the opening lines with a sensation that made the blood roar in his ears:
