The blast came not through the air, but through the bedrock.
Qiao Ming was lacing his oilskin coat on the second terrace when the dark rock beneath his bare feet heaved upward with a violent, sickening jerk. The impact knocked him sideways into the stonework pier. His shoulder hit the carved limestone with a dull crunch, and his lantern bounced across the flat stone slabs, the oil sloshing against the glass chimney before righting itself.
Above him, the high window row vault shrieked.
Hundreds of years of piled up dust, dry lime powder, and crushed barnacle shells rained down from the ceiling rafters, filling the damp air with a choking white fog. The massive star-fallen iron span of the Great Iron Arch groaned—a deep, metal shiver that traveled through the foundation keys like the twang of a plucked bowstring three leagues long.
Then came the sound report.
The whalebone tuning fork hanging from his tool harness began to ring wildly, shaking against his ribs with a shrill, piercing hum that made his ears ache.
Four hundred and thirty-two cycles per second.
Bubbling blast shock.
