The peace of the Grand Row of pillars was shattered by a sound that did not belong to the stone.
It wasn’t the high chime of ringing marble, nor the grinding crash of falling portcullises. It was a deep, shuddering groan that traveled through twenty feet of dense, salt-soaked granite—three distinct, violent shakes that shuddered through the dark rock keel of the lower galleries before dying out against the foundations.
Qiao Ming froze upon the altar step, his linen bandage half-tied around his wrist.
His bare toes curled over the lip of the flat stone slab, feeling the hum. It was sharper and more clashing than the natural tide, carrying the clear metal ring of burst bronze leagues away in the outer ceiling.
He drew his Folded brass star-compass from his breast pocket and opened the aiming sights.
The instrument’s needles leapt into wild motion: an alarm at Outer Conduit Gate 03. An anomalous impact against the underwater trash-rack grates ninety arm-lengths below. And a never seen before living fluid reading spreading into the drainage current.
Blood.
Warm, mortal blood, flowing through the freezing black salt water of the outer gulf.
