In Entry hall 378, twelve hundred paces deeper into the Sunken Rows of pillars, the stonework opened into a soaring eight-sided chamber fifty arm-lengths high.
At the center of the chamber, raised upon a three-tiered dais of dark green-stone, stood Statue #3782.
It was the figure of a woman, eighteen arm-lengths tall, carved from a single block of semi-clear white Pentelic marble. She stood upright, clad in flowing court draperies whose pleated folds seemed to ripple in an invisible underwater current. In her left hand, cradled against her waist, she held an ancient star-ring sphere carved from stone-hard black bronze, its nested rings lined up with sky map points that belonged to a pre-flood universe. Her right hand was raised toward the vaulted ceiling, her slender index finger pointing toward a sky spirit vein marked by inlaid silver studs.
Her face was extraordinary. High, high-born cheekbones, wide, intelligent eyes gazing into the infinite gloom, and a firm, compassionate mouth that seemed poised on the verge of speaking a forgotten prophecy.
When Yan Zhiqiu stepped onto the first tier of the green-stone dais, her eyes caught the dynastic crest engraved upon the front of the stone stand.
A three-legged raven carrying a jade sounding-plummet.
