The eleven cylinders, slates, and scrolls lay arrayed in a vast, unbroken circle around the red stone lip of the central sounding well. From Desk One to Desk Eleven, the records of eleven dead universes surrounded Qiao Ming and Yan Zhiqiu like a ring of silent witnesses. The amber beam of the horn lantern caught the diverse materials of their manufacture. Whale-thick parchment, beaten copper foil, red stone-lacquered hide, black slate, beaten gold leaf, woven white-gold ribbon, rolled lead sheet, amber mica, and raw whale-skin.
Beside each document, Qiao Ming had laid out the end-post page where the final signed name was inscribed. Eleven seals of black pitch, red stone lacquer, and stamped metal gleamed under the lamplight, forming a matching shape of eight-sided octagons.
Yan Zhiqiu knelt upon the white marble floor, her magnifying lens trembling between her thumb and forefinger. She moved from the first seal to the eleventh, comparing the tiny flaws in the impression with careful care.
“Every facet is matching,” she whispered, her voice barely heard above the quiet hum of the cold air vents. “The angle of the eight-sided edge: fifty-four degrees. The width of the central circle: one inch and two lines. And here... On the fifth facet of every single seal, from the First Epoch to the Eleventh...”
