Yan Zhiqiu did not release her hold on Qiao Ming’s waist until his heels were planted four arm-lengths away from the red stone rim of the central sounding well. Even then, her fingers remained clutched in the thick wool of his oilskin coat, her knuckles white with strain, her breathing coming in harsh, trembling gasps that fogged her glasses. She led him across the white marble flags with steady, deliberate steps, steering his massive, heavy frame away from the black throat of the sixty-fathom void toward the northern side of the dais where the bronze fire bowl still glowed.
The surrounding air in the writing hall had dropped to two degrees above freezing. Through the singing ceiling chimney pipes, the draft was whistling with a shrill, metal lamentation—the sound of forty deep-water lengths of high-pressure salt water churning against the intermediate water gate gates of Entry hall 492. Every breath they drew tasted of crushed shale, spent sulfur, and the cold, bitter-salt bitterness of ancient deep-sea settled mud. But within the three-pace circle of the three-legged bronze fire bowl, the air held a fragile, radiant safe hall of warmth.
She guided him down onto the eight-sided dark rock stone base that supported the fire bowl. Qiao Ming’s knees bent slowly, his joints popping with dry, clockwork protest as he sank onto the stone. His bare feet, gray and scabbed with salt-rime from sixty leagues of underground surveying, rested within two inches of the glowing coals. The radiant cherry-red heat washed…
