Qiao Ming reached for the small, carved soapstone water-dropper shaped like a sleeping tortoise that sat upon the ivory tray of Desk Twelve. He tilted its narrow spout over the concave grinding well of the Broken Slate, tipping the vessel to release the three drops of clear mountain water needed to moisten the stone before grinding the pine soot. But no water fell. He shook the soapstone gently. From within came only a dry, rattling clatter. The water inside the pool had frozen solid during the watch, turned into an unmoving plug of cloudy, stone-choked ice by the dropping chill of the ceiling chimney pipes.
He reached down to his belt, unhooking his leather travel flask. He unscrewed the horn cap and inspected the contents. The liquid inside was a thick, slushy salt water, drawn from the upper straining tanks three entry halls back. It was bitter, cloudy. Then it soaked with dissolved bitter-salt salts that would curdle the soot specks and precipitate the pine resin out of solution before the ink could adhere to bone.
“The water is frozen,” Qiao Ming said, his voice flat with immediate technical test. “And the emergency supply in my flask is corrupted with white lime-chalk. If I grind soot with bitter-salt water, the pigment will turn to gray chalk within ten watches. It will flake away from the thick parchment the moment the chamber’s sky humidity shifts. We have no solvent to make ink.”
