The iron-shod boots of thirty armored hired blades struck the white marble floor flags with a harsh, rhythmic clatter that echoed off the groaning ceiling squinches of the Scriptorium of the Drowned. Yellow sulfur smoke poured through the shattered portal of Entry hall 500, curling in noxious, oily tendrils around the dark rock pillars. At the head of the breach column, Zhu Heling raised his left gauntlet, signaling his squad to form a crescent skirmish line sixty paces from the central dais. The spinning diamond teeth of his void-drill whined with a savage, high-pitched scream that cut through the cold air.
“Look at them,” Zhu Heling sneered through the iron grate of his horned visor, his voice dripping with triumphant malice. “Forty thousand leagues of deep-sea drilling, sixty thousand void-charges spent, and all that guards the treasure of the First Epoch is an old vagrant in an oilskin coat and a scrawny scroll-keeper with ink on her sleeves! Drop your brushes, vermin! Step away from the ivory desk, or my crossbowmen will pin your carcasses to the bone before you can draw another breath!”
On the eight-sided dais, lit up by the calm amber glow of the horn lantern, neither Qiao Ming nor Yan Zhiqiu turned their heads. They stood side by side before Desk Twelve, their bodies moving in total, sacred exact timing. Their bare and slippered feet were planted like living stone props against the white marble. Their shoulders were braced together in unbroken clockwork harmony.
