The ivory tally board in Zhu Heling’s hands did not click this time; it snapped.
The Scholar stood before the shattered threshold of Entry hall 515, staring down the dark, silent channel of the Throat of the Whale. His ivory robes were torn, blackened with soot from the chimney back-draft, and his hair was tangled in sweaty, greasy knots around his iron skullcap. In his trembling hands, the counting-board had broken cleanly in two, its bronze wires bent and its ivory beads scattered across the soot-caked flat stone slabs like white teeth.
Before him knelt a runner from the rear guard, his forehead pressed flat against the floor flags, shivering under the cold, poisonous gaze of his master.
“Report it again,” Zhu Heling whispered. His voice was terrifyingly low, a dry, raspy wheeze that sounded like a potion-made acid pump running dry. “Tell me once more how twelve armored tunnel diggers, equipped with diamond drills and high-pressure jacks, vanished into a straight hallway four hundred paces long.”
“The... The gate dropped, my lord,” the runner stammered, his teeth chattering against the stone. “Water gate Fourteen. It fell from the ceiling like a falling mountain. It cut the supply lines, crushed the rear wagon, and cut off all comms. We hammered on the iron for two hours with eight-pound sledges. There was no answer from the other side. Only... Only a strange ringing sound, like bronze bells singing in a tomb.”
