The blood that soaked through Qiao Ming’s linen tunic was cooling, turning sticky and dark against the rough granite of Buttress Number One.
He stood fifteen arm-lengths above the floor flags, his bare, horn-calloused feet balanced upon a six-inch decorative moulding that projected from the curved flank of the pier. His right shoulder was a shredded ruin of torn muscle and bone, the six inches of wooden spear-shaft still protruding from his chest muscle like an iron-headed peg, but his left arm was raised. He held the Folded brass star-compass steady before his grey eyes.
The sighting-vanes of the instrument were lined up with the apex of the dome, eighty arm-lengths above the floor.
Through the sight pin-holes of the star compass, the eighty-ton keystone was an imposing octagon of black dark rock, suspended in space by the inward thrust of the eight converging granite stone props. Each stone support prop delivered twelve thousand tons of static crushing force into the eight-sided facets of the block, holding the stone locked in place without a single ounce of mortar.
“Four thousand eight hundred pounds of pressure of sideways tearing force,” Qiao Ming whispered, his voice hoarse, rattling with blood, but fully calm. “The eight courses of outward cut stone are already slipping along their bedding joints. The borer’s shaking has cracked the southern bearing-facet by one point a tiny fraction of an inch.”
