Following the sacred communion at the Central Hearth, Elder Xiu guided Qiao Ming and Yan Zhiqiu along the dropping southern cross-hall toward Entry hall 632, known to the clan as the Historical Gallery.
The cross-hall was a wide, vaulted root-avenue eighty arm-lengths across, hollowed through the heart of three convergent dawn-redwoods. Here, the curved wooden walls had been prepared with a smooth plaster composed of crushed diatomite and cedar sap. That created an unbroken white frieze that stretched for half a league along the downward curve of the avenue.
Upon this white surface, spanning hundreds of paces of nonstop relief carving, was inscribed the entire chronicle of the Great Exodus. The epic migration that had brought the ancestors of the Silt-Dwellers into the deep roots during the total collapse of the First Dynasty.
Qiao Ming walked slowly along the gallery, his bare calloused feet pressing into the damp, cool diatomite walkway that lined the base of the frieze. His oilskin coat was unbuttoned, his chest harness resting lightly against his ribs. He held his lantern high. He allowed its warm amber beam to wash across the ancient carvings, revealing thousands of tiny figures captured in hardened stone.
The walkway beneath his bare soles was smooth, worn down by forty-two ages of webbed feet into a shallow trough that guided the traveler through the historical narrative. Tiny trickles of condensed stone water ran along the drainage gutters on either side of the path, producing a soft, musical burble that accompanied their…
