Leaving the cool, moist safe hall of the Cleansing Basins, the passage narrowed into a massive raised stone road of dark andesite suspended over a fiery deep gap: the Transition to Entry hall 706. The heat rose steadily with every pace. It climbed from the twenty-degree baseline of the springs to a dry, radiant forty-eight degrees that warmed their skin and dried their damp linen tunics in minutes.
Far below the raised stone road, thirty deep-water lengths down in the lightless depths of the rift, a river of white-hot stone salt water flowed through a natural fault in the dark rock bedrock. The water was heated to boiling by fiery magma plumes rising from the earth’s mantle, glowing with a deep, pulsing crimson light that cast long, dancing shadows across the vaulted andesite ceiling.
Qiao Ming walked along the centerline of the raised stone road, his bare calloused feet enjoying the dry, comforting warmth of the stone flags. The andesite had been quarried from fiery dark rock, holding the natural heat of the rift like a giant hearthstone. His prehensile toes gripped the stone with relaxed, confident balance, unaffected by the sheer drop on either side.
Behind him, Yan Zhiqiu walked with measured steps, her lantern put out to conserve oil. The natural light from the glowing rift below was more than enough to light their path, filling the canyon with a warm, amber-red radiance that bathed the massive stonework in the colors of an eternal sunset.
