At the northern terminus of the black glass bridge, the fiery cave tightened into a massive hemispherical dome forty arm-lengths high, carved from seamless, dark grey dark rock: Entry hall 710, the Forge of the Primordial Instruments. In the exact center of this dome, resting upon a circular stone temple steps of polished green-stone, stood the legendary Anvil of the First Land-mapper.
Forged from a single, unbroken block of dense star-fallen iron alloyed with astral bronze, the anvil was sixteen arm-lengths long, six arm-lengths wide, and eight arm-lengths high from its base to its polished face. Its mass was estimated at four hundred and eighty metric tons. The flat working face of the anvil had been planed to tiny flatness by ancient gritty masters, glistening under the amber magma light like a mirror of dark silver.
Carved into the northern flank of the anvil were the sacred space-folding standards of the First Mapmakers. The Primordial Cubit, the Sacred Fathom of Sixty Knots, and the Radial Arc-Second of the High Spirit vein. Each standard was engraved as a pair of razor-thin gold lines inlaid into the star-fallen iron, with explanatory cuneiform characters.
Qiao Ming approached the monument with bare, silent feet. He climbed the two steps of the green-stone temple steps, his calloused soles gripping the polished stone. He stopped before the anvil’s horn—a graceful, curved cone of solid steel that projected four arm-lengths toward the magma water gate. He laid his bare palm flat upon the anvil face. The metal…
