The knife-edge ridge of pale sapphire ice was two handspans wide and hung suspended over five hundred deep-water lengths of empty air.
To the left lay the Western Void Sump, a lightless gulf where the discarded ballast of the Third Epoch had piled up in silent drifts of cosmic dust. To the right lay the Eastern Cryo-Pool, where forty square leagues of freezing liquid slept beneath a film of brittle, glassy frost. Between these two gulfs ran the spine of Entry hall 814. A natural arête of compacted starlight ice that bridged the four hundred and twenty paces between the Whispering Gallery and the outer gate of the Glacial Nave.
The wind through the defile did not blow in steady gusts. It snapped horizontally, howling with a high, fluting shriek as it forced its way through the narrow clefts of the ice towers flanking the raised stone road. The draft carried fine, needle-sharp spicules of frost that stung the exposed skin of their cheeks and frosted their brows with white crusts within seconds.
Qiao Ming stood at the southern root of the ridge. He unbuckled his heavy leather chest harness, inspected the copper rings, and drew out a thirty-foot length of braided stallion-hair cord.
