When Qiao Ming’s bare feet touched the flat stone slabs at the base of the forty-eight-fathom cliff, the stone did not feel cold. It felt dense, holding the deep, unchanging warmth of the planet’s gravity anchor.
Entry hall 862 was known in the ancient building registers as the Terrace of the Scribes. It was a huge, half-round plaza carved from a single outcropping of dark stone, three hundred paces wide. It was flanked by twin rows of stone pillars of fluted hard speckled rock pillars that supported the overhang of the upper shelf. The floor had been swept clean by hundreds of years of slow, draft-driven air currents, leaving the dark rock pavers glistening with the dark luster of polished horn. No dust piled up here. The air-flow shafts of the lower world were engineered to maintain a constant, smooth-flowing draft that carried away the finest specks of stone-flour, preserving the stone floor in unending readiness.
Yan Zhiqiu stepped down from the lowest iron rundle, her bare soles landing silently beside his. She untied the linen straps that bound the Broken Slate to her shoulders, bringing the relic down into both hands. Her calloused heels pressed firmly against the dark rock pavers, testing the level of the joint.
