In the final hour before the full bombardment of the Sovereign Conclave, a deep and sacred stillness settled upon the green jade dais of Entry hall 880.
The screaming of the drills two leagues away was reduced by the dampening field to a distant, rhythmic thrumming, no louder than the purring of a sleeping cat in an adjoining room. The sulfur smoke that hung over the northern reaches of the quicksilver lake could not cross the invisible spirit vein threshold. Here, around the feet of the First Sovereign, the air remained crystal-clear, smelling of mountain moss, wet slate, and the cool copper chill of pure spring water. The air carried that supreme clarity found only at the bottoms of deep mountain wells where the light of the sun has never pierced.
Qiao Ming sat cross-legged upon the green jade stone floor, his back resting lightly against the dark rock base of the Sovereign’s left heel. His bare soles were tucked beneath his thighs, the calloused skin white from cold, yet his breath flow was calm and even. Beside him lay his land-mapper’s toolkit: the Folded brass star-compass, the eight-sided lead line-weight, the horn vial of refined sheep fat. The sixty-foot thick parchment survey map that had taken thirty years of his solitary life to draw.
