In the center of Entry hall 897, eight hundred arm-lengths above the green jade stone floor, the huge head of the First Sovereign inclined forward by exactly two degrees.
The motion was so slow, so massive, that it seemed less like an action of living muscle and more like the gradual subsidence of a mountain range along an earth-shaking fault line. The star-black glass joints of his massive neck shifted with a deep, underground rumble that shook through the soles of Qiao Ming’s bare feet at thirty-two cycles per second. As the titan tilted his chin, the twin shafts of ancient violet starlight narrowed. It drew inward from the two-league outer edge of the quicksilver lake until their beams came together upon the forty-eight-arm-length circle of the green jade platform.
The light did not burn. It didn’t sear the flesh or blind the eyes. It was a cool, violet-indigo light that fell like distilled twilight through forty leagues of underground air.
Under that focused gaze, Qiao Ming felt every detail of his physical existence laid bare.
The First Sovereign did not look upon him as an emperor regards a subject, nor as a deity observes an insect crawling across an altar. The gaze was that of a master shipwright inspecting the timbers of a vessel that has weathered a forty-day typhoon. The ancient violet starlight swept over Qiao Ming’s weathered face, mapping the deep salt-wrinkles around his grey eyes, the scars left by flying shale upon his cheekbones, and the…
