The Great Cistern Basin of Entry hall 030 was engineered to hold water, but on the fifth morning of the Safe hall, it held one million two hundred thousand human souls.
The stonework of the basin rose in eighty nested cut stone rings around the central freshwater pool. Each ring was carved from massive blocks of dark red stone four paces deep, stepping upward toward the soaring giant stone rib-vaults eighty deep-water lengths overhead. From the lowest tier at the water’s edge to the highest stone railing beneath the high window row chimney pipes, the terraces were packed with mortal delegates. Weavers, carpenters, net-menders, grain-measurers, and clan elders from every surviving province of the drowned world.
They had dropped the four grand helical stairways that spiraled down from the upper entry halls, moving in silent, orderly procession. In their hands, the delegates carried the ritual tokens of their crafts. The weavers bore polished shuttles of mountain boxwood, the stonemasons carried wooden squaring rules, the net-makers held needles carved from shed antler. The grain-handlers carried hollow bamboo measuring cups. These were the tools that would rebuild human life in the deep dark, preserved through the black storm when kingdoms of gold had crumbled.
