The air eighty deep-water lengths up the upright air-flow shaft of Entry hall 052 tasted of scorched lubricant and hot iron.
Climbing barefoot along the ancient carved stone rungs, Qiao Ming moved with the fluid, rhythmic stealth of a reef shadow. Behind him came Captain Meng and forty scouts of the Stone Watch. Each man carried his weapons strapped securely to his back with oiled linen cords. Clubs carved from heavy sea-lion bone, long pry-wedges knapped from black glass, and thick sound blankets woven from wet bladder-kelp designed to swallow the sound of bone striking armor.
Not a single scrap of ferrous metal existed among the forty climbers. Their belt buckles were carved horn. Their sandals were braided willow-bark. Their water gourds were bound with split rattan. They climbed without speaking, their bare toes and calloused palms reading the stone grain of the sheer dark rock shaft.
The climb needed total physical mastery. An upright trickle of cold stone cooled water ran down the eastern face of the shaft, coating the stone rungs in slick limestone slime. Qiao Ming climbed first, his horn-hard toes finding the tiny traction ridges left by ancient quarry picks ten thousand winters ago. With every ten arm-lengths of ascent, he paused to press the flat of his cheek against the wall. He listened to the sound signal of the stone to ensure that no backup drill was biting into the western stone props.
