The enemy in the high window row did not carry siege drills or heavy darts. They moved as insubstantial wisps of smoke across the ceiling arches.
On the eleventh night of the Safe hall. Meanwhile, the residential courtyards below rested in calm sleep, faint sight distortions were observed along the high narrow high walkways of Entry hall 058. Eighty arm-lengths above the floor. There, the ancient stone vaults met the dark ceiling chimney pipes, six figures were gliding across the narrow cut stone ledges with impossible, weightless agility.
They were shadow-scouts from the Phantom Feather Division of the Golden Sovereign Sect—elite scouting fighters clad in bodysuits woven from deep-sea shadow-silk. The silk bent surrounding lantern light around their contours, rendering them ninety-nine percent invisible to mortal eyes. Their mission was evil and precise. They were planting tiny brass surveying prisms along the roof arches, establishing sight three-point sighting vectors that would allow the golden flagships above to fire their heavy moving spinal cannons through the thinnest sections of the granite capstone.
Mortal sentries could not see them, but the stone knew they were there.
In the central writing hall of Entry hall 045, Qiao Ming sat with the Folded brass star-compass resting upon his knees. Even through their shadow-silk cloaks, the scouts had to touch the stone with their feet. Every step—no matter how light—produced a sound ripple of 0.02 pascals across the banded limestone lintels. By comparing the time-delay of the shakes across the eight master sounding chimney pipes…
