The hour of the eleventh slack tide was the quietest hour in the memory of the House.
At the lowest ebb of the spring moon-tide line-up, the water withdrew fully from the upper entry halls. The vast stone floors of Entry halls 101 through 110 lay exposed to the cold, dead air of the deep vaults—dry, glistening with a white frost of dried sea-salt, and silent as an unplundered sepulcher. Outside the great outer castle walls, miles to the west, the ocean rested in its momentary pause between ebb and flow. It gathered its huge liquid weight for the total return of the Twelfth Surge.
In the high watching nook above the Grand Terraced Stair of Entry hall 110, Qiao Ming sat with his bare soles resting against the cold banded limestone stone railing. He wore his yellow oilskin coat, the collar turned up against the draft that always circled the stairs. Across his lap lay his folded brass star-compass, its fine measuring bar catching the faint, greenish soft glow of the moss growing in the stone joints.
Beside him crouched Yan Zhiqiu, peering through the carved marble lattice of the stone railing into the vast chamber below.
On the upper terrace, three hundred paces distant, the Conclave army was staging its final offensive. Four thousand shock-fighters had assembled in locked, gleaming ranks of brass and dark void-iron. Their crimson and black silk banners hung limp in the dead air. Twin ranks of heavy flying war-chariots were lined up along…
