When the last steam boiler cooled and the final wounded fighter was carried to the medical alcoves of Entry hall 111, the Gallery of the Hanging Bells returned to total, unmarred silence.
The silence was so vast, so deep, that a man standing in the center of the red stone floor could hear the slow, rhythmic dripping of a single droplet of condensed mist falling from a carved marble beard seventy arm-lengths overhead. The nine thousand eight hundred and forty bronze bells hung motionless from their sea-bronze chains, their green-patinated sound-bows resting in quiet majesty, their ancient liturgy fulfilled.
Qiao Ming walked the length of the central nave, his bare feet cool against the red stone flags. He had replaced his yellow oilskin coat with a clean, dry tunic of raw, unwhitened hemp. His cross-chest harness held his sixty-fathom knotted line and his brass star-compass. At every sixth pillar, he paused, laying his palm flat against the stone to feel the internal heat of the stonework.
The stone was cool, steady, its crystal-clear lattice having fully shed the violent heat of the thunder-hex.
Behind him walked Yan Zhiqiu, with old Master Song and four refugee marshals. They carried slate ledgers filled with tallies of the conquered legions:
