The Northern Sluice complex stretched beneath the limestone foundations of the outer cliffs for two hundred paces in every direction.
It was a stonework conceived not by terrestrial masons, but by the ancient sea-mapmakers who charted the curving depth-charting of ocean trenches. The floor was composed of sixteen nested rings of dark flat stone slabs, each ring separated from the next by a deep water-groove three feet wide. In the center of each flat stone slab was set a circular plug of magnetic lodestone, quarried from the deep-sea ridges where the earth’s mantle touched the cold salt water.
Into this underground maze marched the surviving fighting strength of the Conclave expedition. Fourteen hundred fighters representing the Pyre-Furnace Court, the Obsidian Scroll hall, and the Iron-Girdle Legion.
They were desperate, cold, and driven by the wild commands of Zhu Heling.
The Scholar rode in the center of the column, sitting atop a hand-carried palanquin of blackened bronze. His scholar’s cap was askew, his fingernails bitten down to the quick, his eyes rimmed with red veins. In his lap rested an iron-bound scroll case containing the royal maps he had sworn would unlock the treasures of the Drowned Dao.
“Forward!” Zhu Heling screamed, his voice bouncing between the low, curved ceilings. “The northern watergate leads to the dry vaults! Do not heed the shadows in the water! Follow the compass! The compass can’t lie!”
