In Entry hall 124, the damage was no longer cosmetic.
Qiao Ming dropped the spiral service shaft into the Niche of the Bronze Scribe. Then, the floor was covered by a thick drift of yellow foam that floated upon the receding water like the scum of a stale swamp. The air was foul with the stench of decomposing lime and boiled antimony. A stench so packed that his eyes burned behind his horn goggles, and his breath came in short, measured gasps through his oiled linen breathing mask.
The light was pale, its yellowish beam cutting through the yellow sulfur fog that clung to the floor like curdled cream. The nook of the Bronze Scribe had been built as a safe hall of intellectual quietude. A place where the ancient land-mappers could compare their field-slates against the royal copper rolls without distraction.
The walls were lined with two hundred shallow niches, each fitted with shelves of stone-hard teak-wood that held rows of tubular bronze scroll-cases. The wood had hardened over ten thousand cycles, turning into a dense, stony substance that rang like iron when tapped. Meanwhile, the scroll-cases were sealed with green wax bearing the ancient seal of the Bureau of Waterways.
