The approach to the Giant statue of Primordial Time was an ascent out of the settled mud into the cold, sharp-angled purity of unweathered stone.
Rising from the grey diatomaceous silt plain at the apex of the safe hall was a stepped pyramid of dressed white pale limestone. Thirty-six huge steps, each step two arm-lengths high, three arm-lengths deep, and forty arm-lengths wide, climbing eighteen arm-lengths to the grand platform upon which the ninety-arm-length dark rock titan stood. The pale limestone was astonishingly white, possessing a dense, crystal-clear texture that seemed to push the dark water away from its risers, creating a zone of unnatural clarity where every chisel-stroke from two million years ago was visible as if struck yesterday afternoon.
Qiao Ming planted his lead-shod boot upon the first riser.
The moment his foot met the pale limestone, a strange, tactile sensation shot upward through the three layers of sheet-lead, through the bones of his ankle, and into his hip. It wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t heat. It was the sensation of time gaining speed. Through his skin, he felt the stone dragging at his living rhythm, slowing the pulse of his blood by a fraction of a percent while speeding up the speed of his thoughts. The deep water pressure of five crushing deep-sea pressure remained constant, but the water around his legs felt lighter, less thick, sticky, as if time itself were thinning out the thickness of the salt water.
