High above the waters of Entry hall 120, carved into the giant stone top door beam of the High Transverse Arch, was the main constitution of the Ark.
Qiao Ming stood upon the narrow upkeep ledge fifty arm-lengths above the flooded nave, his oilskin coat tied securely with a rope of braided horsehair anchored to an iron eyebolt in the wall. The flood tide was running strongly below. Four arm-lengths of black salt water were pouring through the western gates, swirling around the bases of the White Tiger pillars with a heavy, rhythmic roar that shook through the rock like a sound organ.
He held his horn lantern high, its warm yellow light sweeping across the huge seal-characters chiseled into the black hard speckled rock top door beam.
Each character was four feet tall, cut six inches deep into the fiery stone, inlaid with plates of beaten green rust bronze that had turned the color of sea-foam over seventy hundred years of humid drafts.
He read the ancient text aloud, his voice steady against the roar of the water:
HE WHO BREAKS THE STONE OF THE DEAD SHALL BE BURIED WITHOUT A NAME BENEATH THE SILT.
HE WHO WEAPONIZES THE WATER OF THE Safe hall SHALL DROWN IN THE SEED-WELLS HE REFUSED TO MEND.
