The singing of the star-thread cord was unlike the sound of any hemp or flax line Qiao Ming had cast in his thirty years of water-mapping surveying.
It didn’t hum with the low, fluting whistle of horsehair shaking in wind. Instead, as the eight-pound lead line-weight plunged through the dark air of the central chimney pipe, the cord emitted a high, crystal-clear drone. A pure, piercing back-and-forth swing at the threshold of human hearing, like the ring of a thin wine-glass rubbed with a wet finger. As the line paid out, the friction of the silver strands passing over the bronze pulley wheels generated tiny sparks of static soft glow that drifted down the shaft like blue fireflies. The entire upright chimney of the chimney pipe acted as a sound amplifier, transforming the fall of the lead into a nonstop, ghostly chord that echoed off the damp dark rock walls. It was the sound of space being divided into measured deep-water lengths.
Yan Zhiqiu stood braced against the brass brake lever, her palms calloused by years of hauling composite bows and rough timber. The brake shoes—curved blocks of lignum vitae wood soaked in stone oil—pressed against the rim of the spinning drum, emitting a fragrant vapor of heated resin and toasted pitch. Her forearms were corded with muscle, absorbing the violent shaking that shuddered up through the lever. Her boots remained locked upon the anti-slip plates, her balance unbending.
