In the curved cross-hall of Entry halls 094 through 098. There, the upper terraces joined the broad marble platform known as the Hall of Judgments, an extraordinary mound of metal had begun to gather.
For three hundred years of dynastic collapse before the deluge, this platform had been the seat of royal judges who given the harsh maritime penal code of the eastern provinces. Mortals had been dragged here in chains for defaulting on salt taxes, for stealing timber from state shipyards, or for raising grain rebellions against the coastal guard posts. The stone floor of black dark rock had been stained by the blood of flogged smugglers and mutinous oarsmen.
Tonight, under the calm golden light of ten thousand drifting lanterns, the platform was covered not in blood, but in cold, surrendered iron.
A heap twelve paces across and shoulder-high rose in the center of the terrace: eighteen thousand four hundred weapons of war.
There were heavy straight-swords forged by country armories, iron-tipped boarding spears, repeating crossbows with cracked wooden stocks, curved sailor’s daggers, and jagged iron gaff-hooks that had been sharpened to fight off rival refugees during the desperate boarding of the barges at the drowning ports.
Alongside the weapons lay hundreds of copper-bound balance weights used by corrupt merchants to cheat grain rations, wooden tax seals, forged transit passes. The iron manacles that prison guards had unlocked when the seawater burst through the castle gates.
