Entry hall 990 did not possess walls in the ordinary stone-built understanding of mortal builders.
The chamber was a huge tube-shaped shaft, sixty arm-lengths in width, dropping vertically through the lowest foundations of the Primordial Ark. It was lined from top to bottom with linked plates of cold-forged black bronze, each plate ten inches thick, secured to the living ribs of the vessel by bronze rivets the size of a man’s head. Every rivet-head was engraved with the ancient seal of the First Sovereign—a stylised ocean-wave crowned by an unblinking eye. Between the bronze plates, deep caulking grooves had been hammered full of spun lead and stone-hard hemp, sealing the inside air from the crushing empty pocket outside.
Here, all surrounding light from the upper decks was fully absent.
Even the lantern in Yan Zhiqiu’s hand had surrendered to the darkness. Its whale-oil had congealed into a solid, waxy paste inside the brass pool, its flame put out by the total lack of surrounding warmth. The only light in the giant stone shaft was the pale, golden circle cast by the Broken Slate and the faint, sickly violet eerie glow that cried from the seams between the bronze plates.
The smell here was unlike anything Qiao Ming had met in fifty years of navigating the drowned world.
