In the ancient shipyard traditions of the Southern Guild, there was an unbending iron rule that governed the launching of every vessel, from a humble river sampan to a four-masted grain junk:
Trust no timber until it has tasted the wave; trust no cord until it has borne the gale.
A shipwright who approved a hull based solely on blueprints and dry-dock measurements was regarded as a criminal by the Guild. Before a vessel was allowed to take passengers or cargo into the open sea, it had to undergo the Tide-Drop Test. The empty hull was hauled into a tidal raceway at the peak of a spring flood, the water gate gates were dropped. The full, violent driving force of the rushing river was allowed to slam against the timbers while the mooring lines were hauled to their breaking limits.
If a single trenail snapped, if a single seam cried oakum, if a single knot slipped a finger’s breadth, the ship was unsafe back to the yard.
Here, at twenty-eight thousand two hundred deep-water lengths below the surface of reality, the Primordial Ark was preparing for a voyage not across a country river. But across the uncharted, terrifying waters of the Tenth Heaven.
