The air in the subterranean cavern of the First Ring tasted of liquid copper and scorched granite.
A circular chasm sixty feet across plunged into the dark foundations of the mountain, surrounded by a tiered catwalk of dark basalt blocks. At the bottom of the pit, glowing with an incandescent, sickly amber radiance, sat the boiling surface of the mercury reservoir. Waves of thermal energy washed upward against the vaulted ceiling, distorting the air in shimmering heat-ripples that made the massive iron conduits appear to bend and twist like living serpents. Every draught of air pulled into the lungs carried the biting sting of sulfur and hot grease, burning the throat until speech became an effort of pure will.
Directly across the chasm, sixty paces along the curving iron catwalk, Marshal Ors stood with his broadsword bared.
The imperial general was stripped to his steel breastplate, his wolf-skin mantle discarded on the basalt floor among broken tools and spent torches. Behind him, six armored engineers were furiously battering the brass bolts of the furnace control panel with four-foot iron crowbars, their faces black with soot, their breath coming in ragged gasps as they fought to bypass the governor coils and vent the core directly into the town foundations. Sparks sprayed across the catwalk in vivid fountains every time a crowbar struck the bronze casing, pinging into the dark pool below where each spark flared briefly against the churning mercury before dissolving into vapor.
