The heat exhaust chimney pipes of the Middle Spires had been engineered to vent the hellish byproduct of thirty state potion-made foundries into the cloud deck above the mountain.
It was an upright chimney forty paces across, lined with glazed fire-brick that had been glass-fused by sixty years of nonstop rotten-egg heat into a smooth, dark green glass. Spiraling up the inside wall was an iron upkeep stairs, bolted into the brickwork by two-inch copper-jacketed pins. It climbed four hundred feet toward the middle residential terraces of the city.
The heat that rose from the lower foundations was staggering.
The air was 118 degrees, dry, shimmering with rising heat mirages that made the iron treads appear to bend and twist in the torchlight. Every breath tasted of scorched charcoal, nitric vapor, and the faint, bitter grease of steam pistons laboring in the deep rock.
Ren Vale walked at the head of the third refugee division, his wool tunic stripped away. That left only his linen undershirt and his frayed lambskin keeper’s apron.
The silver metal ring of his mammoth ivory awl was hot against his palm. Behind him, three thousand people climbed in a vast, snake-like spiral of shuffling feet, their skin glistening with sweat, their breath coming in shallow, panting gasps. The dockworkers had removed their heavy shirts. They wrapped them around their heads to keep the stinging sweat out of their eyes. Meanwhile, the women shared damp rags to moisten the lips of the infants.
