The water gate ditch emptied into a basin of grey sludge that tasted of iron shavings and bitter lye.
Ren Vale dropped the last eight feet into the slurry canal, his boots sinking to mid-calf in wet lapidary tailings. The shock rattled through his knees and sent a sickening throb into his lower back. But he kept his footing, leaning forward to protect Mira from the slime-slick wall.
“Step out,” she murmured against his neck. Her breathing whistled through her teeth like steam escaping a cracked valve. “You smell like a forge floor.”
“Tailings sludge,” Ren said, hauling them onto the flat stone slabs of the Lower Basin. “Crushed corundum and water. It means the cutting shops are running overhead.”
Here, in the underbelly of Ostraka, the grand purple amethyst dome was obscured by tiers of soot-stained work frames and iron drainage chimney pipes. The air hung warm, thick, and choking, redolent of sulfur steam, animal fat candles, and the metal tang of red polishing rouge. Overhead, huge timber aqueducts channeled black salt water to hundreds of waterwheels driving the district’s lapidary lathes.
The sound was relentless.
Ostraka breathed in clockwork percussion. The rhythmic shhk-shhk of lead cutting wheels fed with diamond slurry, the high scream of copper wire-saws slicing through dark rock, and the deep tock-tock of sound tuning mallets testing raw geodes.
