The archway leading into the High Archive of Forfeited Paths was flanked by two massive dark rock pilasters, each carved with the likeness of an open balance scale whose pans were weighted with cut hourglasses.
Ren stepped through the threshold, the lead soles of his boots settling into the undisturbed silt.
Unlike the open nave of the Great Scroll hall, the High Archive was built as a high-pressure vault. Its walls formed a heptagon of linked black dark rock blocks, braced by gold-silver metal tension rods that spanned the circular ceiling. Around the outer edge, tiered alcoves housed hundreds of tube-shaped bronze canisters, each sealed with a lead plug stamped with the crest of the Schismatics of the Seventh Dawn. A sunrise eclipsed by an eight-sided mirror.
In the center of the chamber stood an eight-sided dais of black snake-like marble.
Its surface was carved with a recessed groove that matched the exact shape, angles, and dimensions of the Speculum of Forfeited Paths resting against Ren’s ribs.
“A fine-tuning altar,” Ren murmured through his copper mouthpiece, the taste of stone salt water cold against his tongue. “This is where they forged the frame.”
“Where they forged the cage, you mean,” Deep-Diver Ren corrected, his green glowing eyes scanning the shadowed alcoves. He held his air-powered bolt-gun across his chest, primed with barbed steel bolts. “Look at the corner anchors, boy. Those aren’t load-bearing roof beams. Those are dead-weight holding braces. Whatever was housed here, they were scared it was going…
