The four-hundred-pace landing was an ancient, dry rock shelf carved into the massive basement banded rock, twenty paces above the fault recess where Oren Vail slept in his cairn. Unlike the damp, decaying drifts of the middle levels, this shelf was swept clean by the steady, freezing draft from the two-hundred-and-ninety-pace gorge chimney pipe. It circulated through the gallery before exhausting into the deep fissures. The air was cold, crisp, and pure, smelling of mountain granite and winter frost.
Stationed at the two-hundred-pace relay platform, Fellis Dain had already received Yseld’s lantern signals. With the help of one of the Cairn Host escort guards who had accompanied him down to the intermediate landing, Fellis climbed back to the surface turret to deliver a written dispatch to Marshal Krail’s orderly. The survey team had met and cleared a major air-flow blockage, completed two approved underground circuits, and was currently camped at depth to allow the air currents to stabilize before attempting the final basal soundings.
Down on the four-hundred-pace shelf, Kezra Venn, Paxa Sel. Yseld Arken made their camp with the practiced economy of veteran mountaineers. There was no fire. Open flame in an enclosed underground gallery burned up precious oxygen and filled the lungs with soot. Instead, they unrolled their heavy, oil-cured wool cloaks directly onto the flat banded rock floor. They used their climbing packs as pillows and pulled the sheepskin linings tight around their ears.
