The descent into the Central Municipal Archive felt like stepping down the inside of an unpumped dry-dock.
Tomas Reed held the brass storm-lantern low. That let the yellow circle of animal fat light pick out the damp, lime-washed steps that spiraled thirty feet beneath the foundations of City Hall. Behind him, Hester Quill dropped with slow, deliberate steps. Her hand slid along the cold iron safety rail, her breath clouding faintly in the underground chill. On her left hip, she carried a wooden archive case containing bone knives, magnifying loupes. A small horsehair brush for clearing dried mold from thick parchment spines.
The air here had nothing in common with the coal smoke and steam of the South Foundry. It was motionless, dead, and intensely cold. He smelled of hardened mortar, moldering calfskin, and the sharp, acidic tang of dry rot. On either side of the central stone hall, wooden shelving racks—ten tiers high, built of heavy heart-pine that had bowed under fifty years of weight—stretched into the darkness like the aisles of an unvisited stone sepulcher.
“The town gazettes are on the first tier,” Hester whispered, her voice sounding small and flat against the stone vaulting. “The commercial registries are on the second. But the emergency public works bonds from the flood reconstruction were moved down here to the sub-vaults after the levee repairs of Year 025. Follow the brass tags.”
