The roar of escaping steam in the lower gallery was not a hiss. It was an ear-splitting, physical hammer that struck the ears like the blast of an underground mine blast. In the confined space between the glass-fused heat-proof walls of Blast Furnace Number Four, ninety-pound scalding steam billowed through the shattered oak barricade. That turned the black sand floor into a boiling mire in three seconds.
Tomas Reed shoved Renn Tal backward into the stonework recess of the south drainage pier. His left forearm, bound in its stiff calfskin brace, burned with a sharp, sickening throbbing as droplets of boiling water condensed through his tarred canvas sleeves. He reached into his coat with his right hand, ripped the heavy wool muffler from his collar. Then he shoved it against the old engineer’s mouth and nostrils.
“Breathe through the wool, Tal!” Tomas yelled, his voice torn away by the screaming jet of pressure. “Stay on your belly! Don’t inhale the dry vapor!”
Nessa Vale was already crouched against the floor, her horn lantern shielded beneath her heavy oilskin coat. Her hazel eyes were wide behind the glass lenses of her land-mapper’s goggles. But her hands were steady. She tapped Tomas’s knee twice with the brass metal ring of her leveling staff. She pointed through the boiling fog toward the eastern corner of the vault.
