The western bridge pillar of the Grand Aqueduct of Saint Eleanor was not a simple stone wall. It was a massive, castle-like high-pressure headworks built directly into the sheer granite cliffs of the Sunder Range.
Tomas Reed, Nessa Vale, and Sile Rook crawled along the final thirty paces of the Tier Three roof. Their bodies were pressed low against the cold stone to avoid the sweeping beams of the watchmen’s lanterns on the western low roof wall. The covered channel here entered a vast, cavernous portal cut into the mountain—the Upper Intake Gallery of Saint Eleanor.
The air inside the intake gallery was ear-splitting. It shook with the bone-shaking roar of the entire upper Sunder catchment discharging into the mountain spreading vaults.
Tomas swung himself down through an iron upkeep hatch into the dry check gallery that ran parallel to the water channel. He landed with a soft, cat-like thud on the flat stone slabs, right away bringing up his right hand to steady Nessa as she dropped down beside him. Sile followed, his heavy tall body-shield muffled in a thick wool blanket to prevent any clatter of metal against stone.
They were standing in the heart of the High court’s diversion machinery.
