The drop occurred at exactly twenty minutes past four in the afternoon.
Tomas Reed was standing on the narrow intermediate narrow high walkway that clung to the southern flank of Pier Six, forty feet above the riverbed, inspecting the main shear fracture that ran through the second-tier arch corner. He had cinched his climbing harness to an iron eye-bolt. His left wrist brace was locked tight to support his balance as he leaned out over the void to measure the width of the crack with a pair of brass measuring tongs.
Beside him, Sile Rook was holding a safety line wrapped twice around a granite bollard. Meanwhile, Nessa Vale observed from the lower scree bench with her sight transit leveled on the arch crown.
The canyon was unusually quiet. The wind had dropped to a cold, whistling breeze. The only sound was the steady roar of the Eleanor rapids churning through the boulders forty feet below.
Then came the surge.
Far above their heads, in the covered channel of Tier Three, a massive air pocket—trapped inside the choked, bottlenecked water chute where the walls had cracked inward—suddenly burst under the nonstop deep water pressure of twelve thousand miners’ inches.
A sound like the discharge of a naval cannon echoed down through the hollow arcade: BOOM.
