The true disaster on Tier Two waited at the far western corner of the magazine.
A three-foot granite ledge-stone top door beam, weighing more than five hundred pounds, had snapped off the main foundation wall. Just then, the castle wall sank nineteen years ago. It had dropped diagonally across the hardwood rack, pinning Crates Seventeen, Eighteen. Nineteen against the flooded flat stone slabs like a headsman’s block.
Nessa wedged her sounding rod beneath the granite slab. “The stone is resting directly on the top lids. If we try to drag the crates out, the friction will crush the glass casings like eggshells. But if we try to pry the top door beam with bronze bars, the pivot point will push the entire weight down onto Crate Eighteen.”
Tomas waded forward until the black water lapped against his chest. He reached down into the dark muck, running his bare right fingers along the underside of the stone. The surface was slimy with iron bacteria. But the granite had fractured along a clean, crystal-clear cleavage plane.
“No pivot point,” Tomas said, wiping silt from his eyebrows. “We lift it straight up.”
Sile Rook peered down through the green moss-light from the dry landing. “Tomas, you can’t rig a tackle in that corner. The ceiling arch above you is cracked. Drive an iron eye-bolt up there and the whole arch corner drops on your head.”
