At three hundred and eighty feet, the Spire’s western face was pierced by three round decorative niches, each six feet high, carved with the heraldic shields of the First Sovereign’s founding marshals.
Behind these niches, according to the official stone-built plans deposited in the Royal High court in year three hundred and eighty-five, lay the Spire’s main load-bearing chest muscle. A nonstop ring of two-inch square charcoal-iron tie-rods embedded deep into the rubble core, hooked around massive cast-bronze anchor plates to hold the outside cut stone firmly against the internal stonework.
Tomas Reed hung directly in front of the central shield—the crossed battleaxes of Marshal Val-Mora.
The carved marble shield was amazing, four inches thick, its edges decorated with acanthus leaves and gold-trimmed lettering. But when Tomas laid his hand upon the lower point of the shield, the entire two-hundred-pound slab of marble rocked forward on its bed. He opened a dark, ragged gap along the upper molding that emitted a foul, whistling gust of damp cellar air.
“Sile!” Tomas called down through his whistle lanyard. “Hold the hoist! Dog the pawl!”
He secured his chair’s prusik loop to an anchor cramp, locked his figure-eight descender. Then he leaned into the gap with his horn lantern and a heavy steel cold chisel.
