The entrance to the inside drainage gallery was an arched opening five feet high, cut directly into the dark rock bedrock beneath the western bridge pillar.
Above the top door beam, a carved stone carving in high royal script had been almost fully wiped out by forty years of weeping lime: STRENGTH IS SILENCE. Water dripped from the ceiling in a steady, monotonous patter, each drop striking the iron threshold with a sharp, ringing tick that echoed down the black throat of the stair.
Tomas led the way, his brass lantern held low at his knee to light up the steps.
The stair was a spiral of five hundred and twenty steps, cut directly out of the granite heart of Pier Twelve. The treads were narrow, dished in the center by decades of hobnailed work-boots. Then it coated with a slick, rubbery skin of black river algae. Tomas kept his balance point low, his boots finding the rough outer edge of each step where the stone remained toothy.
Behind him, Nessa kept her left hand firmly on his pack-frame lashing, using his physical dark shape as a guide in the blinding gloom. Old Corin and Sile Rook followed, Sile’s heavy oak tall body-shield slung across his back, its iron rim clinking rhythmically against the stone wall.
