Where the western stonework wall of the Diverter keyed into the upright dark rock cliffs of the canyon, the mountain was shedding its skin.
Tomas stood on the western bridge pillar terrace, eighty paces from the main gate works. The ground here was not granite cut stone, but ancient fiery rock. It was dark, columnar dark rock that had stood since the cooling of the continent. But even ancient rock has seams, and two hundred feet of impounded lake water had found every single one.
Master Hal, warden of the West-Reach Quarrymen’s Guild, was kneeling at the base of the rock face with six senior stonecutters. The men were stripped to their woolen waistcoats despite the freezing drizzle, their leather aprons plastered to their thighs with gray stone slurry.
Two quarry apprentices were swinging sixteen-pound sledges in steady, alternating strokes, driving an eight-foot steel churn drill into a level boring at the base of the cliff. With each blow—CLINK-THUD, CLINK-THUD—the third apprentice turned the fluted drill bit a quarter-turn, spooning out crushed rock meal with a long copper scraper.
“Pull the steel!” Master Hal barked, waving his leather mittens.
The apprentices backed the drill steel out of the rock. The fluted bit cleared the six-foot collar. Then, a solid metal tube of muddy, rotten-egg water erupted from the drilled shaft, shooting twelve feet across the terrace before splashing into the drainage gutter.
