The smell of dried blood and rotting river-grass hit them long before they reached the bluff.
It was an oily, thick stench that coated the back of the palate like rancid lard, mixed with the sour, metal tang of uncounted millions of forgotten tears.
Lin Ke stood at the cliff edge of the jagged dark rock cliff. He looked down into the huge canyon that carved the underworld in two.
In the ancient sect archives, the River of Forgetfulness—the Wangchuan—was described as a thundering, mile-wide cosmic torrent of crystal-grey soul-water. It roared through underground canyons with enough high-pressure force to carry hundreds of millions of mortal consciousnesses daily into the wipe-out wash-basins of the Six Paths.
What lay below them was an open sewer.
The huge canyon bed was ninety-five percent exposed stone.
Miles of cracked, yellowed river-silt and rotting shale were laid bare beneath the unending dusk. What remained of the great river was a sluggish, oily trickle no wider than an irrigation ditch, creeping through a maze of rusted iron soul-shackles, discarded bronze grave-goods, and jagged boulders.
Trapped in the putrid mud were millions of wailing spirits.
