The upright drop swallowed them in total, lightless cold.
Two thousand meters beneath the rim of the Stygian Deep gap, the surrounding heat plummeted to fourteen degrees below zero. Lin Tao’s boots slid down the sheer dark rock face, kicking loose brittle needles of frozen rime that whispered as they tumbled into the void. The rock here was not ordinary shale or weathered limestone. It was cryoperovskite slate, an ultra-dense fiery stone impregnated with current-carrying metal lattices that hummed with a constant, low-hum world-size shaking.
Lin Tao squeezed the bronze friction brake. That brought his descent to a steady, controlled halt upon a narrow granite upkeep ledge.
Beside him, Tie Shan dropped onto the shelf with the muted, heavy thud of an iron anvil. The giant unhooked his eight-pound steel mallet from his work harness, his breath billowing in thick white plumes against the black rock. His weathered ox-hide coat was already crusted with white crystals of stone frost. But his massive hands moved without a tremor. Without needing a command, Tie Shan unslung a forged star-iron piton from his belt. He set the hardened wedge into a natural fracture in the cryoperovskite. Then he swung the mallet with rhythmic, terrifying care.
