The silence that followed Archon Xuan Ji’s departure was deep, but to Lin Tao’s trained senses, it was far from empty.
Lin Tao knelt in the southwestern side of the chamber, three paces from the intersecting seam where floor met wall. He unbuttoned the wool lining of his collar, pulling out his brass tuning fork. A five-inch test tool forged from sound brass, tuned to four hundred and forty shakes per second.
The tuning fork was an indispensable instrument. Forged from high-copper brass with a stretch modulus that kept exact deep ring across wide heat ranges, it had served him well from the stone quarries of Taiyi to the depths of the Netherworld.
He set the land-mapper metal pen aside on the white floor and gripped the base of the tuning fork firmly.
He lifted the fork. He struck the dual tines against the iron heel of his left boot. The brass rang out with a clean, pure musical tone that hung sharply in the dead air. Without losing a heartbeat of deep ring, Lin Tao pressed the round brass stem of the shaking fork flat against the seamless floor.
He pressed his ear directly against the brass handle.
At first, there was only the pure four-hundred-and-forty hertz tone resonating through his jawbone. But the main tone began to decay. Then, a backup, deeper ringing emerged from the floor itself.
