The thunderous roar of the unshielded power bus filled the vaulted dome of the Board with a sound pressure so violent that Lin Tao’s chest shook in sympathetic deep ring with the sixty-cycle hum.
Sparks of blinding violet and white spark star-fire cascaded down the fluted ribs of the Apex Pillar. It splashed across the platform flat stone slabs like burning oil. everyone could feel the thousands of volts of static potential, causing Lin Tao’s coarse gray hair to stand on end and sending tiny, stinging sparks jumping between the brass buckles of his land-mapper satchel. The smell of burning copper was thick enough to coat the mouth with a metal bitterness that made swallowing difficult.
Around them, the once-unbeatable Archon Board was in the throes of total collapse.
On the lower tiers, the leftover nine Archons—ministers of taxation, grain claims, and weather tribunals—had fled their golden thrones, huddling together in terror at the foot of the southern row of stone pillars. They watched in numbed horror as the sacred machines they had worshiped for thirty thousand years turned into an uncontrollable clockwork volcano threatening to burn up them all.
Archon Xuan Ming, his out-of-joint thumb braced and bound against his chest, stood leaning against the fourth-tier stone railing.
