Midnight in the Grand Underground Archive beneath the Central Peak was a tomb-like domain of silence, stone-hard dust, and ancient star-iron.
Located five hundred paces beneath the marble foundations of the High Council Palace, the archive was a vast, underground cave carved directly into the living solid mountain stone. Rows of ninety-foot star-iron shelving units stretched into the darkness like the ribs of an ancient giant beast. He held tens of thousands of sealed bronze cylinders, stone-hard bamboo scrolls, and glass-fused clay tablets from the Precursor era.
Lin Tao and Tie Shan walked down the central aisle, their footsteps kicking up faint clouds of white lime dust that had rested undisturbed for two hundred years.
Tie Shan carried a heavy brass lantern fueled by clean spirit oil. He cast long, dancing shadows across the towering shelves. The giant’s twelve-pound iron pry-bar was strapped securely to his back, his hand resting on the handle of his belt knife as his sharp eyes scanned the dark ceiling arches for cave-ins or nesting rock-vipers.
The air in the Grand Underground Archive was so still that Lin Tao’s breathing sounded like a bellows in the vast stone silence. The ninety-foot star-iron shelving units were supported by massive arches of carved Precursor dark rock, each pillar inscribed with sharp-angled load-bearing formulas that had defied eight hundred years of earth-shaking settling. Tie Shan raised the brass spirit-lantern. Then, the light caught the glint of thousands of sealed bronze cylinders, each containing the forgotten working records of…
