Location:The chamber under Harl's Bottom
Date/Time:4 Blazepeak 9943 AZI, Quenchday, past the sixth bell
Realm:Lower Realm
The sound that came back was not louder. It was faster.
Eight thousand bodies that had spent nine thousand years sliding over each other in the dark were not sliding any more, and the noise that makes is not a noise any throat on Doha was built to hold in the ear. Wet. Continuous. A wave coming up a shingle beach and never reaching the top of it.
The braid came across the chamber floor like water poured from a height.
At a pace from the line, it met the field.
***
A single filament had stopped at the field on the stair. A single filament is a thing a pace from your face, turning, pressing, and withdrawing.
This was not that.
