Chapter 80 - Chapter 80: The International Alliance

The grand ballroom of the Eastern Silk Exchange did not trade in the blunt, soot-choked realities of the Western rail yards, but its ledger lines were no less lethal. Suspended over the black-water canals of the ancient coastal metropolis, the pavilion was a massive, open-air structure of polished white cedar and heavy silk screens that rippled with every breath of the salt-laden breeze coming off the eastern gulf. The air here smelled of steamed jasmine, bitter clove oil, and the sharp, vinegar tang of fresh chemical fixatives used to set the patterns on the high-grade export bolts. Beneath the lacquered floorboards, the low, synchronized hum of three hundred manual accounting desks drifted up like the sound of an approaching swarm of locusts.