IN THE TEETH OF THE LEVIATHAN RANGE

ribe of the Celestial Spires, now mended fishing nets in the salt-rot port of Marrow's End. T

with a wax seal depicting a mou

debt to the Guild is recalled. Assemble at the S

ne that had bound him to the Guild of Measurers in the first place. He'd thought his disgrace-his failure to accurately cha

last true foothill before the world went vertical. Inside, the air was thick with the sme

lethal grace of someone for whom climbing was a form of thought. Borin, the Gear-Granny, was a squat, irritable genius whose

s as obstacles to dominion. He wore opulence like armor fur-trimmed coat over articulated steel, a

aid, his voice smooth as oiled stone. "My masters wish a route, a p

the Leviathan Range not as peaks, but as a jagged jawbone biting

atly. "We're assessing viability. For the

thin. "And I decide

inert stone; they had rhythms, whispers of seismic breath, telluric currents they called the "Pulse." A good scribe could hear it through special resonating stones

"Your gear. Don't lose the listenin

ooked. It felt like his past,