The Hollow Cut

A dry wash that runs under a mesa into a wind-throated cave system; the wind sings through it the way it sings over the Unhushed Tower, and the Cinder Quorum stages out of its mouth before a dig.

Where the Glass Wash meets the mesa's skirt, the water table has eaten a passage under the stone for a hundred yards, then opened into chambers where the wind finds its voice. Fungus-lit, no torches. The Cinder Quorum treats the cave's outer chambers as a staging depot — ropes, rations, and digging tools stowed under ledges — and its crew comes and goes on the dig schedule. Three weeks ago a ropeman named Yel went down the rear shaft and the rope went slack, still tied off. Nobody has pulled it back up yet.