`[COUNTDOWN: 00:05:54]`
James read the room before anybody moved.
The starting platform was eleven metres square. From its edge, two routes went out over the dark. The right one began with a gap of about two metres onto a broad island, fifteen metres off, slightly lower. The left one began further along with a longer gap onto a narrow ledge that ran away toward a cluster of rock.
Beyond those, sixty metres out, two small chambers had been cut into free-hanging masses of stone, one on each side — enclosed, with a single opening facing the middle.
Between them, a scatter of central islands at different heights. The highest of those sat under a low stone roof, like a porch with nothing attached to it.
And past all of it, on a ledge a long way off, the door.
Cold air came up past the edge of the platform from below. There was grit loose on the stone near the lip, and it moved under James's boot when he stepped closer, and he stepped back again.
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