Chapter 20: The Furnace of Silver

"The lead box!" Sterling yelled, dropping to his knees and unbuckling the iron trunk. "If we submerge the recovered plates in the main zinc bath, we can ground the charge before it reaches the seam!"

"It won't ground!" Arthur shouted over the roaring wind that was now tearing through the iron roof plates. "The zinc is acting as a battery! It's accelerating the reaction!"

The four studio workers fled into the rain, screaming as the ruby lanterns began to shatter one by one from the sudden, plunging drop in temperature. Frost spread instantly across the walls, coating the corrugated iron in thick white crystals.

Through the center drain grate, a column of pale, phosphorescent water burst thirty feet into the air, hitting the rafters with the force of a geyser.

In the center of the spray, rendered in shimmering, silver-gray outline, stood the ghost of the Dolphin. The black timbers of her bow deck sheared straight through the stone floor of the studio, her broken bowsprit impaling the rafters above. And leaning over the phantom rail, their drowned faces illuminated by the violet discharge of static electricity, were the crew.

Captain Vance stood at the helm, his jaw gaping open in a silent, eternal cry. Extending from his chest was a thick, glowing cord of liquid silver, descending directly into the zinc bath where the unexposed plates lay submerged.

"It's pulling every reflection back to the forge!" Caleb roared, leveling his pistol at the central rack and firing three shots in rapid succession. The iron frames buckled, dumping forty glass plates onto the wet floor, where they shattered into thousands of glowing splinters.

"Arthur, no!" Sterling yelled as Arthur lunged straight for the central zinc trough.

Arthur reached his bare hands down into the freezing silver nitrate bath. The chemical burned his skin like liquid ice, but he didn't pull back. His fingers clamped around the heavy iron drain plug at the bottom of the vat.

With a desperate, gasping strain, Arthur pulled the plug free.

Ten gallons of concentrated silver nitrate surged down into the furnace culvert, meeting the rising column of subterranean brine head-on.

"Caleb! The gunpowder from your cartridges!" Arthur screamed, his arm submerged to the shoulder in the burning chemical stream.

Caleb didn't hesitate. He tore open his leather pouch, dumped six paper cartridges of black powder into his palm, and slammed them directly onto the exposed gas jet of the furnace heating line beneath the rack.

"Get down!" Caleb shouted, tackling Sterling to the floor as he struck a match against his boot.