The noise was an assault. After the absolute, conceptual quiet, the return of sound was a physical blow. The rushing wind of released stolen sounds was a tornado of auditory ghosts—fragments of forgotten conversations, echoes of extinct beasts, the last cries of the entombed, the patter of ancient rain. It filled the spherical chamber, bouncing off the obsidian until it became a solid wall of tinnitus-inducing chaos.
Silas fell to his knees, hands clamped over ears that felt raw and bleeding, though no blood came. Beside him, Pell was sobbing openly, the sound of his own cries clearly audible and seemingly wondrous to him. Lyra gasped in great, ragged breaths, each one a symphony. Hargin was laughing and crying at the same time, banging a wrench against the floor just to hear the clang.
