Three slow, muffled beats struck from the high watchtower gong.
Dang... Dang... Dang.
The sound rolled over the inner harbor, swallowed almost instantly by the creeping river fog.
“The dead-water bell,” Doctor Meng whispered, his scarred hand freezing above his stone bench.
He threw down his cleaning rag, his yellowed hawk eyes narrowing toward the outer canal.
“What’s that?” Lu Chen asked.
“An alarm from the river lookouts,” the old apothecary rasped. “Three strikes means a vessel from the southern narrows is drifting without a rudder. No living hand is steering.”
Doctor Meng grabbed an iron lantern and a pouch of wet lime plaster from beneath his stall.
