The lantern light in the center of the Old Ferry warehouse flickered against the damp oak floorboards as Eren Tal stood on the ladder beside the main surge cask, his hand resting on the heavy wooden trip-lever. The air smelled of wet cedar, animal fat soap, river loam, and the bitter sulfur stench of pipe lime drifting from the open drain. On the drafting bench sat a pot of boiled tea and a plate of sourdough crust, cold and abandoned in the quiet focus of the night.
Senior Surveyor Korr Var stood beside the central water chute, his pocket watch in his left hand and a brass sliding depth-gauge in his right. Pella Rook knelt by the lower discharge basin. She held two glass sample beakers filled with crimson beet juice and golden turmeric extract. Tavi stood at the weir gate, his hands gripping the oak stop-log that represented the disputed Third Gate.
“Phase One: Baseline open-gate test,” Korr Var announced, his voice echoing in the rafters. “Pulsed inflow sixty gallons per minute. Third Gate open sixty percent into the marsh relief channel. Pella, charge the tracer dye.”
Pella poured the crimson beet juice into the Gray Rush cask. That turned the dark river water a brilliant, bloody scarlet. “Tracer charged. Ready on the trip-lever.”
