The great oak drafting bench in the Old Ferry warehouse was lit up by two brass oil lamps that cast a steady, glare-free light across four sheets of heavy royal thick parchment. Outside, the midnight rain fell with steady, unbending fury against the slate roofs of Lowbank, washing the soot from the chimneys into the swollen currents of the Gray Rush. Inside, the only sounds were the scratching of Korr Var’s steel dip-pen, the ticking of his pocket watch. The low, ringing hum of the spatial sky-slit resting against the back kitchen wall.
Korr Var sat on his high stool, his horn-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, an ivory-and-brass rolling parallel rule in his left hand. Beside his elbow sat a bottle of permanent black dark oak-ink, a clay pot mug of boiled tea. A dry sourdough crust that had remained untouched for four hours. His land-mapper’s coat was unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up, exposing forearms stained with ink and lime dust.
Pella stood beside him. She held Hal Rook’s grease-pencil ferry logs and a set of five-figure logarithm tables. White specks of pipe lime clung to her apron pockets. The bitter silt stench of the harbor mudflats seeped through the cracks in the warehouse floorboards.
