The Great Dawn Bell of the Ninth Heavenly Court chimed nine times.
The sound was pure, golden, and ringing. It rolled across thirty thousand leagues of sky to announce that the divine machinery of Heaven was open for its daily business.
Usually, within ten heartbeats of the ninth stroke, the lower registries exploded into a frenzied roar. The clatter of thousands of wooden brushes dipped in ink, the hiss of air-powered tubes sucking tallies upward, the shriek of steam valves, and the desperate shouts of overseers cracking their whips.
Today, there was only silence.
In the vast, underground concourse of Basin Four, three thousand junior immortal scribes, foundry smiths, and boiler stokers sat cross-legged on the cold stone flags.
Their arms were folded inside their wide hemp sleeves. Their brushes lay neatly lined up on their desks, uninked and dry as winter grass. The great bronze hoppers of the self-running printing presses were empty. The draft furnaces burned at minimum idle, their dampers shut.
Not a single wheel turned. Not a single slip moved.
Lin Ke stood beside an iron gauge panel near the locked blast doors. He watched the liquid silver columns slowly begin to rise.
