Chapter 366: Word Sent

Dole’s message asked Ren to come in and read the investigators’ report.

Three sheets lay on her table when he arrived, with a route sketch beneath them. She turned the bundle toward him and pointed to the first entry.

The party had checked the delivery point at the stone lip below the sunken road. The shelter was empty. The board and papers were gone, and there were no crates or workers at the site. They had found no receipt for the replacement run.

They had also inspected the approach described in Ren’s reports, following the stonework from the survey road to the basin above the hollow. Its water stood below the overflow. The channel previously recorded as running was dry at the basin, and the party had followed it upstream to check the inlet. No water entered during their inspection. The report gave the observation time and marked the inspected stretch on the sketch.

Ren laid his route notes beside it. The running channel was on the far side of the basin; the older blocked channel lay separately. He checked that the investigators had distinguished them before following their line upstream.

"That’s the one we followed toward the head," he said. "It was running when we were there."

"Their account agrees with your layout," Dole said. "I wanted you to check which channel they’d inspected."

Ren read the observation again. The duty covered an interruption established by a report as well as one he witnessed himself. This identified the supply and recorded the absence of flow. He would have to send word.

"Did they find anything about the replacement carriage?"

"No receipt at the station. We’re still checking its papers elsewhere."

He looked at the empty shelter marked on the sketch. The departure had been recorded at the yard, but they still had nothing establishing that the load reached this point.

"And the water?"

"They haven’t established why it stopped."

Ren asked for an extract of the observation to include in a notification to the survey office. Dole supplied it with the inspection reference and the sketch identifying the channel.

He put both beside his route notes before leaving.

— • —

The survey office had issued his permit and received his reports at the landing. Ren used that existing channel to lodge the notification with the office responsible for access to the works.

He gave the clerk his permit reference and the inspection extract. In his own statement, he identified when he had last seen water flowing through the channel, then cited the later observation supplied by Investigator Dole’s office. He copied its time and described the stretch the party had inspected.

Before handing it over, he checked the basin reference. The visible basin was a landmark he could place on his route. He had never established where the receiving basin in the keeper’s procedure lay, and his report did not claim to have found it.

The clerk read the statement against the attachments and entered the notification. She returned an acknowledgment slip with its reference beneath his permit number.

Ren checked the numbers, put the slip in his notes and left.

Once alone, he checked the duty privately.

[NOTIFICATION DUTY: DISCHARGED.]

He read the line, then opened the notebook to the page where he had copied the obligation. The space below it was still blank.

He wrote Reported and the acknowledgment reference beneath the terms. The office now had the observation and a source it could contact. He closed the notebook with the slip tucked against that page.

— • —

Kaelen was at the Terrace when Ren returned. His hands were still bandaged, one resting beside a cup on the table.

"I went to the house."

Ren took the chair opposite him. "Did they show you anything?"

"No. I asked to see the account they kept. They said they’d consider the request."

"Did they give you a time?"

"No."

Kaelen turned the cup with his fingertips. Ren waited, but he offered nothing more about the visit.

"Will you ask again?"

"I haven’t decided."

Ren left it there. Kaelen had heard what he knew and gone to the house himself. He could choose what to do with its answer.

— • —

Yueying found Ren that evening with a folder beneath her arm. Ink marked the side of one finger. She set the folder on the Terrace table and drew out the citation he had sent from the landing.

"I found a carriage linked to this source entry."

Ren moved his notebook aside to give her room.

"The inventory reference?"

"Yes. The custody sheet cites it. I compared the entry with our copies, then checked the index of later papers filed against it."

She laid the two inventory versions beside the newer extract. The older one credited a seal-office receipt; the later one named Custodial Records. Ren recognized the lines they had discussed before.

Yueying pointed below the copied index heading.

"This carriage was added afterward. It wasn’t in either version you had."

The index gave a separate date for the addition. Ren checked it against the docket, then returned to the older copies. Yueying had followed later paperwork filed under the same reference. The original inventory entry had remained in place while further transactions accumulated beneath it.

"Does it say what was carried?"

"There’s a description, but I can’t identify the item from it. The useful part is the return docket."

She showed him the reference where the index cited it, then the matching heading on the extract. A carrier reference and receiving-desk reference appeared beneath it.

"I requested the docket through the history tower. The carrier registry holds the returned paperwork. Its clerk brought out the file and authenticated my extract against it."

The signature covered two pages: the docket and an attached handling instruction. Ren turned to the second sheet.

Incoming carts stop at the outer receiving threshold. Loads carried onward in batches. No freight movement during meal handoffs. Meals follow completion of unloading and closure of the passage door.

He read it again, then looked back at the docket. The attachment’s reference was entered beside the receiving details.

"They changed the unloading procedure."

"Yes. The instruction went back with the delivery paperwork."

"Meal handoffs," he said.

Yueying left her finger beside the line. "It doesn’t say who receives them."

Ren thought of Mei. The sheet gave him no name, but it described a place with a passage door and meals arranged around freight movements. Dole would need to see it.

He checked the receiving reference once more. It was complete, with no missing edge or unreadable character to hold up a request.

"Is the original still available?"

"For now. The collection is being transferred to another registry office. The clerk showed me the notice." She brought it out from behind her notes. "They’ll suspend requests while it moves. I kept the present file reference and the transfer details."

Ren read the office names. The source would still exist, but obtaining another extract could take longer once the move began.

"Let’s take this to Dole."

Yueying gathered the loose sheets into their order. "I’ll explain the cross-reference. She’ll want to check it herself."

Ren sent a message to Dole’s office while Yueying secured the folder. The reply told them to bring it in.

— • —

Dole read the authenticated extract, then asked Yueying to show her the connection from Ren’s citation.

Yueying set out the inventory versions, the later index entry and the return docket. Hask compared the references while she explained how she had obtained each paper. When he reached the receiving field, he left a finger on it and opened the receiving-point register.

"Does this connect to the replacement run you were checking?" Ren asked.

"It’s a different carriage," Yueying said. "I reached it through the inventory reference. Nothing I’ve found puts it at Old Cistern."

Dole noted that beside the docket.

Hask found the desk reference and turned the register toward them.

"Saltmarch Receiving."

The entry gave its registered location, the arrival landing and the western haulage route beyond the second river crossing. Three carriers were listed as serving the point. Hask read their names and copied the receiving reference onto a fresh sheet.

Ren followed the route with his eyes. This was somewhere a party could be sent, rather than another unexplained mark in a cargo record.

"When was this entry last updated?" Dole asked.

Hask checked the heading and gave her the date. She compared it with the docket, then turned to the instruction.

"We’ll check the operator and the recent deliveries. I’ll also have a local party establish whether the point is still receiving freight."

"The changed handling?" Yueying asked.

"That too. Carts stopping outside, loads going through by hand, and when the passage closes. We’ll see whether the instruction is still followed."

Hask added those points to the request. He left space for the visiting party to record when it observed the site, so its account could be compared with the procedure on the sheet.

Dole drew the extract beside Mei’s case folder and entered its source reference. She asked Yueying for the archive clerk’s contact and the transfer notice, then recorded which papers she was retaining. Yueying kept her research notes and received an acknowledgment for the authenticated pages.

"Can this help find Mei?" Ren asked.

"It gives us a receiving point to check against her case," Dole said. "The document doesn’t place her there."

He nodded. The name and route remained visible in the register. He wanted someone to reach the passage, see who used it and find out what lay beyond the door.

Hask finished the request with the docket reference and the instruction attached. Dole read it before sending it on.

Yueying closed her folder and waited while Ren gathered his notes.

"Let me know if there’s something I can identify," he said.

"I will."

Dole set the request beside the open register. At its head, Hask had written the place the investigators would check next.

Saltmarch Receiving.