Chapter 1: Sudden Change Amid the Sunken Anchor

The water at the bottom of the river in Maastricht was murky as strong tea, as if all the city's gloom had settled into these dark, deep channels. Saskia clamped down on her air pipe, diving deeper along the iron chain marked by the Chamber of Commerce. The current wrapped around her, cold seeping through her skin, while the weight of the scuba tank pressed against her shoulders, causing them to ache. But the insignia of the Chamber of Commerce on her chest felt even heavier—it was her disguise as an independent salvage diver, but also the chain that bound her to doing dirty work for the Maritime Chamber. With every meter she descended, the suffocating sense of confinement intensified. She had to hold her breath, lest anxiety cause her to burn through her oxygen supply too soon.

At the end of the chain lay a barge, tilted and lodged in the silt. The hull had been deliberately dismantled; the cross-sections of the keel were smooth, as if someone had sawed through the joints one by one. The cuts reflected a cold, metallic gleam in the turbid water. She swam around to the bow, where a heavy anchor was half-buried in the riverbed. A series of blurred numbers was etched onto one of the anchor's flukes: 1847. This was not a standard merchant vessel registration number; it looked more like a coordinate left by a surveying team.

She reached out to touch the fluke. The moment her fingertips grazed the rusted metal, a low, ominous rumble reverberated from the riverbed. The sound seeped up from deep within the mud layer, like the rolling growl of a colossal beast roused from slumber. It vibrated her eardrums and even disrupted the rhythm of bubbles rising through her air pipe. The surrounding current churned violently for a few seconds, churning up silt until visibility dropped to near zero. Darkness surged in like a tide, swallowing the last slivers of faint light.

Saskia held her breath, suspending herself in the water, waiting for the murk to settle. The rumbling had ceased, but she knew something had been there. Old archives from the Maritime Chamber mentioned this type of sonar alarm—a mechanism left in ancient shipwrecks, designed specifically to trigger when metal was touched. Gripping her jaw, she adjusted her buoyancy and swam toward the hold, moving as lightly as possible. Lighter still.

The planks of the dark hold had long since rotted. She kicked them away with a single foot, and silt mixed with splinters of wood poured out, drifting through the water like decaying limbs. A tin box lay across the floor, its latch rusted shut. She pulled out her diving knife and pried it loose twice before the latch snapped open. Inside was a scroll of parchment wrapped in oilcloth, its outer layer caked with black river mud. She tore open a corner of the cloth. The surface of the paper depicted the outlines of unfamiliar waters, the lines skewed, the edges marked with symbols that resembled either star charts or tidal tables. Though the ink was old, it stood out starkly against the murk, carrying an unsettling sense of order.

Just as she was about to examine it more closely, a tremor of water disturbed the space above her. Someone had entered the water from the riverbank. Saskia quickly stuffed the parchment into her waterproof pouch, shoved the pouch into the side pocket of her scuba gear, and clicked the buckle closed. She swam out of the hold, staying in the shadow of the hull, and moved upstream. The water flow created turbulence in the gaps of the ship's structure; she used this current to silently break away from the dangerous zone.

Two figures in gray wool coats stood among the reeds on the bank, one of them peering into the water. She recognized the man's stance—a lookout sent by the Chamber of Commerce, known by the nickname "Otter," who spent most of his time stationed at the docks collecting information. His coat was thick and made him look particularly bulky in the damp morning air, but his eyes were as sharp as knives. Without turning back, she swam to a shallow spot downstream, removed her diving gear, and stashed it inside a hollow rock on the shore. She changed into a coarse flannel fisherman's shirt, rolled her trousers up to her knees, picked up a worn fishing basket, and began the pretense of pulling in a net on the riverbank.

The net had been left there three days ago, specifically for occasions like this. It contained a few dead perch. She shook the mesh of the net, dumped the fish into the basket, then bent down to pick up a wooden stick, poking at the weeds at the bottom of the net as if she were just a common fisher cleaning up her catch. Her movements were practiced yet deliberate, every subtle expression calculated to ensure that in "Otter's" eyes, she was nothing more than an insignificant, unremarkable figure.

A pair of patrol boots splashed through the wet mud. A short, stout patrol officer walked up to her, baton in hand, sizing her up from head to toe. His gaze was scrutinizing and impatient, as if searching for a flaw in her story.

"Out fishing this early?" The officer's voice had a heavy nasal twang. "Did you hear that noise from the riverbed?"

Saskia lowered her head, sorting the perch in her basket. "Yeah, it scared me nearly threw my net overboard. This river hasn't been calm lately. People said they saw bubbles rising from the water a few days ago."

"Bubbles?" The officer narrowed his eyes.

"Don't know, maybe it's methane gas from a shipwreck." She looked up, showing him a sun-reddened face. "Sir, if you're worried about trouble, I suggest you stay away from the riverbank too. I'll just finish pulling in this net and then I'm off."

The officer stared at the fish basket in her hand, then glanced at the river. In the distance, "Otter" and his companion were moving downstream along the bank, seemingly unaware of the situation on this side. The officer snorted. "Get it done and beat it. We're under tight scrutiny up top these days."

Saskia nodded, bent down to lift the basket, and took two steps onto the bank before stopping again. "Sir, do you know anything about that old barge on the riverbed?"

The officer froze. "What barge?"

"The one sunk off-center south in the river. I ran into it while diving for shells a few days ago." She lowered her voice. "There were markings on the hull. Looked like '1847.' What do you think that number means?"

The officer's expression shifted. His baton spun half a turn in his hand. "Mind your own business. That boat is a mud-transport scrapped by the River Authority. It should have been towed away long ago. If you see it, pretend you didn't. Understood?"

"Understood, understood." Saskia offered a strained smile, lifted her fish basket, and hurried away. Twenty paces later, she glanced back. The constable was pulling out his pocket watch, checking the time, then cast another gaze toward the center of the river. For a moment, her heart pounded faster than usual, as if cold vigilence flowed through her veins instead of blood.

She set the fish basket beside the ox cart and bent down, pretending to tidy the net ropes. Her fingers slipped into the side pocket of her diving gear to confirm the waterproof pouch was still there. The parchment scroll, pressed against her ribs through the leather, was faintly warm—like a glowing ember—reminding her of the dangerous weight she carried. She looked up at the sky. Lead-gray clouds hung heavy over the church spires of Maastricht, while the river water swirled beneath the bridge piers, emitting a low, mournful moan.

"The Otter" and their companion were already far out of sight, but Saskia knew the Guild would not overlook any anomaly. That roar—if they traced its source, her life would be worth nothing. She slung the fish basket back onto her shoulder and headed into the city. As she passed the bridge, an old man in a worn felt cap was crouched on the stone steps, repairing an oar. Without lifting his head, he said, "Young lady, that sound from the riverbed this morning... it didn't sound like methane gas."

Saskia paused but did not turn around. "You heard it too?"

The old man was chipping wood shavings from the seams of the oar with a chisel. "I've lived by this river for forty years. Gas doesn't sound like that. That noise... it sounded like metal striking metal. Heavy, and muffled."

She walked two steps in silence, then asked, "What do you think it was?"

The old man finally raised his gaze. His eyes were cloudy but sharp. "Thirty years ago, there was a sound just like this. That autumn, the Guild hauled a crate up from the riverbed, and after that, no one ever spoke of it again. You'd best keep away from that ship."

Saskia tightened her grip on the basket handle and forced a smile. "I'm just a fisher. I don't look for trouble." She quickened her pace and turned into an alley. Behind her, the old man drove the chisel into the handle and muttered something under his breath, a sound carried away by the river wind. It felt like an unfinished warning, drifting aimlessly in the air.

After turning two corners and confirming no one was tailing her, she slipped into the back courtyard of a blacksmith's shop. The blacksmith was an old acquaintance who provided her with a place to store her diving equipment without asking questions. She lifted the wooden boards in the cellar, removed the waterproof pouch from the side pocket of her gear, and unrolled the parchment. Using the light filtering through the skylight, she examined it closely. The air was thick with the smell of rust and coal smoke, mixed with the lingering scent of river mud on her clothes.

One corner of the parchment was scorched. In the center, a curved coastline was drawn, marked with several place names—Rotterdam, Antwerp, Dover. Outside the coastline, a blank stretch of sea was depicted. In the center of that blank space was an ink dot. Beside the dot, a tilted anchor was drawn, and beneath the anchor, a line of small, hurried characters was scrawled. Every stroke conveyed a sense of urgency, as if the writer lived perpetually in the shadows.

She leaned in to read the fading text: "...Tide Gate... opens only... full moon..." The final words were blurred by water stains; only one term remained clear: "Depth."

The blacksmith called out to her from the yard. "Saskia, do you need your net rope replaced? It's frayed to shreds."

She rolled the parchment and tucked it back into the waterproof pouch. "No need. A few stitches will do." She climbed out of the cellar. The blacksmith was crouched before the anvil, striking iron; sparks flew in all directions. Each hammer blow kept a distinct rhythm, like a beat striking her taut nerves.

"You look terrible," the blacksmith said. "Did you run into something down in the river?"

"Heard a noise," Saskia replied. "Like something was turning over on the riverbed."

The blacksmith’s hammer paused for a beat. "That ship has been sunken for three years. I’ve never seen it turn over. You misheard."

Saskia didn’t respond. Her mind went back to the ink dot on the parchment, and that word: "Depth." Those two characters hooked into her, entangling her curiosity and fear. She walked out of the blacksmith’s shop. The sky had already darkened, and a thin layer of mist floated on the river. Standing on the bridge, she watched the blurred water through the fog, pressing her hand against the pouch in her pocket through the fabric of her pocket. In that moment, she felt as if she were standing on the edge of a cliff. One step forward into the abyss, or backward into an unknown chase.

In the distance, the church bell tower rang six times. Toward the center of the river, a string of bubbles slowly rose to the surface, gurgling for a brief moment before sinking back into silence. Saskia stared at the bubbles until they completely vanished, then turned and walked into the depths of the alley. Those bubbles seemed to carry some ancient breath, making the silent twilight feel all the more eerie.

What she did not see was that in the shadow of a bridge pier, "The Otter" was putting away a single-lens spyglass, whispering something to their companion. The companion nodded and walked toward the direction of the River Authority. Their footsteps disappeared into the night, while Saskia’s figure gradually melted into the endless shadows of Maastricht, as if she had never existed at all.