"Three." – called from the Tower of the Number, every evening of the year, in one word or another
THE GATE BOOK OF SCHARTE Entry of the night officer. Bureau number 4471. First night. I was told that the night begins when the number is called and not before, and that I should be at the Bureau house by then with the chit, and I was, and I still heard it late, because I was not expecting a word. I had expected a bell. It is a man's voice through a brass horn from the top of a square tower on the gate wall, and it says one word, tonight THREE, and the word goes down the terraces of the Lower Town like something dropped, and every window that was dark is lit by the time it reaches the bottom. The caller does not set the number. I write this down because I was told it four times by four people before I had been in Scharte an hour, and because I did not believe it the first three. The number appears at dusk on a slate in a locked room under the bell-stage, in chalk, in a hand that is not the caller's. He reads it, climbs, and calls it. The Bureau watched the room through a bored hole f...
From the lore of The Last Pass.