[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
similar age, and they were both ambitious, and they knew their aether. Harrat
was never as direct as to say that Bracebridge was running out of the stuff.
That wasn't his way.
But extraction difficulties were mentioned. As were long-term production
exigencies.
One evening after his shift was finished, Harrat took Durry to an iron gate,
which he opened in some fancy way and led him down and along abandoned
corridors to a room of leaking shelves. There, he showed him something
special, something large, something bright and heavy. A chalcedony nestled
amid the newspapers of a wooden casket
massive with magic. And the plan was to boost production, to make
Bracebridge more than the plain little town it was. Harrat spoke easily of
these things, but Durry simply stared at the stone. For the one overriding
rule which was beaten into the mind of every apprentice was to Do
Things In The Way They Have Always Been Done. For aether was magic.
Aether was dangerous. But what, after all, Durry thought as he stared into the
lovely light of that chalcedony, did the guilds know? Think of the
Founder working against the laughter of his Painswick neighbours. And
Christ himself they laughed at him as well, didn't they? Not that these
things were said, not that they needed to be. The matter was swiftly agreed.
There would be an experiment, an innovation. And their so-called seniors and
supervisors would not be told.
There was much work to be done. To introduce the spell within the chalcedony
into the production process required that it be inserted into the shackle
between the three huge pistons and the fetter which gripped the rock. The
existing shackle was a marvel of engineering, a yard-long cat's-cradle of
metal and the highest grade engine silk spun like the chrysalis of a
butterfly, yet it could not accommodate the stone.
So a new shackle had to be fashioned. The process, the secrecy, was
fascinating, and Durry always sensed, that, in their secret heart, all the
great guilds were looking down on their task with encouragement and approval.
When a far higher guildsman than Harrat came up one day from London, and
smiled and listened, and raised his hand from his dark cloak and laid it on
Edward Durry's shoulder, why, that seemed right. And the planning was a mighty
work. Even if this process, this insertion, was done openly, you couldn't just
stop the pistons as if you were the steamaster of some poxy train. Even done
gradually, with a lessening of pressure, the aether would at some point snap
back all the way from the quickening pools. To get the pressure up again would
be the work of several shifterms. So the insertion must take place between one
beat of the engines and the next.
Organising the day itself, arranging the absence of the rest of his shiftgang,
was all another part of the spell they were weaving. Durry's men were
incurious, happy to spend their day up top with their families, and he enjoyed
the way Central Floor emptied of its previous shift. The machine was his. He
was on his own and relishing the task ahead when
Harrat finally arrived by forgotten tunnels from that hidden room with a
squeaky trolley on which the carried the newly made shackle with the
chalcedony glowing within it. This was all as they'd arranged, but he'd
brought others with him as well. Two women from the paintshop, and
Aethermaster Edward Durry, were he still living, would have sworn on the creed
of his guild that it was Harrat rather than he who had made that decision. To
bring his wife
Kate down here, and then that friend of hers Mary Borrows as well, as if this
Page 205
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
was some parlour show. Even beyond his own highermaster, the last person Durry
had thought of confiding in was Kate. Not that he didn't love her, but, if
truth be told, he loved his engines far more, and often felt a little empty
when he went up to the world of sunlight and cobbles and cooking, which seemed
in comparison a waking dream. Paintwork needed to be done, as Durry was fully
aware, so that the new shackle was freshly adorned with all the necessary
spells before it was inserted. And such ornamentation would, it was true,
normally be performed by the girls of the paintshop, but Durry hadn't doubted
that he could do at least as good a job.
After the forced, surprised, Why are you here?
greeting, an
argument between the two men ensued. But their relationship had been tempered
with, if not a liking, at least a mutual respect, and Durry came to see that
Harrat had a point. After all, there were many other things to get done. And
the girls were experienced in their work. Kate at least
was one of the best in the paintshop, even with the distraction of that
growing lump in her belly. They would do it quicker and better, and who else
was Harrat to choose? As the two women stood in the pounding and oddly empty
lower floor and exchanged puzzled glances, Durry came around to seeing that,
just like everything else which had happened, it was all another part of the
spell.
So the two women set to work, dipping their brushes in the aether pots Harrat
had provided and wreathing the new shackle in a glowing tapestry which, Durry
had to admit as he loosened the bolts and cotters which held the old shackle
in place, was finer than anything he could have accomplished. The new device,
beautiful to him already, became a thing of wonder, glowing within from the
chalcedony, and without from the aethered scrolls made by the women's brushes.
Their shadows danced as they worked, were strewn as soft comets across the
ceiling of
Central Floor. They were the stone's acolytes.
Harrat removed himself to the control room, which was a brick dome which the
shiftworkers called the igloo. With its steel supports and portholes, it was
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]