Engn

XII-1

XIIThe following morning, Master Owyn led them through another doorway off the Octagon. The bright light inside made Finn squint for a moment. Naphtha lamps, set in circles the size of cartwheels, hissed in the air just above his head, their acrid smell sharp as nails in his nose. He could see the metal chains holding them in the air stretching up into the shadows above him. The hall soared above him, its ceiling completely invisible. The stretching walls were windowless and grey, cut from large, regular blocks of bare stone.

The c******g and clanking of metal was clearer in there, the stifled roaring of machines a monotone hum in his ears. He breathed hot, muggy air that seemed to immediately sap him of his energy. He wanted to sleep but, of course, could not.

Most of the room was taken up by a vast, square, iron table. It was open in its centre, as if four rectangular tables had been placed together, but Finn could see it was a single item, each side perhaps fifty paces long. The legs were intricately cast with a design of interconnecting cogs. Stains marked its wooden top. It was clearly old, the sharp corners of the wood worn to smooth curves. A great many men and women sat at it, each working on a small metal object set on the table before them.

The artificers glanced up as Finn and the other apprentices arrived. They laboured in silence but Finn could see whole conversations passing between them in the looks they shot one another, the way they nodded their heads towards the new arrivals. Most wore joyless, blank expressions. Some smiled and others frowned.

The master turned and waited for them all to come into the room. Something approaching a smile had replaced his usual brute scowl, too. They stood in a semicircle before him, saying nothing. The master brushed something off the cuff of his gold and purple gown, then stared into the face of each apprentice until they were cowed and still.

He turned and picked one of the metal objects from a brass trolley behind him. He unwrapped it and held it up for them all to see, admiring it as if it was a wonderful fruit he had plucked from a tree. It was about the size and shape, thought Finn, of a sheep's heart. He had often watched one of the Baron's men butcher one of the creatures, fascinated at how it could flower into so much meat and offal and bone, at how much blood puddled the earth.

“You, Boyle. What do you think this is?”

“I don't know, master. A weapon of some sort?”

“Does it look like a weapon, boy?”

“Not really, master.”

“Then why did you say it was?”

The boys sniggered at Boyle's humiliation. Satisfied, Master Owyn continued.

“These are self-governing valves. They are used throughout Engn. They are an essential component of countless mechanisms and devices. Without the miracle of this simple device, the machine would not function. You, Croft, what did I say it was called?”

“A valve, master,” said Croft. “A self-governing valve.”

Master Owyn grunted, then held the device up to his eye to indicate there were holes bored through it. He rotated on the spot, looking at each of them as if through a telescope.

“Vapor or liquid flows through these bores. But the flow is moderated by the helical valve mechanisms within. As I turn this knurled wheel you will see a spring-loaded flange inside the tube closing. It is possible, by accurate turning of the various wheels, to control the flow of the liquid or gas down any one of three different channels or even back the way it came. Do you understand?”

He passed the device to Croft, standing at one end of the semi-circle.

“Pass it round. Examine it closely. You must each become adept at constructing these valves.”

Croft glanced at it for a moment then handed it on to Finn, smirking as he dropped it unexpectedly into Finn's half-outstretched hand so that it nearly fell to the floor. The valve was heavy, almost solid metal. Its surface was highly polished, gleaming and black at the same time. Finn turned it over and over in his hands, noting the knobs and wheels the master had mentioned. He could make little sense of it. There were, in fact, a total of seven round holes bored through it of varying diameters, each meeting in the centre of the valve. A small plate riveted on one side of the valve presumably allowed access to the inner workings. A single, long number was etched onto the plate.

He could see no way of attaching the valve to any pipes or ducts; there was no thread or seal around any of the holes. But there must be a way. He passed the valve on, marvelling at the complexity of Engn. How were so many valves controlled? There must be hundreds under construction in the room, and a great train of the trolleys already full beside the table waiting to be wheeled away. They were self-governing, so presumably, they needed no adjustment once set up. But how were so many thousands and thousands of tiny wheels and screws adjusted so that water and gas flowed in precisely the right amounts to their correct destinations? How were they monitored and checked so that worn out ones were replaced before they failed? It was incredible that it all worked, that the great wheels turned without failing.

“Now, follow me,” said the master, turning away from them, his cape billowing out around him.

He strode towards the table and indicated to Graves, Bellow and Croft three empty seats where they were to sit. To Finn's eye, the boys looked suddenly smaller as they sat down, like children at an adult's table. A man pushed another brass trolley around the inside of the table and he stopped in front of Bellow. Before him he set out, in a very precise and careful way, an array of metal objects that he picked from his trolley. They were the individual parts of a completed valve, Finn could see, the outer casing itself along with an assortment of delicate springs, clips, and bearings.

“Touch nothing for now,” said the master.

He led the rest of the group around the table, stopping at each empty seat to indicate to one of them where they should sit. Soon there was only Finn left, and no unoccupied places around the great table. What did the master have planned for him now? The thought that it might, again, be some special treatment, something to mark him out from the rest, filled him with a flood of anxiety. He saw Croft nudging Bellow over by the doorway, nodding at Finn. Then Bellow said something and they both laughed, relishing in Finn's discomfort.

Finn carried on walking, following the master. They were on the opposite side of the great room now. Another entrance led off, its high wooden doors covered in scratches and scuff marks. These were barged open as another trolley-load of valve parts was wheeled in, granting Finn a glimpse of what lay beyond: an unlit passageway and, some way beyond it, another brightly lit room. He could also see, silhouetted against the far doorway, four standing figures: more ironclads by their outlines, protecting that far room. What went on through there?

The master stopped behind one of the artificers, an old man with a bald head and a bushy grey beard billowing from his chin. The man's head was slick with sweat from the lamps. Finn watched as he constructed one of the valves with a practiced flick of his fingers, placing clips and springs into the device with the greatest care.

The master tapped the man on the shoulder and he turned around quickly, startled, confusion clear on his face. It took a moment for his eyes to focus, so lost had he been in his work.

“This is the boy's place now,” said the master. “Complete the valve you are constructing and go.”

The man didn't move. He was clearly having trouble understanding what the master meant. “Go? But … I've worked here forty years. Never missed a day. I can't just go.”

“This boy is taking your place now.”

The man looked at each of them in turn. “But where do I go?”

“Where did you come from?”

There was another pause as the man considered the question. “The western edge of the plain. Enloth in the Greendowns.”

“The City of the Lensmen? Your people are glassworkers?”

“Once they were. That's all changed now, of course. That was why I came here.”

“That is where you should go back to.”

The man's lips moved, but no words came out. He looked at Finn as if he might be able to explain what was happening, then turned back to the table and the valve he was working on. Forty years, thought Finn. How many valves had the man constructed in that time? Had he sat here, in this same chair, all that time? And what would happen to him once he left Engn? The name Enloth was distantly familiar from Mrs. Megrim's lessons. Hadn't it been all-but destroyed in the Clockwork War? It had to be many weeks' travel away. Could this man even make such a journey?

The man completed the valve he was working on and laid it gently on the table before him. He sat still for a moment, staring at the completed valve, then at his hands. They were rough and calloused, the colour of tanned leather. The man breathed out, his shoulders sagging. One of the trolleymen picked up the valve, wrapped it in a sheet of green cloth, and placed it into his brass cart before trundling on around the table. The man stood up, collecting his tools from the tabletop.

“Leave the tools,” said the master. “The boy will use them now.”

“Leave them?”

“Leave them.”

The man stared at the tools in his hands for a moment, his brow furrowed as if he were trying to understand some difficult idea. Then he set the implements down. He walked away from Finn and the master, back around the table to the Octagon doorway. Finn expected him to look around as he went, see the room one last time, say goodbye to the other artificers, but he went with his eyes fixed ahead of him, saying nothing. In a few moments he was gone.

Finn sat down on the wooden chair, still warm from the old man. The pieces of another valve were being laid out on the table before him. He tried to see how they might fit together, how the mechanism operated, but could not.

“Instruct the boy,” said the master, talking to a woman who sat next to Finn, working on a valve of her own. The woman nodded. She was younger than the old man, perhaps the same age as Finn's mother. But her face was expressionless, no warmth to it, as she glanced up at Finn. She had her brown hair tied back in a rough sheaf, giving her face a taut appearance. Her hands were as calloused as the man's had been. Once she completed the valve she was working on, she turned to Finn.

“Right-handed? Take the valve body in your left hand, and one of the pressure clips in your right. There's a slot right inside you have to hook it into. Twist it around as you push and it will snap into place.”

Finn stared at the objects before him, trying to understand what he was being told. The valve body was obvious enough but there were any number of metal pieces that might be pressure clips.

“Here,” said the woman, irritation clear in her voice. She picked up a crescent-moon shaped metal strip with a saw-like edge and gave it to Finn. “Place this end in the trunk tube and twist it into place.”

Finn tried to follow the woman's instructions. He managed to work the clip into the hole but couldn't get it to clip into place.

“Press harder,” said the woman. “You have a child's fingers.”

Finn tried to twist the clip around. It was hard inside the narrow valve tube. He scraped off skin from around his knuckles, exposing delicate pink flesh that pooled with blood.

“Harder. This should only take you a moment,” said the woman.

There was a snap as the clip fitted into place and, immediately, a shock of pain in Finn's index finger. He cried and let the valve thump down to the table. His finger was bleeding openly, the pain raw. It looked as if its tip had been sheared off by the serrated edge of the clip.