With the Courtesy Arch powered down and its brass uprights cooling beneath the tarred sailcloth awning, the check crew returned one last time to the riverward shaft of Relief Trunk Three to complete the clockwork handoff. Now that the sixty-eight-pound water-pressure lock behind the lower shoe had been broken by the removal of the backup relief pin, the main upright bronze screw was relieved of its crushing lateral friction.
Eren Tal and Kel Dorr dropped to the timber narrow high walkway above the control valve weir, fitted a four-foot double-handled iron rope winch bar over the squared head of the main spindle. Then it packed the bronze thrust collar with fresh sheep fat. Beneath their boots, the water rushing under the tilted lower shoe had already dropped twelve inches. He carried away the last of the scalding, sulfur-bitter salt water that Rector Sorell’s Hollow Crown had forced into the buried brickwork.
‘Take her up slow, Kel,’ Eren said, bracing his shoulder against the oak wooden props frame. The two men walked the rope winch bar around in a steady, measured circle. ‘Half a turn to the minute. Let the cast-iron guides flush their own silt out before the top lugs take the weight.’
