Sunset turned the smoke of the Lowbank chimneys into long plumes of copper and dull violet. In the yard behind Eren Tal’s workshop, the air smelled of green oak sawdust, linseed oil, and the dry, bitter powder of iron rust.
Eren was kneeling beside a heavy, four-wheeled flour heavy cart. The front axle was jacked up on two stout timber balks, its massive iron-shod wheel removed and leaning against the yard wall. In his grease-stained hands, Eren held a half-round scraper, carefully dressing the bronze journal bearing seated in the wooden axle-tree.
Pella sat on an upturned ash log ten paces away, a strip of emery cloth resting on her knee. Beside her lay Hal’s notebook, wrapped in a square of oiled oilskin to protect it from the sawdust floating on the evening breeze.
“Listen to this,” Eren said.
He didn’t strike the metal. He took a dry rod of seasoned ash, eighteen inches long. Then he pressed one end firmly against the cast-iron axle housing. He leaned his head down. He pressed the other end of the rod against the mastoid bone directly behind his right ear. With his left hand, he gave the exposed iron spindle a slow, firm turn.
