Moving with the calm, practiced coordination of a crew that had worked together under real pressure for three weeks, Foreman Eren Tal, Pella Rook. Examiner Corvin Hest set about completing the lesser lifting-spirit’s interrupted task. There were no grand incantations or Latin commands shouted across Assembly Bay Four—only solid carpentry, clean clockwork shape, and respectful attention to the terms written on the clay.
First, Eren Tal carried two six-by-six blocks of seasoned oak dunnage from the corner of the assembly bay. Then he slid them squarely beneath the suspended four-hundred-pound cast-iron fine-tuning weight. It filled the six-inch gap down to the last half-inch. Between the oak blocks and the flat iron bottom of the weight, he pushed in a pair of wide cedar folding wedges greased with animal fat.
“Oak doorstep is bedded level under the load, Pella,” Eren reported. He tapped the opposing cedar wedges with his beechwood mallet until the oak fibers took the first ten pounds of the iron block’s weight without jarring the chain.
Next, Corvin Hest took a pair of brass wire-nippers from his judge’s case and carefully snipped the copper tie-wire that the foundry artificers had twisted around the hoist’s safety ratchet pawl. With a crisp metal clink, the iron dog-pawl dropped back into its rightful gear tooth on the overhead pulley wheel.
