The southern kiln yard smelled of sulfur, bitter alder smoke. The choking, bitter-salt steam of boiled river lime. Four massive stone kilns, their chimney mouths belching oily black vapor into the driving autumn drizzle, lined the retaining wall above the lower canal. For three months, these kilns had burned day and night without a single pause in the draft, forced into nonstop production to supply hot high-pressure lime for Master Sorell’s grand stonework weir.
Apprentice Dan stood on the wet wooden narrow high walkway above Slaking Pit Two, his boots crusted with dry gray crusts of lime paste and his hands clamped tight around a four-foot iron pry-bar. His woolen drafting smock was speckled with white chemical burns. His hair was plastered to his forehead by the mist. Beside him, Marta held an open slate ledger shielded beneath a square of stiffened oilcloth, her grease pencil poised above the damp column.
“Tag fourteen,” Dan called down through the rising vapor, his voice raw from breathing wood ash and steam. “The backup carrier for the central weir grout. It’s hooked to the second intake water chute.”
Below the timber narrow high walkway, a narrow lead pipe rose from the stone foundation. It ended in a forged brass bracket where a backup carrier token hung from a heavy copper wire loop. The water inside the slaking trough was churning unnaturally. It bubbled with a forced, frothing violence that had nothing to do with the chemical heat of burning lime powder. A minor…
