09:20 a.m. - At East Market Corner, Dawnspire.
The morning air was cold and sour. It smelled of wet clay, old piss in alley drains, and the sharp bite of lime. Bells from the high street counted the hour without Temple theatre. The city coughed and kept moving. At the corner by the market wall, Ryan stood with a slate, sleeves rolled, bright jacket long since dulled by ash and chalk.
(Keep going. We are not competing with anyone. We are not competing with time. We always do it for our own safety and the safety of others first.)
For ten mornings, the crew rose with the light. Ten mornings, they widened roads a cart's width where they could. Ten mornings, they dug new gutters, chose the water's road, and shored every trench at one cubit deep like a Professional. Ten mornings, Ryan stayed on-site long enough to mark the hardest parts, then stepped back so Tobyn could run the pattern work without him. He kept his nights for the secret work—the humming coil, the copper rings, the slow art of bringing a spark to heel. The stink of the street, and the sweet metal oil smell of the shop at night, wrote themselves into his lungs.
Ressa had the board. Her sleeves were pinned up. Her eyes were precise. She stapled the day's rules to a post like stitching a wound shut.
Ressa (pinning a chalk board): "One cubit deep, we shore. Lime to water—never the other way. Baskets to stones, stones to carts. We write it. We weigh it."
Aidan kept to the edge of the site, ledger under his arm, eyes missing little. He looked like a man who trusted the rule more than a speech.
Aidan (short nod): "Rule the board, Ressa. I'll back your ink."
Tobyn, the quiet joiner turned formwright, stood over a sighting frame he had built with true edges and clean joints. He set it toward the lane that had flooded last storm and killed a child with fever. He was nervous because Ryan had told him to run the work, and to let the jigs teach the crew.
Tobyn (steady hands): "Oil, wipe, set. Do not fight the form—the form does the work."
(He can do this. Let the jig speak. Let the rule hold. I am here if the ground lies to him.)
The sighting frame showed a slim slope. He ran a line level from frame to frame. Carter, who knew carts and routes, marked where leaf traps would sit. The plan was simple on the board and hard underfoot: cistern corners at the street's four points to catch roof water, clean run-off to one side, foul water to another, a public tap to a market arch where women with jars would not have to fight a crowd.
A porter came up, tired and proud of his work, with a cart full of brick dust and sack lime, and he waited, holding a slip.
Porter (professional): "Slip? I'll need to check the docket before we move those baskets."
Ressa took the slip, stamped a mark, and looked the cart's weight over in a breath. She did not smile. She did not scowl. She wrote.
Ressa (audit voice): "Two‑person sign on any mix leaving the table. Porter's mark. If float runs past two days, I escalate."
Aidan did not turn, did not need to stand over. He spoke as he moved to clear a crowd of gawkers.
Aidan (even): "We keep the two‑person sign. No exceptions."
Bromar Ironbeard watched the line with his arms folded, beard rings clicking softly when he shifted. He had one eye on the corner where a test kiln would rise when weather gave them a gap. He had another eye on Ryan, as if to say: show me the thing that holds.
Bromar (measured grunt): "You put teeth in the lime. We'll see if it bites water, not men."
Ryan put a simple drawing on the slate: a square corner, a box inside it. He drew a skinny tube through a wall and wrote in big letters: Service Run. He underlined it once.
Ryan (to the crew nearest): "Honest name. Empty path in the wall. Later, when we need to pull a twine to fix a thing, we do not break the house. Brass plate over the end. Labeled. Neat."
Some of the men looked blank. A woman with a jar watched and nodded as if the idea sat well in her bones. A boy with big eyes clung to the edge of the board.
A worker climbed into a trench to pull out a rock that had rolled into the line. The trench was a hand deeper than a cubit. The shoring frames—Tobyn's—were set, but one pin looked wrong to Ressa's eye. She raised her chin.
Ressa (sharp): "Stop. Shore at a cubit. We do not play hero in wet clay."
The worker froze. Clay hissed as it shifted. Tobyn did not shout, he moved. He dropped to a knee, slid the pin true, checked the frame, ran a hand along the lip.
Tobyn (practical): "Hold the line. If a mold lip chips, stop—we true it before we pour."
Aidan stepped closer, his voice flat and strong.
Aidan (calming): "Back two steps. Let the crew breathe. We fix, then we move."
(That pin almost lied to us. This is why we write the rule. This is why we teach the frame once, then let the frame teach the crew.)
A guildsman from the road-workers' hall hovered, all curl and sneer, as if a schedule could argue a trench into safe ground.
Guildsman (irritated): "This pace bleeds coin. Water will find its way without your boards."
Aidan did not blink.
Aidan (to rival): "You want exclusivity? Show me a cheque now. Otherwise we keep our path."
Ressa did not look up from a slope table, but her voice cut as clean as a square.
Ressa (firm): "Honest words on the board, honest numbers in the carts. That's how we keep the boys breathing."
Ryan saw the fear in a few eyes when the clay hissed. He did what he did when fear rose: he made it small with odd words.
Ryan (quiet): "Rain will find a road. We choose which road so it doesn't carry shit into your stew."
Some laughed at the word. Some smiled. Odd made fear smaller.
He kept those mornings for the people's work. He kept the long afternoons to stitch plans with Tobyn. He let Tobyn run without him. He gave Tobyn a full voice at the board.
Tobyn (to crew, a little tight, then steady): "Grade runs shallow here. Shore at a cubit. No heroics in wet clay."
(He is nervous because I am not at his elbow. But he will choose the rule and it will hold him up. He built the frame. He can run the frame. My job is to leave room and be near if he calls.)
The steam smell carried from the workshop yard two streets over. Their Version 2 engine—a wood‑fed thing with a clean stroke and a loud heart—ran the presses and saws. It pulsed like a bellows drawn by a giant hand. It meant the water wheel at the old mill channel was free at night. No millstones to feed, no flour to grind. Aidan had scheduled crews so no one had to babysit the wheel. If Ryan wanted the water's push alone, he could open the small gate and let the wheel turn.
Aidan (report to Ryan at the edge): "Engine holds. Shift two runs clean. Water wheel's idle after dusk. You want the gate, you have it. Take a boy for the shutter if you need muscle."
Ryan nodded once. He looked back at the lane. The first gutter stones sat neat. The leaf trap matched the line. The stockyard scales Ressa had cleaned and marked kept carts from "growing" extra baskets between gate and yard. The porter stamped slips without theatre. Aidan's calm trimmed the talk.
Ryan wrote in his big letters in the corner of the board: No chains. Pay in coin. He underlined once.
A woman in a gray shawl watched as the first clean run-off lay folded into the new gutter like a ribbon sewn where mud had used to eat boots. She looked as if a knot in her chest had loosened—just a finger's width, but real.
!We keep the boys breathing first, then we build the rest.
Bromar heard it and snorted a laugh through his beard.
Bromar (wry): "Aye. Water first, then walls. Fire is loud, but bad water buries quiet."
The near-miss with the shoring pin made the rule feel true in everyone's bones. Work settled into rhythm. Tobyn's kit let average hands make neat parts. Ressa's board trapped lies and turned them into numbers. Carter's sense for routes kept carts from crossing like cats chasing their own tails. Aidan's short orders cut through noise like a blade.
By noon, a chalk line ran true along the curb. By dusk, the first corner form stood with shoring neat and guards still alive. Two more lanes took string and slope. The gutters learned the road Ryan and Ressa chose, and the street did not fight it. Bread bowls went empty a little slower than yesterday.
Ryan took a breath and looked down the lane at the hard-hit rows where winter bit harder than pride. He drew a small mark on his slate: a coil, a ring, a brick.
(Your nights, then. Ten mornings for water and road. Ten evenings for a spark.)
He turned toward the workshop. The steam engine thumped like a heart you could hear through a wall. His palms smelled of lime and pencil graphite. His mind tilted toward copper and iron and a brick that drank only from a certain kind of river.
(We do not need the greatest. We need enough that holds.)
11:40 p.m. - At Silverwyn Riverbank, Dawnspire.
Night sat on the yard, heavy and damp. The engine's pulse was low now, idling. Inside the bench room, Ryan kept only two lamps lit and a third hooded. The room breathed oil, beeswax, vinegar from a test cup, and the faint, harsh smell of hot copper. Outside the back door, the mill channel whispered under the moon. The water wheel sat idle, the gate closed to a slit.
On the bench: a small machine that wanted to be a polite god. Wood cheeks, a soft iron core wrapped in copper wire, a shaft trued by a tired lathe. He had made a commutator days ago to chase DC for small tests. He had filed it true enough to hiss a little under the brushes. He had touched a small battery together from copper and zinc and brine to wake fields for a breath at a time. He had made a terrible little one-way door from copper oxide and spring pressure—enough to prove a trick, not enough to run a life. Now the problem was simple and cruel. His laptop's brick wanted a different food.
Ryan set the battery—his small handmade Daniell cell—next to the adapter. He held the knife over the adapter's cable like a fool about to cut a rope he was standing on.
Ryan (to himself, breath tight): "Hold. The adapter drinks AC. The battery gives DC. Wrong door. Wrong river."
(Stop. Breathe. Safe from fatigue keeps the ache away and leaves the temper sharp. Safe from doubt lets me jump fast, but I must aim first. The Authority helps me move—sometimes it cuts out the fear I need. Think, not lunge.)
He lowered the knife.
Ryan (soft): "No cable surgery. Not tonight."
He looked at the adapter again. A black brick, older. It had seen coffee, rain, backpack dust. It took a wide range of AC at home—plugs from places he had never visited. The input mark told its story in little letters. He set a finger on it like a priest with a book.
Ryan (explaining, simple): "AC is like a river that rocks back and forth. Left-right-left, fast. It changes direction many times each second. DC is like a river that goes one way all the time. A battery is DC. A wall at home is AC. This brick is a little hungry box that eats AC and spits out a clean DC the laptop likes."
He looked at his machine. It was set tonight as a dynamo—a DC maker with a commutator. He rubbed his thumb along the copper segments. He smiled at his own error, small and human.
Ryan (wry, half to the iron): "A dynamo gives DC. An alternator gives AC. Tonight, you need to sing AC."
(Do not be clever. Be simple. Change the ring. Let the field wake with what you built. Then give the brick the river it drinks.)
He took off the commutator ring. He set two smooth copper bands on the shaft—crude slip rings he had bent and trued with a file, mounted in a wooden carrier. He set spring strips he had tempered during the day to press crude brushes onto the rings. He stroked the iron core with the lodestone Bromar had given him days ago. He whispered to the iron like a man to a friend who needed to remember a name.
Ryan (quiet): "Remember the storm. Hold it for me."
He clipped the tiny battery to the field coil for a breath—just a kiss, a seed. Then he took it off. The field held a whisper.
He stood in the doorway and looked at the mill channel. The water looked black and heavy as oil. He opened the gate in a slow notch. The wheel turned lazy. He had a belt between the water wheel shaft and the little alternator. He had cut the pulley small on the alternator and large on the wheel earlier in the week. He had made a second small pulley tonight, smaller still. He had learned the hard way that speed mattered. Voltage climbed with speed. The brick would not even say hello if the spin was lazy.
(If I turn too slow, no power in. If I turn wild, the brick might spit and die, and I will be back in the cold with no map. Aim for steady. Aim for enough.)
He set the belt on the new small pulley on the alternator. He snugged it. He set the adapter brick on a dry shelf above the bench. He ran two thick cloth-coated wires from the slip rings to the adapter's plug input harness he had made—a simple socket that fit the brick's prongs. He made sure the ground strap he'd clipped to a metal rod driven into the earth at the doorway stayed firm. He breathed once and tested without the laptop.
Ryan (to the room): "No theatre. Just light."
He plugged the adapter into his crude socket from his alternator. Nothing. No soft whine. No warmth in the brick. The water wheel turned. The belt moved. The machine sang a low, almost-note. But the brick was cold, dead.
Ryan's heart kicked against his ribs with old panic. The empty Windows-battery icon in his mind felt like a noose.
A month ago, when we first stood up the crossbow line, I hacked together a poor man's bearing for the jig indexer: a wooden cage with glazed clay balls from the potter's kiln, all soaked in tallow. It smoothed the light, low-speed motions, but grit ate it fast and the cages warped under heat. For real power—water wheels, the alternator, the press shaft—I still run plain bronze bushings with fat in the pockets.
(Steel balls that stay true come later—better iron, heat, and a way to grind without prayer. Not tonight.)
(What did I miss? Speed. Drag. You fool, you left the bearings dry to save time.)
He pulled the belt off and took up a pot of animal fat—rendered from kitchen scraps. It smelled of tallow and stiff stew. He lifted the alternator's shaft on one side. He eased the fat into the bearing pockets so it would reach the shaft core. He ran a finger along the belt. He rubbed a touch of fat into the leather to stop chatter. He was not greasing the iron where the magnet needed to grip, he was feeding the parts that turned so they would stop fighting themselves.
Ryan (fast whisper): "Less rub. More spin. Friction is a thief. Give it back."
He tightened the belt again. He cracked the gate a finger wider. Water shouldered into the paddles. The belt took up the song. The alternator spun faster now, the animal fat taking the rough hiss out of the bearings. He leaned down and watched the slip rings. The brushes kissed and did not sputter.
Ryan (simple, for himself and for any child who might read): "Power is push and speed. The wheel gives push. The pulley makes speed. The fat steals less from me."
He put a hand on the adapter brick. It was still cool. He swore once under his breath, short and ugly.
Ryan (teeth clenched): "Damn."
(Do not break. Think. The brick needs a certain push to wake. Not a trickle. It wants a threshold. It wants the river to rock fast enough and strong enough to take the first drink.)
He looked at the pulley again. He had a third, smaller one he had cut in the late afternoon, but he had not dared it, afraid the belt would slip and the shaft would scream. He chose. He did not waste a second. Safe from doubt cut the fear out of his hands. He loosened the belt, set the smallest pulley on, and snugged everything as tight as his fingers could manage without splitting wood. He checked the belt wrap, moved the alternator on its slots for a hair more tension.
He reached to the gate rope and pulled another breath of water into the paddles. The wheel's song went deeper. The alternator rose in pitch. The belt stopped chattering and settled into a clean line. Something in the air changed—the note went from a tired buzz to a thin, clear whine, a "whoosh" whisper like air over a bottle lip.
Ryan (low, hungry): "Come on."
He touched the adapter brick again. Warmth. A soft whine inside, the sound of a little hungry box waking to its food. He laughed in relief, quiet and brief, like a man who found a path right where he thought the cliff cut off.
Ryan (explaining for readers, simple): "When I gave it DC from the battery, it did nothing. Wrong food. Now I give it AC—a back-and-forth push—from the alternator. The brick knows that meal. It eats it and makes the DC the laptop needs."
He looked at the laptop on the bench. The screen was black, the battery long since dead. His hands trembled not from fatigue—his body was fresh—but from the cost of holding fear inside without sleep. The Authority's gifts had price. Safe from fatigue had kept his bones from feeling the hours. Safe from doubt had let him jump. Safe from spotlight had kept eyes away, no one had knocked at the door during this tense work. Each gift cut away something else he might have needed. He knew it as a fact and as a weight.
(The house in the dark shows me three choices, I pick two, one goes to ash. The window grows when I stall. My temper walks a step ahead of me now. I must keep it on a short leash.)
He set a very thin iron wire in the line before the adapter—a poor man's fuse so cheap that if anything went wrong, it would burn first. It was not modern. It was common sense and a thin nerve of metal. He checked everything again. Dry. Grounded. Tight. He breathed a word that was half prayer and half rule.
Ryan (soft): "No sparks near wood. No wet near the brick."
He plugged the adapter's barrel into the laptop. He looked away for a heartbeat and then forced himself to look back, as if a glance could hex it. At first, nothing. Then the laptop's small charge light touched on—not a flare, just a patient glow, as if a firefly had lit under glass.
Ryan leaned his forehead on his arm and let the relief leak out of him. He almost laughed. He almost cried. He did neither. He watched the belt and the water. He listened to the brick's very soft hum. He counted his heartbeats and the spaces between them. He knew he would have to hold the speed steady. He knew he had no fancy governor. He had a rope and his hands and the fat in the bearings. He had a wall he could lean the rope against and a notch he had cut where the gate liked to settle.
The back door creaked. Aidan stood in the shadow with a mug, hair neat even at this hour, eyes as sharp as when the sun was up. He had a way of waking when the shop needed a witness.
Aidan (low, at the door): "You did it."
Ryan nodded. He kept his voice small so it would not spook the machine like a skittish horse.
Ryan (quiet, smiling without showing teeth): "We did. Water first, then walls. Now a little spark. Enough to wake the maps."
Aidan stepped in and checked the floor with a glance—dry. He checked the rope on the gate—set. He checked the wire—thin and honest.
Aidan (practical): "Hold that notch. If the wheel runs wild, call me. I'll sit the rope while you eat."
Ryan almost reached for the mug, then he shook his head.
Ryan (wry): "Medieval coffee is cruel."
Aidan's mouth twitched at one corner.
Aidan (calming): "Sleep two hours. I'll hold the center."
Ryan looked at the lamp, then at the laptop. He watched the tiny light do the one thing it had to do: stay on. He looked at the adapter as if it were an old friend just back from a long journey.
Ryan (for everyone, meaning simple): "AC rocks back and forth. DC is a clean shove in one direction. The brick eats the rocking and gives the clean shove again. The water wheel gives the push. The pulley makes the speed. The animal fat makes less fight in the spin. That is all."
He heard footsteps in the corridor. Tobyn, hair tied back, had woken to take a piss and smelled the oil and the river. He stood in the doorway and looked at the rig with the gaze of a man who understood jigs and load paths.
Tobyn (quiet astonishment): "You fed the brick from the wheel."
Ryan nodded. Tobyn's face worked through the idea like a carpenter testing a joint with fingers and eyes.
Tobyn (simple, pleased): "A clean trick. Not pretty, but honest. The form does the work."
Ryan grinned.
Ryan (gentle): "The frame taught the crew. The wheel taught the brick."
Bromar's heavy step came and went in the yard like a bear that had wandered and decided to leave a scrap of respect without paying the tax of speech. He did not enter. He did not speak. He grunted once, a low rumble that held something like pride.
Bromar (from the dark, rough and fond): "If it makes a wall that holds or a compass better than a drunk guard's nose, you show me, not the Temple. I will take my day at the forge when you can spare the hands."
Ryan lifted a hand in a little wave but did not look away from the belt.
Ryan (soft): "You will have your day."
He let his mind unwind enough to make sense of what had just happened, so a reader with no tools could hold it too.
Ryan (explaining plain): "Think of the adapter like a miller who only grinds grain if the river slaps the wheel back and forth. If you bring him a bucket and pour it steady, he says no. But if you bring him the river, even a small one, at the right speed, he works. My first try was the bucket—my little battery—steady but wrong. Tonight I brought the river, and I greased the wheel so the river did not spend itself fighting the wood."
Aidan held the rope notch for a moment and nodded, as if the metaphor had been a ledger all along.
Aidan (numbers): "It holds. You watch the light. I watch the flow."
The lamp light made a low halo on the bench. The water wheel's whisper felt like breathing. The black outside stayed black, but it felt less like a mouth to swallow the yard. The Authority's window—he could feel it even here—did not press as hard as it had earlier in the week. The house in the void would come again in seven days, with a new set of cuts to demand two out of three. But for now, here, the price was paid in work and fat and a thin iron wire.
Ryan set down a small slate and wrote a rule for his night self with simple words.
Ryan (writing aloud): "No sparks near wood. Keep the belt tight. Keep the fat handy. Keep the ground tied. Stop if the brick gets too hot to touch."
He drew a little smile face next to it, like a charm against his own worst hurry.
(You almost cut the cable. You almost forgot the speed. You almost let panic be your rule. You stopped. You chose. Good.)
The laptop light held steady. Not a miracle. Not a storm. A small good thing made with hands and rules. A few lines of code would be waiting in its belly when it woke enough to speak. Maps would open. Notes on lime and teeth, on cisterns and grades, would be there for him to share with Ressa and Tobyn and Aidan in the morning. He would write the words so any porter could read them and know why his life was a touch safer now.
Outside, the mill channel went on choosing to be a river, and not a bucket. The wheel turned and turned. The belt held its angle like a promise. The brick's small hum carried through the room like a cat's purr at the edge of hearing.
Ryan leaned his hip against the bench, let the sound set his nerves back into place, and let one more odd truth slip out in his own soft voice.
Ryan (soft, certain): "This city does not need the greatest. It needs enough that holds."
He closed his eyes for a count of ten, opened them, and looked again at the light. It still burned. He looked at Aidan. The man was a wall the wind could not move.
Aidan (closing): "Two‑person sign. Porter's mark. Stamp it. Move it."
Ryan smiled and nodded at the old comfort of the words.
He marked the rope notch with a bit of chalk so a tired hand could lock it at the same place tomorrow. He checked the fat pot and set it within easy reach. He set the mug near the brick—not to drink, just because the human mind liked to see a little comfort next to a machine.
He set his hand lightly on the laptop case, like a father touching a sleeping child's hair and not wanting to wake them, and he stood his quiet watch while the river and the wheel did the work.