Chapter 121: Light it Up
Six months later, Beryl District no longer looked like a quiet valley.
The change was visible before Ernest’s carriage even reached the stream.
The narrow dirt path that once wound through fields and trees had become a proper gravel road wide enough for heavy wagons. Drainage ditches ran along both sides, lined with stone where the ground softened near the lower slopes. Wooden markers stood at intervals, and cart tracks showed where hundreds of deliveries had passed through during the long months of construction.
Hollen looked out the carriage window and shook his head.
"I remember when this was grass."
"It still is grass in some places."
"That is not comforting."
The carriage rolled past the worker barracks, tool sheds, material yards, and maintenance huts that had appeared near the valley floor. Some were temporary buildings, but others had clearly become more permanent than originally planned. That always happened with large projects. Workers arrived, roads improved, kitchens appeared, blacksmiths followed, and suddenly a construction camp began behaving like the beginning of a town.
Ernest stepped down from the carriage when they reached the powerhouse.
For a moment, he simply looked at it.
The building stood near the lower edge of the estate, exactly where his drawings had placed it six months earlier. It was twenty-four meters long, twelve meters wide, and built on a deep stone foundation that disappeared beneath the earth. Brick walls rose above granite footings, and a slate roof sat neatly over timber trusses treated against moisture. The windows were narrow but tall enough to admit light, and a stone drainage channel ran around the perimeter to keep groundwater away from the foundation.
It looked solid.
Master Clarke stood near the entrance with mud on his boots and the expression of a man who had spent half a year fighting weather, stone, and unreasonable schedules.
He bowed briefly.
"Master Ernest."
"Master Clarke."
The mason looked toward the powerhouse with tired pride.
"It exists."
"So it does."
"I still say you asked too much of four months before winter."
"You finished it."
"With six months, not four."
"Still finished."
Clarke grunted, though Ernest could see the satisfaction in his eyes.
Behind the powerhouse, the cast-iron penstock emerged from the hillside and entered the building through a reinforced stone wall. Most of the pipe remained buried underground, hidden beneath earth and grass, but the exposed section was enough to reveal its scale. Seven hundred millimeters in diameter. Thick flanges. Bolted joints. Anchor blocks holding it firmly in place.
Water pressure was not something to treat with optimism.
A failed penstock could tear a station apart.
Samuel Wren approached carrying a rolled inspection sheet.
"We completed the final pressure test yesterday."
"Results?"
"No visible leaks. Minor sweating at two flange joints during the first filling, but those were tightened and retested. The anchor blocks held. No movement at the elbow section."
"Good."
Hollen stared at the pipe.
"That thing carries water?"
"Yes."
"It looks like it carries artillery shells."
"It carries pressure."
"I don’t know why that sounds worse."
Ernest smiled and walked toward the powerhouse doors.
Inside, the air smelled of oil, metal, fresh timber, and damp stone.
The turbine pit occupied the lower section of the hall. Cast-iron casing surrounded the Francis runner, while guide vane linkages connected to a hand-operated control wheel mounted near the operating platform. The horizontal shaft extended through a bearing assembly before reaching the coupling connected to the generator.
The generator itself dominated the room.
It was not elegant.
It was a heavy iron machine built from laminated cores, copper windings, rotating magnets, and an external frame thick enough to survive vibrations that Ernest hoped would never come. Copper busbars ran toward a wooden switchboard mounted along the far wall, where knife switches, ceramic insulators, fuses, and measuring instruments waited.
Master Edwin stood beside the generator with several machinists.
His expression looked calm, but his hands were clasped behind his back too tightly.
Ernest noticed.
"Nervous?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Edwin blinked.
"Good?"
"Nervous people check their work."
The machinist nodded slowly.
"Then I am an excellent worker today."
A few men laughed, but nobody relaxed.
Not really.
This was not a normal machine startup.
A steam engine shook, hissed, and warned everyone when something was wrong. A generator could fail quietly before burning insulation, destroying windings, or throwing sparks across the room. Electricity did not announce danger in ways ordinary workers understood yet.
That made it more dangerous.
Ernest walked the length of the generator and placed a hand against the frame.
He checked the bearing housings.
Lubricated.
The coupling alignment marks were still matched.
Good.
He crouched near the shaft and examined the clearance around the coupling guard.
Acceptable.
Then he moved to the switchboard.
"Insulation test?"
Thomas handed him the report.
"Passed. We used the battery test you specified. No measurable leakage across the main board. The estate line also held."
Ernest nodded.
The estate line.
That was the part he most wanted to see working.
From the powerhouse, copper conductors ran along wooden poles toward Oriel Estate. Glass insulators held the lines away from the timber arms. The route was not long compared to telegraph lines, but it carried much more current. Every connection had been tightened, cleaned, and inspected until the electricians began complaining that they had touched each bolt more than their own families.
That was acceptable.
Better annoyed workers than burnt wiring.
"Where is the estate crew?"
"Waiting at Oriel," Samuel answered. "Roland has the servants gathered in the main hall. Your parents are there as well."
Ernest paused.
"Mother and Father came?"
Hollen smiled.
"Did you think Anna would miss the day you tried to trap daylight inside her home?"
That was fair.
Very fair.
Ernest turned toward the turbine controls.
"Then let us not keep them waiting."
The room shifted immediately.
Workers moved to positions.
One man stood near the intake signal line.
Another beside the pressure gauge.
Two machinists watched the bearings.
Edwin stood near the generator.
Thomas took the switchboard.
Hollen moved beside Ernest, arms folded, trying to look calmer than he was.
He failed.
Outside, a signal flag rose near the intake station upstream.
The intake crew was ready.
Ernest looked at Samuel.
"Open the bypass first."
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