A device does a set task by itself: it carries, keeps, watches, measures or tends, and goes on doing it long after the hand that set it has gone. Some are pure artifice, worked by clockwork, springs, weights and engines alone. Others are charged by one of the Three Workings: by arcane method, by a spirit bound to the thing, or by a blessing laid on it for an office. Each is made by one or more of the useful trades, and each is kept, renewed and answered for by somebody. Those made to keep a place by force are not here; they are Constructs among the Lurking Dangers.
Apothecary's Crucible
Preparer of CompoundsA preparation machine of vessels, heating coils, condensers and dosing arms that compounds medicines and reagents from a filed formulary. It follows the recipe exactly and cannot tell whether the recipe is safe.
Archive Hand
Fetcher of Books and RegistersA squat brass body on six spider's legs, with three lenses and one great many-fingered hand, kept to climb the shelves of an archive and bring down what is asked for. It reads the press-marks, not the books.
Ash Butler
Servant of the HouseholdA tall, thin domestic construct of iron, brass and lacquered wood with a pale ceramic mask, kept by a few great houses to answer doors, carry trays and keep the household's hours. It does exactly what it is told, which is its virtue and its danger.
Bell Clerk
Receiver of Callers and MessagesA small clerk-construct with a cracked ceramic face and a bell in its chest, set at a desk to receive callers, enter their names, take their letters and ring for whoever is wanted. It is polite, slow and immovable.
Bridge Titheman
Taker of TollsA toll-taking machine set beside a bridge or a barred road, with a coin platform, an inspection lens and the bar of the crossing in its keeping. It takes the toll, lifts the bar, and does not bargain.
Chapel Listener
Keeper of HearingA fixed apparatus of carved stone, iron and brass horns built into a chapel wall or an archive's entrance, made to listen and to keep a record of what it hears. It is not a figure, though it is carved like one, and it does not move.
Coal Sister
Furnace HandA broad, heavy iron furnace-hand with a narrow slit for an eye and four-fingered hands, made to feed furnaces and work boilers where the heat would kill a man in an hour. The works call them sisters, and nobody remembers why.
Engine Reader
Watcher of GaugesA fixed apparatus of lenses, a calculating drum and a printing recorder, built to watch the gauges of an engine, record them and work the valves when a reading passes its mark. It watches through the night so that an engineman may sleep.
Gallery Watcher
Hidden ObserverAn observing device hidden in a painting's frame or a carved grotesque on a wall, made to watch a room and give the alarm. It cannot stop anybody. It can make sure that somebody comes.
Gate Mind
Keeper of BoltsA lock-control device built into a great door or the wall beside it, which compares the seal and the word it is given with those it was set to accept, and works the bolts and lifts accordingly. It is the reason a vault has no keyhole.
Glass Examiner
Tester of Lenses and StoneAn inspection apparatus of lenses, gantries and test frames that measures a piece of glass, a lens or a fitted stone and tests how it answers to a set charge. It cannot tell a good piece from a bad one; it tells whether a piece matches its standard.
House Threader
Keeper of the WardrobeA small, fine construct with a white ceramic head and needle-fingered hands, kept by a few great households to mend, press and preserve their clothes. It is the gentlest device in the realm and one of the dearest.
Mortuary Attendant
Washer and Registrar of the DeadA tall, narrow construct of iron and wood with a stained porcelain face and long arms, made to wash the dead, register them and lay them out for the examiner. It does the work no hand wants and keeps the book no clerk keeps well.
Platform Porter
Carrier of LoadsA squat, broad-chested carrier with massive arms and short legs, made to lift trunks, crates and bales at stations and quays. It carries more than three men and asks for nothing but a charge and a docket.
Procession Child
Bearer of Candles and CensersA small construct in the vestments of an acolyte, with a chipped childlike ceramic face, made to carry candles and censers in procession and to tend the lights of a nave. Visitors find it touching and choirs find it unsettling.
Signal Widow
Keeper of the RelayA relay apparatus of spindles, rings and insulated connections that receives signals, records them on punched tape and passes them on. The signal clerks named it for the way it sits alone in the tower all night, listening.
Surgical Assistant
Hands of the Operating TheatreA six-armed rig of instruments and surgical lamps hung from a theatre ceiling or folded on a wall, which holds, passes and steadies at a surgeon's instruction. It does not cut on its own and is not trusted to.
Valve-Keeper
Regulator of the FlowA fixed regulator of heavy valves and inspection chambers that governs the flow through a works' circuit of pipes, opening and closing as the pressure and the charge require. The works call it the heart, and treat it accordingly.
No device answers to that description.
