When everything had settled down, and the worst of the area's hazards of wood and flesh had been taken care of, Vonn found Brightstep near the temple and gave him the Duke's letter, briefly explaining.

Brightstep read it, frowning. "Not surprising. And he took the shard. Did you learn anything useful on that trip?"

"I read some magic theory on geomancy, among other training. Are we going to try containing the dungeon with..." Vonn trailed off. "Oh. Right. We have another problem." He mentioned the printer kids and how they'd published the sensational version of the news.

Brightstep snorted in frustration, flaring his nostrils. "You'll have a word with them, I hope?"

Vonn nodded. "They're too young to know better, but I will."

"I'll trust you on that. Now, I need to get home for business reasons and to drop off this letter, but Father or I will be back soon to see about containment. Do you have any non-magical ideas about that? Any convenient machine designs?"

Vonn said, "No instant solution. One thing we could build is a signal tower. There are a few ways to send a warning quickly, especially if we can get one of those 'spyglasses'. Besides that, Selen's balloons work as sentry posts. I don't know enough about the magical part, but a set of trenches and cleared paths would help us control movement in the area. And if we had a lot of iron, well... that's impractical."

"What is?"

"I was thinking, you could lay down two long parallel iron rods as an easy way of moving heavy carts on a smooth surface. Call it a 'rail road'."

Brightstep's ears flicked higher. "Oh, I assumed you meant using the iron to build an enchanted ward around the whole site."

It was Vonn's turn to be confused. "Wait, can you do that? Make a long iron line and monsters can't cross it?"

"Certain types, like undead. I've never heard of one nearly that big though."

Vonn laughed. "Then a railroad could do double duty. I guess we're short on iron unless we get it from the local cursed evil mine, though." He pictured a trans-continental track existing to repel evil fairies.

"We'll see."

#

His sister had been busy. Vonn met up with her and their parents at home. Tazo hugged Vonn and said, "I let both the villagers and the Necromancers know about the easy harvesting method, and trained a few people in the right spell. So, uh, we're not getting paid for that one."

"Still good work. And that shortens the to-do list for once. It should mean cheaper access to paper, too."

They ate a simple lunch of bread and summer squash with a bit of greenberry pie. Dad said, "What with the commotion, we've had to put our usual duties on hold. There's a house-building tomorrow though."

Vonn asked, "Even with the monster-infested blight zone next door?"

"It's not right next door. And you've got work to catch up on with Urika, I'm sure."

Tazo explained. "The scout parties have been poking around the edges of that place for days. It's ferocious and nobody's gotten to the core."

"Any magicite?"

"No, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a dungeon. The scouts have been finding shackles."

Vonn shivered. Dungeons imitated the things they saw. He relayed the Duke's orders, then said, "If it's not producing much then I guess the goal is to destroy it after all. Still I'm wondering how the core is absorbing or generating Mana and then turning it into shambling horrors. If we could adjust that..."

"What?"

"You're not going to bop me on the snout?"

Tazo grinned. "I was wondering about that idea too, but I don't know enough to say how dumb an idea it is."

They started chattering about geomancy and what they'd both been learning lately.

Mom eventually interrupted: "That idea of a cart on rails isn't new. Back east where I grew up, there was a mine where ore got carried out on long, smooth logs."

"Really!" said Vonn, ears high. "Wooden rails, huh. Probably wouldn't work for a magic barrier but if we need to carry things it could work. We tried something like that for launching the plane."

Tazo turned toward Mom, too. "Can you enchant that much wood?"

Mom looked pleased by the attention. "It'd take a lot of work! Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it being a reliable barrier."

Vonn said, "Well, wait a minute. If a dungeon needs access to open air, why can't we just choke off the entrance?"

"We don't know how many paths lead between the core and the surface now. They could even be small vents like the one you saw."

"I didn't expect to be talking about dungeon raid strategy with you."

Dad tugged Mom closer and kissed her cheek. "She's full of surprises."

#

Vonn brought Kotta along to visit the print shop. The three youngsters who ran the place as their own mostly-independent business were just getting back from lunch, laughing. Vonn hated to spoil their mood, so he chatted about the machinery and Grandbridge for a bit before getting to the point.

They were two Human brothers and a Vulin girl. The older brother had hit age sixteen and was now officially a junior Craftsman. The fox, going by Inkpaw these days, hid her tail behind one leg as Vonn related how they'd gotten the Duke's personal attention. She said, "We didn't think he'd read it!"

"That's what it means when you publish things that leave town. There are people who you should probably avoid getting noticed by."

Kotta put in, "And the Grandbridge folk now have the idea that the Bonefire Guild's Necromancers are involved, and this might rebound on all Kobold folk. Vonn here had to apologize to the Duke for stirring up trouble."

The trio winced. The older boy said, "I'm sorry. We wanted to tell everybody what happened. But didn't you lecture us about 'free press'?"

Vonn recalled giving them a pompous pep talk, after a beer or two, about printers' ability to influence people. "That's the ideal," he said. "Practically speaking, you need to be careful. You don't have any recognized legal rights."

They didn't seem to understand. They weren't from a place where it was even a concept, except maybe in terms of contracts and feudal obligations. "There are... other lands where a lord needs to let people say whatever they want. This isn't one of them."

The younger brother said, "Why not?"

Vonn's ears flicked back. "It's not something I can talk about without causing more trouble. Someday, maybe, I'll have more pull. For now, I need to focus on the technology and on not getting anybody impaled."

It was the right thing to do, to not make waves in the entire political system. He hardly knew anything about it. Who was he to interfere with it as a seventeen-year-old boy who'd never left a hundred-mile circle of one kingdom? And who didn't know all the regional history and culture? He was smart and had a special gift, but that didn't mean he knew enough to rule or that he had any right to. No, he had quite enough havoc to cause by being the innovator.

He finally told them what he told himself: "Be patient and get more skill and knowledge, so you have more influence later."

Kotta backed him up. "I got beaten up in the city for telling the wrong story in the wrong place. And you're less experienced."

"Okay, okay!" said the older boy, avoiding their gaze.

Inkpaw said, "I'm sorry, Vonn. We'll be more careful."

"Thanks."

Outside, Kotta told him, "I can see why you've been hesitant about some of the stories."