Vonn had wanted to show Riz the blueprints and machines and everything else, and ask all about her life here, but there might be time for that later. Right away the lead stallion of the Steamflower Works was clapping his hands together and bowing slightly, asking questions before getting to a hello. Vonn tried to imitate the gesture, saying, "Pleased to meet you."

"I've been staring at those engines of yours. How did you afford that much magicite? I'd count it all on the way back, in case any guards try to make off with it."

"Funding from our Baron."

"I wish I had all the materials I wanted. My boy and I have been struggling with our own steam-based approach. And our iron mines are out west, so the Duke wants an easier way to transport the metal overland and he thinks I can just float stacks of ingots through the sky on a balloon. But yours can hardly even carry yourselves, I bet."

Tazo nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. Our own Baron doesn't quite understand what we can and can't do, either. What kind of road have you got now for reaching the mines? I've just gotten a specialty in earth-shaping, though I didn't bring the staff I'm using for it."

The employees of the Works were mostly idle, eavesdropping. As Firefern and his son peppered the visitors with questions they all gravitated toward a blackboard and a sand-covered table where they could draw designs in slightly enchanted material that could be sculpted like clay. Vonn talked about not just the specific engine designs and their application to flight and pumping, but about the physics behind them.

This workshop had something Vonn hadn't built yet: a dedicated gear-making machine. He'd been producing them one at a time with a milling machine but the contraption of belt-driven wheels here had a design he hadn't known about. The cutting blade was like a thick gear itself, but with each tooth of it being curved so that whacking it against a metal blank would leave an irregular (but planned) bite mark instead of simply tearing material away.

"That could save steps for certain projects," he said.

Firefern said, "Yep!" He'd been boasting, but he paused to think. Then he spoke more quietly, "We plan to try having several cutters threaded onto one axis, to make a variable shape. Make keys with ten thousand unique combinations of tools."

Vonn felt he'd been let in on a trade secret. "I like it. The keys we're making in Shieldpoint aren't that secure, against someone determined. I mentioned your work in my book, by the way." He took out the engineering book he'd brought and showed it off.

Firefern seemed mainly interested in the printing. "We have a press in town, but it's mainly busy with official documents. I haven't had the time to try building one of my own. Not that we're the only Engineers in town."

"Just the best?" asked Tazo.

"Right! Still too new a field for many people to have changed over from Craftsman. We're just now seeing the first generation to start off with it, like you two and my boy."

A Vulin man arrived, dressed in a tunic of white and gold. Where Riz had been caught off guard he'd obviously brushed himself and set a glowing spell on the tip of his tail. "How do you do? You can call me Zovvah, and I've been looking forward to meeting you." He'd bowed to Tazo first but offered Vonn the same clapping greeting that Firefern had used. Vonn returned it.

Tazo smiled and said, "I'm told you're a Mage?"

"A specialist in light and wonder. I have more to do yet for the festival, but a nice thing about reaching a high enough level is that you can begin to choose your own work hours. So you're a magic expert and an inventor?"

"A little of both, yes."

"More than a little! Would you like to see the spellwork I'm doing? Oh, sir Vonn, you're invited too of course."

Vonn got the impression the man wanted to speak with Tazo in particular and was just being polite, so he waved the offer off and said, "I'll watch them at the festival."

Zovvah nodded and stepped out, leading Tazo along. That left Vonn alone to keep chattering about the machines with Firefern's team, which he didn't mind at all.

#

Vonn was working with Firefern's team, building an air pressure tank with his own powers, when Riz arrived for dinner. "Already?" he said.

"I thought you'd still be here. Do you like soup?"

Vonn pulled himself away from the workshop to eat at a restaurant of brightly colored tiles, serving six kinds of stew in bread bowls. Riz insisted on paying.

He sat with her at a stone table with a gaming board worked into it. "I suppose the banking business pays well."

"It does. I've been moving up since I reached Merchant 5. The key to it was taking the effort to reorganize Firefern's whole finance system. Brilliant man, but he hardly knows where the coins go and I don't think he cares."

"I see you have a personal office."

"With a nice chair, even! When I began there I had only a stool fit for Aves to sit on."

"What do Merchant powers actually do?"

"Things like spotting inconsistencies, rapid intuitive math, and figuring out the flow of supply and demand." She leaned closer. "So, tell me about this vision of yours."

Vonn shifted his tail uncomfortably. "The short version is, there's at least one other world out there. It's been the inspiration for the work of my friends and I. We've adapted bits and pieces of what we saw, and already it's paid off massively."

He had brought his backpack with a few items in it to show her. He took out photographs of his hometown, his workshop and the team including Selen. She stared at them, holding them up and seeing no mark of a paintbrush. He told her, "These and the engines and flying machines are a fraction of what we can accomplish. It's our start at repaying what we were given."

"What is that? The vision itself?"

"More than that. I was nearly killed; so were my friends. But we got another chance."

The banker fox looked him over again. "Does that mean you spend half your day in a temple, giving thanks?"

"I do that more through my work."