He explained enough of the situation to Tazo that she was willing to make a quick flight east to Silvermire. She brought along one of the printer kids as a favor. Liberty Bell carried her closer to Selen, allowing her to hire somebody to take a letter the rest of the way toward her new headquarters. Vonn forwarded the message from her aunt and added at the bottom, "Sounds bad. Maybe bring our spellcaster friend?"

Meanwhile he had an errand of his own to do. Under the guise of testing a motorboat, he went upriver to the west along the Little Star. Which let him stop by the Crashing Rock Tavern.

The fox barkeep, Iveline, looked surprised to see him. There was some river traffic again and enough miners to keep the business running. Vonn forgot what he was planning to ask her, and she giggled. "Take your time, hon. I know you've been ridiculously busy."

Vonn took a deep breath and overpaid for a drink. "Did you happen to hear anything about my friend Kotta?"

"I've only heard secondhand. It's not like many people leave the Scaled Nation." The bartender leaned her chin on her hands. "My guess is, whatever he's teaching hasn't gone quite how he planned. If anyone did come this way I'd expect to hear they're turning that love-and-peace stuff he brought, into another argument for why Kobolds are the best and everybody else ought to be their property."

As easy as it'd be to get distracted by Iveline's looks, Vonn tried to find the meaning in her words. A hunch from her pretty shoulders meant a lot. Somebody had been to the evil dungeon, seen Polestar's scrawled "HELP" message, and taken that info to this lady. That implied a Kobold spy or at least somebody who was close to the dead Baron. So if there was a rumor that Kotta's flavor of Draconism was becoming something actively harmful, then Selen's aunt was also right: there was Trouble.

"What are you up to these days?" asked Iveline, serving him a beer and some melon custard. An innocent question, coming from most people.

"Airships," he said. "More of them, as my lords command. And training up a new group of Engineer and Alchemist workers."

#

Back home he focused his work on the job he'd been assigned: finishing the new airship. The boat for it was nearly complete at last. Besides that there was always more to work on, including the machine tools.

But he quietly gathered other supplies too. When Tazo returned, she had a spare magicite crystal from a dungeon run she'd gone on. "You took time out for that?" he asked.

"The wind was too bad to fly in. Besides, I wanted to check on the state of the dungeon there. So it's legitimate magic research." Quietly, she provided him with a box containing far more of the gems. "In case we need to do flight tests and don't want to dismantle the machines on Bell."

Vonn stared into the padded box of valuable, faintly shining crystals. "Where'd you get that set? Did you tell Brightstep what's going on?"

"I just told him you had a sense we might need the new boat soon, and weren't sure quite why yet. Which is true." Tazo gave him a serious look. "He trusts and values us. Let's not abuse that."

"Wasn't planning on it. But I'd still rather not explain to the Baron that I'm taking an unexpected vacation."

#

Work continued on the new Concord, until the time came to try it out. So the Company fitted each vertical jet with gems and tested it, filled the gas bag, and took to the sky.

Vonn and Birb were airborne when they spotted another airship crossing the river. It was smaller, comparable to the Harvestwing, with its ropes and bag arranged differently.

The boat drew near enough for a sound spell to reach them, and for Selen to be seen waving. "Making a test flight of my own!"

Birb leaped out of Vonn's boat and touched down on the new one, but got shooed off right away because the alchemist had another passenger. Ralator the wizard was huddled low in the boat with his eyes shut. Birb returned in midair with a feather-smile, saying, "Just did a boarding action, yaar!"

The airships had to land north of the river near the old dungeon, due to wind conditions. So there were now three including Concord, Liberty Bell and Selen's new one, named Triple Lantern for reasons approximately nobody would understand. "Yeah, that's a Selen design," Vonn said, walking around it on the ground. Three small lights were mounted on it. Instead of a frostfire engine it relied entirely on jets, including two that provided forward thrust.

Selen fussed over Birb for a bit, then said, "I'm not fully happy with this one. The fittings are more primitive than yours. But the boat is well built at least; the builders in Grandbridge didn't quite grasp that it didn't need to be watertight or that I was planning to take it inland."

Vonn said, "We can work the boat over, but we might not have time."

Ralator had recovered somewhat from his harrowing flight. He still clutched the rope harness Selen had made him wear, a better design than Vonn's own. Probably due to the textile work. The wizard said, "Young fox, please confirm for me that I came here for a good reason."

Birb looked back and forth between them, confused. "Why are you here, sir?"

Vonn addressed Selen in English. "Worth telling Birb?"

Ralator said, "None of that secret talk! Whatever you have to say, the girl and I should hear it."

Vonn sighed. "All right. I've gotten hints that Kotta is currently in a place called Thunderscar Pass, and that his religious talk is being turned into something horrible."

"As I feared," Ralator said. "But if he's at the Pass specifically, that's worse. The commander there is a cunning man, who's held that part of the border against our Kingdom ever since the war ended. And during the war..." He shuddered. "His skill with specialized lightning spells rivals mine."