The magicite orb vibrated, and Tazo felt glad to be wearing goggles. She was ready to throw herself to the ground. Instead of exploding, though, the blur of lights all around the work site steadied itself and became a single, steady color. Gold.

"Could it be?" said Vonn. He started to walk closer, but Ralator yanked him back. The old wizard said, "Wait a bit." When nothing happened, he had an assistant hold up several lenses in front of his face so he could judge what he saw. "Not stable. As soon as we drop this spell, it might revert."

Selen was straining, showing signs of running low on Mana like nearly everyone else. "Not good enough?"

"It might be just the thing." He shouted for his henchman again, who used a stick to poke the large crystal with a smaller one. The golden light swirled and poured into these lesser shards, activating them in the same way. "Aha! Fox girl, now!"

The Kobold assistant swung the rod with its tied-on gem close to Tazo's nose. She leaned away, then went to work. She could feel the spell that filled the space around this giant and barely contained experiment. The energy that kept the main shard in its golden state was already losing stability as Tazo's contribution faded out. But while it was still there, just maybe... aha!

It was well known that the elements worked in pairs. Fire and frost, wind and stone, and so on. But _force_ wasn't considered a proper element because it broke the symmetry. Vonn had spoken of similar points of confusion in otherworld physics. He and Selen had argued that the anti-gravity effect they'd seen was proof of a hidden pairing. And Ralator, elemental expert, had been the right person to show the evidence to. Now, Tazo did the honors of pushing this little gem in a new direction. Using the master wizard's theory, she adjusted the gem's elemental tuning as though trying to make it emit darkness or lightning, but in a direction somehow opposite to force. To most people it was nonsense like asking someone to find the opposite of cheese. Now, though, Selen's concept of a "catalyst" paid off. The golden gem in the larger energy field slipped into an elemental direction that she'd never seen used before. The assistant wobbled and lifted the stick out of reach, saying, "It's lighter!"

She snatched it and untied the gem. Indeed it weighed practically nothing. She wiggled it in one hand, afraid that it would float away. Then she tried dropping it, and it fell with dreamlike slowness.

Selen feather-smiled. "That's going to be physics homework for Birb. Can we stop the spell before poor Vonn passes out?"

Vonn wobbled as he said, "Selen's looking ragged."

Ralator barked another command, and the lizard hireling tapped the big gem with six more from a carefully chosen sample. Tazo quickly made the same mind-bending adjustment to two of them before the main enchantment gave out and burst in a wave of mixed energy that made them all stagger. The greater shard dimmed and came back up with the pale blue-tinged shade that emitted only faint light.

"Orange?" said Vonn, looking at the re-tuned shards. Indeed, most of the ones that had touched the big one were still in the golden shade that meant the ability to emit more power of various types. The ones that Tazo had tuned specifically, now glowed in an orange shade. Vonn said, "Fox colored, sort of!"

Ralator snorted. "So it can be done. Dragons be praised. That was some shoddy spellweaving, but the technique is proven now." He grinned toothily and looked at Tazo. "And you have a level to earn."

She'd been putting off the attempt to hit Mage 6, for the last week or so. She tossed one of the oddly lightweight gems between her hands and said, "I'll borrow this for a bit, then."

Vonn applauded. "Great work! You know what this means, then."

Selen hopped and flapped. "Real airships!"

#

The first "real airship" wasn't vastly more impressive than the last ones. Vonn named it the Rising World, deciding to break with his usual style of invoking another land entirely. (And vetoing Selen's suggestions.) This one was a unique product of this world, using magic that had no equivalent. Just modestly, for now: half a dozen lesser shards studded into a boat in such a way that they roughly reduced its whole weight to a fraction of normal. And that of anyone aboard, within the effect's radius. It was a strong enough reduction that they'd built something the Centaurs didn't consider terrifying.

Vonn still fretted about it. He'd been lecturing about the difference between "inertial and gravitational mass" and warned everyone that they could still tip the boat over with a poorly balanced load. Or have objects get outside of the antigrav field and rapidly get heavier. Or wreck the whole thing in other ways. But when Tazo took it up for the first time his comment was, "And yet, it moves."

She and Birb were the first people to ride it. Just up a hundred feet on an anchored rope. She laughed at herself. "Only" soaring into the sky where she could look down on her home and the surrounding villages and see the sunlight shining on the Starry River! She grinned at Birb, saying, "Being up here must seem less exciting to you."

"Your brother still owes me a proper airplane!"

The deck stretched long and wide enough that they'd be taking Ashfall or Polestar up next. There was a cabin too, big enough to sleep in and keep luggage dry. If they could fly this thing around a bit, before long they'd get to build one that'd take a greater magicite piece and have some real lifting power.

Even so, Tazo agreed on doing another airplane next. Good to have variety, the nobles would want them too, and secretly she wanted to go fast in the air. The weight-reducing effect meant that this ship was able to carry twin propellers and get greater speed, but it was still a wallowing beast. "Maybe turn more of the jets to push forward like Selen's latest model," she mused.

"Already thinking about it," Birb assured her. She looked down at their home and waved, saying, "I guess we have to land and inspect everything before taking a joyride."

"And Vonn needs a turn."

So they reeled their boat down to the ground, lashed it in place, and worked responsibly instead of rushing off anywhere. Tazo patted the hull, feeling it straining at the ropes. "Soon," she assured it. "Soon we'll have you and your cousins going everywhere."

Including the borders of enemy nations, in the hands of dangerous people. But seeing the greater dangers of a wide world was a fair trade for getting to explore it at all.