A radiant sun reached down in the Snuggery courtyard. Most of the children were still out, roaming around the Mansion, but they would surely be back soon enough for lunch.

Kaya helped the three boys in charge unload boxes of boiled potatoes. Then she stalked over to Cahuan.

"I wonder if your gracious donor is ever going to allow the children to have food other than potatoes, day in, day out. But of course I can see that at the moment he does not have the means. If he paid any more than he already does, perhaps he could not afford to drink exquisite wines quite as often anymore. Too great a sacrifice, no doubt. Just as he needs a nice big house all to himself, while a whole group of children easily fits into one small room, day and night." She grimaced contemptuously.

Cahuan sighed. "Yes. We know that. Manaam is doing much, but he is not perfect. And he is not sacrificing himself. He gives what he easily can, but he still wants to have an agreeable life himself."

Kaya exploded. "Yes, and I want to have an agreeable life myself too! So would thousands of others, who are now slaving away in mines and cabins! You may think him very kind and generous for condescending to give his valuable support—but really, he and the likes of him are still living on the backs of all of us! People are wasting their lives away in the tunnels, barely seeing the light of day; or have childhoods bent over benches, working their little fingers raw so that others can wear jewelry without having to pay too dearly for it. Well, I know who's paying too dearly for that! And no two ways about it!"

Pulan was standing in the middle of the courtyard, plates in hand. She stared at Kaya, letting out a low whistle. "Yes," she said slowly. "Of course. People who buy jewelry should pay properly for it. Enough for good wages, safe mines, and free children. Or else, they should not buy it." Pulan hesitated, rubbing a hand over her short hair. "But," she continued uncertainly, "is that Manaam's fault? He is trying to do things right, isn't he? His mines are better than any others. And he keeps the Snuggery running. He gives all the coin, doesn't he?"

Kaya snorted. "Ha! He gives all the coin. Whose coin is it, I am asking? Where did that coin come from? It's the workers in the mine who bring up the diamonds. And then Manaam sells them and pockets the coin, returning a small part of it in wages. And an even smaller part to the Snuggery. He gets rich from exploitation, and gives back a little in alms."

Cahuan shook out a dishcloth with an irritated gesture. "Yes. And all the other owners get rich from exploitation and give nothing back in alms. So?"

"So the others are even worse," Kaya snapped. "But that does not mean that Manaam is right. He revels in this shining light of being so very benevolent. But he is still a plunderer."

Kaya's eyes were flaring. "What's more: How come he is an owner in the first place? How come Lhut is not the owner of the mine? I am sure Lhut would be a very good owner. Lhut has got a good head. He can keep a mine productive, and ensure safety and proper wages and run a healing bag. How come ownership of that mine does not lie with Lhut, or with me, or you, or anyone else? What has Manaam done to deserve having a mine and a silver spoon placed in his cradle? What has anyone else done not to deserve that? Has he ever asked himself that?" Kaya kicked at a pebble and sent it flying across the courtyard.

"Maybe he has," Cahuan said, very quietly. But Kaya did not hear. Cahuan sighed. "Kaya. We have been in this argument a hundred times. And we even agree, I believe. Manaam is better than most, but he and everything should be much better still. So." Cahuan buried her hands in her hair, pulling it back behind the neck. "I wonder how we manage to keep on arguing over it, again and again. Just because I keep saying Manaam is better than most, and you keep saying that everything should be much better still. Yes indeed. Yes to both. And yes from both of us, I suppose. So can we let it rest at some point?"

* * *

The mine was dark, a pitch-black hole in the middle of the night. Enim was in there, alone amidst masses of ancient stone, a whole mountain towering over him. There was a deadly silence all around. Enim could feel the enormity of rock weighing down on him.

He cleared his throat, quietly, cautiously, as if trying not to wake the forces of the earth, not to draw attention to himself.

But there was no way around it.

Enim carefully positioned himself. He opened his mouth and let the first archaic syllable roll out, full, round, ending in rasping consonants that grated through the silent air.

It broke the spell.

It began to weave another.

Enim's voice grew strong, determined, his pronunciation precise, every move deliberate. The lines of a pentagram began to glow before him. His arms were raised, iron claws turning his fingertips into needle-thin thorns. Enim took hold of the pentacle, pulling flaming rivers from its tips into the darkness beyond, back toward the old traption in the wall. A myriad of crystals began to shine in the stone. White, clear, bright sparks, connected by an intricate web of glass and light, of glinting arabesques. Enim's incantation flowed on, relentlessly.

He was almost finished. On precisely the last tone of the last rune, Enim touched his thumbs to two of the crystals in the wall, connecting the burning lines of the pentacle to them. The crystals flared up golden. The pentacle was gone. The woven mass of glass and crystal amidst the gray stone came to life. Enim watched without blinking as the golden light moved on from the two initial points, following threads of glass to another crystal, and another, gliding through the whole transparent labyrinth of connections and intersections and flaring crystals. Bringing spells to life. Eventually, it was all lit up. The wall of the mountain held a huge, deep mat of the most delicate structure, its golden glow shining out into the cavern, then slowly fading back into silver and pure white.

Enim exhaled deeply. He took a step back. A smile came to his lips, spreading there almost out of its own volition. Enim did nothing to stop it. He was happy.

This was the real thing. His magic had found its way into the world.

Enim lit a lantern. Pulling a long, thin wand from his belt, he stepped up to the shining latticework on the wall. With another deep breath, he touched the wand to a crystal in the center, speaking just one word.

The huge steel tubes along the wall gave a sigh. Then a cough. And then, after a swirl of dust and dried-up leaves, fresh, clear mountain air began to blow into the tunnel.

*

Enim was sharing his triumph.

He had been working on this for over a moon. A huge old mine traption for air ventilation, functional in principle, but out of date, and out of repair. Enim had eased his way into its mind, trying to understand how the old magic worked and how it broke down. How to weave in newer spells, mingling today's traption craft with the weathered remains inside the rock.

He had prepared meticulously. Set it all up, brought in the new parts with as much care and precision as he could possibly muster. And now, finally, he had set it all alight. And it had worked.

With a happy smile, Enim lounged among the Snuggery greens while he was showing off one of his other feats. Although he feared he might never get this last one back. It was proving way too popular.

A small round wooden ball was crawling across the ground, then darted off across the courtyard beeping loudly, chased by a crowd of shrieking children. Others were queuing up for their turn to touch and start the traption.

"I made it," Enim explained, "so that I will be safe when I go to work in an abandoned mine. I always send this in ahead of me. It should wake up any nightlings sleeping in dark corners, giving them a chance to leave before coming face to face with me."

When exhaustion had persuaded the running crowd to rest at least temporarily, Enim took off the traption's lid. Lasa looked over his shoulder with eager eyes. A gossamer web of fine, transparent threads glinted in the evening light.

"Look here," Enim pointed to the crystal in the heart of the ethereal cloud, "that is the vim stone. That is where the magic gets all its power."

Lasa hung herself halfway over Enim's back, still looking down into the traption's inner life. "Why does the stone have vim?"

"Because we put it there. Some special artificers did. They live out in the swamps, where there are no fields or villages, and let collector traptions fly over the land. The collectors suck vim out of all the plants they pass over and store it in crystals."

"But how do the collectors fly?"

"They use vim too. That's their power. But they collect much, much more than they need. So they use some of the crystals for themselves, and all the rest the artificers send on to us."

Lasa mulled this over. "But how did it work the first time? When the first collector in the world wanted to fly, no one had collected vim into a crystal yet. So it could not fly. How did it ever get started?"

Enim had not expected this kind of logic. He cocked his head. "I do not know. I was not there. It was a long time ago, before I was born."

He shrugged Lasa off his back and straightened up, turning to face the girl's dark brown eyes. "It was magicians outside the academy who found vim. At the time, before the Transition, the academy was full of old mages summoning demons. But then, some people the mages had never heard of began to gather in secret, creating a new, completely different form of magic. Using plants and crystals, and pentacles so exact that not even a grain of chalk was out of line. Exactitudes, these new magicians came to be called, and today they rule the academy."

Enim raised the open wooden bowl in his hand, a spark of cold fire catching in the vim stone. "So the exactitudes invented the principle of vim extraction, more than a hundred years ago. But just how they did it on the very first day, I do not know."