In a crooked lane in Old Varoonya, the vines of an overgrown balcony hung down so low that they were beginning to obscure the shingle of the Golden Kettle. But people had found their way into the inn regardless. The sounds of scraping chairs and murmured conversation filled the room, and in the far corner, two burly men holding on to their mugs were deeply engaged in the process of reinforcing each other's view of the world.

"You really don't know what a smith is any more, these days, I am telling you!" one of the two asserted. "Last time I looked, a smith was the one who did the labor and who knew the craft. But, ah, I turn around for a moment, and when I look again, what do I see? It's the likes of her that have taken over," he went on, with a derisive jerk of his head toward a woman in a green tunic who had just come to get her lunch at the counter.

"It's artificers and traptions, is all we are getting these days," his companion agreed. "You know what, my friend, soon there will be no smith left in any of the smithies. If you can still call them smithies at all," he finished with a contemptuous snort.

"They are not calling them that, anyway," the other put in. "At least they are admitting that much. They call it a 'trabarn,' like any of the other traption-barns producing all sorts of things nowadays."

"Well, it's obvious what it all leads to, no one knowing the art. Can see it in the pieces too. True, a trabarn may spit out a hundred knives in the same time it took to make just one, but I'm telling you, I'd rather have one single piece of true craft than a hundred of their magical fabrications."

"Aye, so would I," his companion agreed, and they both took a deep draft from their mugs.

Lenoren, the woman in the green tunic, took her mug and plate from the counter and joined her partner, a woman with a small, fragile figure and silky black hair that was braided around her head in an unbelievably complicated pattern.

"Ah, Qin Roh, I am telling you," Lenoren began, very much in the line with the smith's wording, "life in the Council is a trial." She took a deep draft from her mug and set it down with a thump.

"Well, you signed up for it," Qin Roh said with a twinkle in her eye. "You knew pretty well what you had coming. And you went for it with all of your fervor."

"Thank you for the reminder," Lenoren replied with a crooked smile. "There is nothing like the insight and compassion of your loved ones to help you through dark times." She sighed. "Indeed, I will need all the fervor I've got to see this through without even tearing my hair out. It can be very trying." She stretched out her legs. "But you are quite right. I signed up for it. And actually, I am signing up for it again right now. My nomination for the upcoming Choosing has just been confirmed."

She picked at her food with a spoon. "The Transition isn't over, and it is not going easy on people. So much change. There is a world being born here, but there is also a world dying. And people who lived in that world will have a part of their lives, a part of themselves die with it."

"Such as the old craftspeople." Qin Roh reached over to pinch a potato from Lenoren's plate.

"Exactly." Lenoren gazed at the far end of the room with unseeing eyes. "We can give them compensation for a loss of livelihood, and we do. But who could compensate for the loss of a world?" She pulled herself together. "Anyway. It can't be helped. It is beyond me, I am afraid. I am the midwife of a world being born, and I have my hands full with that."

Lenoren shook her head. "You would not believe the number of newly invented traptions that are springing up all the time, with potential uses and consequences no one could possibly foresee. Least of all the exactitudes at the academy, who are charged with evaluation. But who, in reality, do not wish to be disturbed in their pursuit of pure magical procedure. They have no heart for a circus of loud and lively, unpredictable traptions."

Lenoren tapped her fingers on the table. "Of course, all the trabarns go on using the latest inventions anyway. You can't stop everything just to wait for the academy, they figure. And I admit they have a point. If artificers had always waited to get authorization beforehand, I am sure we wouldn't have a single traption in the world today. So unauthorized traptions are the only way forward, and at the same time highly problematic. Someone really ought to check for safety, don't you think? There have been accidents. There may be worse."

Lenoren sighed. "So, anyway. The academy is aloof, the Council is worried, and the artificers are forging on regardless. And old craftspeople are upset about everything all the time anyway."

Lenoren remembered she ought to make progress with her meal. Mouth full, she pressed her concluding question out through tight lips. "How on earth am I supposed to sort that all out?"

Qin Roh politely raised one shoulder.

Lenoren shot her a sardonic look. Then she peered through the inn's dusty window, seeing the sundial outside. She gulped.

"Uh. I've got to go."