Sobon chose, once the rest were think-ing about their ad-vance-ment, to spend her time work-ing to repli-cate Lai Shi Po''s space ring, or rather, make a sub-sti-tute. The two main prob-lems with repli-cat-ing her des-ign were the ma-te-ri-als, and the fine en-grav-ings; Lai Shi Po''s ring was some al-loy that Sobon might have iden-ti-fied in time, but prob-a-bly could nev-er have repli-cat-ed, since she doubt-less had some spe-cif-ic sup-pli-er. For such a small en-chant-ed item, even with Sobon''s un-der-stand-ing of the sub-tleties, ma-te-ri-als mat-tered; the dense-ly packed scripts could leak out and in-ter-fere with one an-oth-er, or aether flux could slip from one en-grav-ing to the next.


    And while Sobon could cre-ate the tools nec-es-sary to write any script in any size, it took ef-fort to de-sign such a tool for a giv-en ring ma-te-r-i-al, size, and shape, and more ef-fort to de-sign a tool flex-i-ble enough to be reused for any item. A more mod-est pro-pos-al was just an en-graver that was more or less man-u-al, with a vari-able aperture on its en-graver, and a sec-ond head to fill the new space with di-a-mond and fuse it.


    More prac-ti-cal-ly, though the whole de-sign was eas-i-er if Sobon sim-ply made it big-ger. She was sure there were cul-tur-al and prac-ti-cal rea-sons for space rings, but for some-one in the process of learn-ing, there was lit-tle rea-son not to work with a bracelet. It got rid of most of the com-pli-ca-tions, and let Sobon ex-am-ine how the aether pat-terns in-ter-act-ed with the ma-te-ri-als.


    Al-though Sobon had seen, ear-li-er in her ca-reer, ba-sic ta-bles of aether and ma-te-r-i-al in-ter-ac-tions, and had even mem-o-rized parts of them at one point. But that was a lot of high-ly com-plex data, and while Sobon had it in her cy-borg data-base ever since, she no longer had ac-cess to that, and had no rea-son to look at it in a very long time, so it was no longer in her own per-son-al mem-o-ry. More than that, even if Sobon could get the same data from the Coro-na, it would still take a lot of ex-per-i-men-ta-tion to see how the the data af-fect-ed this de-sign.


    There were ba-sics, of course. Sta-ble mol-e-cules were good chan-nels, and lighter el-e-ments had low re-sis-tance to flow. Heav-ier el-e-ments gripped the aether more tight-ly, let-ting you an-chor pat-terns more pre-cise-ly, and stor-ing aether sta-bly. But the ways in which ma-te-ri-als re-ject-ed aether were more nu-anced. Some trapped it, some re-flect-ed it, some re-fract-ed its cur-rents in var-i-ous di-rec-tions. Re-ac-tive ma-te-ri-als gen-er-al-ly were ac-ti-vat-ed by aether, con-sum-ing some of its pow-er. Those had to be planned around, en-sur-ing that any side ef-fects were de-sir-able, though that was nor-mal-ly ir-rel-e-vant when work-ing with-in a sin-gle met-al al-loy.


    That was, as-sum-ing you could get the pu-ri-ty high enough. Sobon could write pat-terns to make a pure sub-stance, like di-a-mond, but she was in-ter-est-ed in com-plex met-al al-loys, some of which were not straight-for-ward struc-tural-ly or chem-i-cal-ly. That''s why she wasn''t try-ing to roll her own vari-ants of steel, or at least, not yet. The lava rocks were, among oth-er things, a source of chromi-um, which was a nice, un-re-ac-tive met-al, not only for the pur-pos-es of aether, but for mun-dane chem-i-cal cor-ro-sion. The lo-cals didn''t seem to have dis-cov-ered it, or at least, the met-als sup-pli-er Sobon had met had no idea. But the rocks were also a good source of mag-ne-sium and alu-minum, which in con-trast were both high-ly re-ac-tive met-als.


    In-stead of try-ing to mix them into an al-loy, though, Sobon mere-ly fab-ri-cat-ed a struc-ture where the dif-fer-ent met-als were placed where she thought they be-longed, bond-ed to-geth-er. She knew her first at-tempt would be na?ve, and it was. It was also time con-sum-ing enough that af-ter she fin-ished the blank, she de-cid-ed she would need to work on a more vi-able in-come source for the short term.


    It was easy enough to come up with some-thing sim-ple. Al-though Ki''el''s aether blade was a bit more ad-vanced than Sobon re-al-ly want-ed to share, much less mass-pro-duce, and the work she''d put into Mian''s blade was too much for a sim-ple prod-uct. But there was a hy-brid, with the sim-plic-i-ty of Ki''el''s blade and the ma-te-r-i-al an-chor of Mian''s.


    In-stead of us-ing Mian''s butch-er sword as a tem-plate, though, Sobon chose a straight sin-gle-edge sword with a chis-el tip, and forged the blank out of lo-cal steel. The whole of the en-grav-ing was placed with-in the tang, and it amount-ed to lit-tle but qi gath-er-ing, stor-age, and re-in-force-ment, in-clud-ing chem-i-cal re-sis-tance. There were a to-tal of sev-en points defin-ing the geom-e-try, cre-at-ing one line to re-in-force the blade, an-oth-er re-in-forc-ing the chis-el tip, two to re-in-force the rear, and two more con-nect-ing the rear to the tip. Even with-out turn-ing the geom-e-try into planes of force, it wouldn''t yield as long as it was fu-eled with qi--ex-cept to an at-tack that pierced through the cen-ter of the blade. That wasn''t an im-pos-si-ble sce-nario, but adding even one force plane ex-pand-ed the log-ic and pow-er drain by a large per-cent-age.


    The sword, un-like Mian''s, was in-tend-ed to be used by peo-ple with-out ex-ter-nal qi, and there-fore it had to sip at pow-er. Any-one hold-ing the blade would slow-ly charge it, and any time the re-in-force-ments were need-ed, a lit-tle pow-er was con-sumed. For an every-day swords-man, though, it was sim-ply a sword that nev-er need-ed sharp-en-ing, one that would soon-er drain all of their qi through their hands than yield to an-oth-er sword.


    Sobon, one she had con-firmed that the de-sign worked as in-tend-ed, made ten, placed them with-in her stor-age ring, and went to vis-it the City Lord. As be-fore, she not-ed that Kibar, the man who talked about spir-its and fate, was seat-ed at the foun-tain with his eyes closed. She passed by him, nei-ther avoid-ing him nor mov-ing clos-er. There was no sub-tle sense, this time, of her com-ing to the at-ten-tion of the god that stood be-hind him, but even so, Kibar''s eyes opened as she passed, and he re-gard-ed her, say-ing noth-ing.


    Sobon was able to meet again with Lord Shi-da, who was once again very def-er-en-tial.


    "Lady Alas-si! Con-grat-u-la-tions on your... break-through." The man seemed at once in awe and ashamed to see that Sobon had al-ready reached Ti-ta-ni-um Qi, when he had not even ful-ly ad-vanced a sin-gle Gold star dur-ing the same time. He bowed again, servile in-stincts com-mand-ing him, but straight-ened when Sobon made it clear she didn''t ap-pre-ci-ate that. "I was not in-formed that the break-through we felt was you, al-though giv-en its brevi-ty, I should have guessed."


    "If I''d want-ed it known, I would have said some-thing, Lord Shi-da."


    The man nod-ded, though as al-ways, he seemed ill at ease. "How may I help you, Lady Alas-si? I be-lieve that you should have been con-tact-ed by the builder I rec-om-mend-ed...?"


    "He is busy at cur-rent," Sobon waved the thought away. "No, Lord Shi-da, I would like to dis-cuss mon-ey, and more specif-i-cal-ly, I would like to sell some-thing."


    At the men-tion of sell-ing some-thing, Lord Shi-da''s eyes be-came more guard-ed. "Some-thing, my lady?" Sobon moved her hand to the table and re-moved one of the swords from her space ring, but was ful-ly aware that the man''s eyes locked onto her space ring. "Lady Alas-si... would that hap-pen to be a gen-uine Lai Shi Po space ring?"


    Sobon''s opin-ion of the man went up a touch, even as she paused, plac-ing her hand over the sword for a mo-ment to leave the ring ex-posed. "Yes, and no. I had the good for-tune to stum-ble upon Lai Shi Po''s shop when I went east, to res-cue my com-pan-ion. It seems I made a good im-pres-sion on her, be-cause she gift-ed me an in-com-plete ring as a test. Un-til I can repli-cate the en-tire thing, I see no rea-son to claim cred-it, so if asked by any-one else, I would sim-ply call it..." she smirked. "An... ac-cept-able im-i-ta-tion of Lai Shi Po''s work. Though I am cu-ri-ous, how did you rec-og-nize it on sight?"


    "Hm? Oh." Lord Shi-da''s face had fall-en slight-ly at Sobon''s ca-su-al tone, and he tight-ened it up into a some-what tense smile. "It''s the ma-te-ri-als, of course, Lady Alas-si. I am sure you have no-ticed the sub-tle dam-as-cus col-orations. They say that Lai Shi Po or-ders ten thou-sand ring blanks at a time, and only ac-cepts be-tween one and ten. Her stan-dards are such that any-thing less than per-fec-tion is in-ad-e-quate."


    Sobon nod-ded. She had no-ticed the strange-ness of the ma-te-ri-als, but had hoped that Lai Shi Po had a bet-ter so-lu-tion for get-ting them than count-ing on ran-dom chance in the forg-ing process. Still, it made sense; some-one with her in-ten-si-ty and skill would like-ly be able to tell if a ring blank could be used, but not nec-es-sar-i-ly be able to put into words why, or what the smith should do in or-der to ac-com-plish her goals.


    "Well... I in-vit-ed Lai Shi Po to come vis-it, and she men-tioned per-haps sell-ing more of her work this far west, though I do not know if or when she will come."


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    That thought had Lord Shi-da''s eyes bug-ging out again. "My lady... if that is so, then the mere pres-ence of Lai Shi Po is it-self an-oth-er gift of yours to this city." He made a head bow, meant once again to ap-pear servile, be-fore turn-ing his at-ten-tion to the blade. "And this... the sword is what Lady Alas-si would like to sell?"


    Sobon nod-ded, mov-ing her hand away from it. "It is a sim-ple de-sign. I''m cu-ri-ous what you see and sense in it."


    The City Lord picked it up with rev-er-ence, but stud-ied the en-tire-ty of what was ex-posed with a frown on his face. "There is no ob-vi-ous in-scrip-tion work, but... clear-ly an in-scrip-tion was done. With-in the hilt?" He took a firm grip on the hilt, and his eyes flicked to it. "Pas-sive-ly ab-sorbs qi. And I sense... threads. No, thin qi chan-nels. Re-in-forc-ing the blade?"


    Sobon nod-ded. "The way the chan-nels are set up, they will not bend or shift as long as there is qi to pow-er them. If pres-sured, the pat-tern in the hilt will draw more qi to en-sure that the blade re-mains per-fect-ly stiff and sharp." She drew an-oth-er from her ring, and stood up and away from the desk, ges-tur-ing for Lord Shi-da to come. "Try it. Edge to edge."


    The city lord looked pen-sive, then sus-pi-cious, but the two of them moved into the am-ple free space of the man''s ex-ces-sive-ly large of-fice, and then with no warn-ing and lit-tle ap-par-ent ef-fort, the man swept for-ward into a fast and flaw-less thrust, his feet leav-ing the ground as he swept his en-tire body be-hind the blow.


    Sobon, even an-tic-i-pat-ing the at-tack, was sur-prised by the man''s flu-id-i-ty and poise, and was on the de-fen-sive im-me-di-ate-ly, knock-ing the sword away and step-ping the oth-er di-rec-tion. Lord Shi-da fol-lowed up with a straight-for-ward se-ries of slices and chops, mix-ing in only the oc-ca-sion-al stab, and Sobon im-me-di-ate-ly start-ed sweat-ing as she par-ried each in-com-ing strike, then im-me-di-ate-ly had to shift to de-fend again.


    When Shi-da stopped and be-gan to ex-am-ine his blade, though, he was en-tire-ly cool, un-per-turbed by the mo-tion. "Flaw-less," he de-clared, run-ning his fin-gers along the very edge. "No chips or gouges at all. And yours, I be-lieve, is in the same con-di-tion?" Sobon held her own blade out, and he took it with his oth-er hand, eye-ing the oth-er weapon. "In-deed. The re-in-force-ment runs to the very tip of the blade, and the wider rear sur-face is also re-in-forced. To block with-out us-ing the edge, I imag-ine." He eas-i-ly re-versed his grip on Sobon''s sword and re-turned it to her, then moved back to the desk and set the one he''d been hold-ing down.


    "These are qual-i-ty swords. I imag-ine the pas-sive draw is so that they can be used by those not trained in ex-ter-nal qi." At Sobon''s nod, he be-gan to stroke his chin. "At the same time, they pro-vide no, or lit-tle, ben-e-fit to those war-riors who do have ex-ter-nal qi. They are not in-tend-ed for use by mas-ters at all, but more than ad-e-quate for a guards-man. If noth-ing else, the fact that they could stand up to a qi-re-in-forced blade with-out dam-age is worth some-thing."


    "Be-cause the re-in-force-ment is fo-cused on the cut-ting edge," Sobon point-ed out, "the re-in-force-ment will also help pierce qi de-fens-es, though it will drain the wield-er to do so."


    Lord Shi-da picked the weapon up again, and with a mo-ment of hes-i-ta-tion, heav-i-ly re-in-forced the qi around one hand while stab-bing it with the oth-er. Sobon raised an eye-brow, but the man didn''t press hard enough to come close to in-jur-ing him-self, al-though she could sense the qi around his hand sep-a-rat-ing and spark-ing from the dam-age.


    "In-deed. It is a pure cut-ting ac-tion, and not a de-struc-tive qi na-ture, but it will help." He set the blade down, and moved to the oth-er side of the desk. "I would glad-ly pay one gildra per sword, though I would ad-vise Lady Alas-si that oth-ers may pay more or less. In par-tic-u-lar, there are guilds that hire non-cul-ti-va-tors as guards, who would like-ly be very in-ter-est-ed, while most of the no-ble fam-i-lies would have no in-ter-est at all, or very lit-tle at best. And even those who are in-ter-est-ed will hag-gle much more than I will on the price."


    "I have ten at pre-sent," Sobon said, mov-ing back to the desk her-self and set-ting the blade in her hand down, then ap-pear-ing the rest of them. "I trust you un-der-stand, Lord Shi-da, that I am good at a great many things, but these sort of ne-go-ti-a-tions are not my forte."


    To his cred-it, Lord Shi-da chuck-led at that, rather than be-ing un-com-fort-able or rude. "I have had the for-tune to meet a great many peo-ple, Lady Alas-si, and none of them has been per-fect. Of-ten enough, those who fo-cus on al-most any-thing to an ex-treme let slip their abil-i-ty to be so-cia-ble. It is enough that you un-der-stand in gen-er-al what your work is worth. I would be hap-py to as-sist on mat-ters such as these, or else I can point you to-wards those who can be trust-ed to know bet-ter."


    Sobon just nod-ded at that. Lord Shi-da took a mo-ment to con-firm that all of the swords laid out were the same, and sent off a qi pulse mes-sage, but then seemed to pause and con-sid-er.


    "Lady Alas-si..." He turned to her. "It would per-haps be too for-ward of me to sug-gest that you have some need to train in sword-play, but I be-lieve that you would do with a great deal more prac-tice, and per-haps the at-ten-tion of a mas-ter. I would be re-miss if I didn''t of-fer to rec-om-mend you to a sect. I my-self was nev-er ac-cept-ed into one, but as a City Lord, I have some sway."


    Sobon had to prod Alas-si to ex-plain ex-act-ly what that im-plied, here. [ I''ve nev-er vis-it-ed one or even seen one of their peo-ple, but the sects are sup-pos-ed-ly de-vot-ed to the study of qi and mar-tial arts, ] she said in brief. [ They are en-tire-ly sep-a-rate from the na-tions they oc-cu-py, and many who join them spend their whole life med-i-tat-ing on the ways of qi. It was a Djang tra-di-tion orig-i-nal-ly, and it is still strongest in their part of the world, but it has spread along with their em-pire. Some romanticize the sects as be-ing a pure quest for truth, while oth-ers de-mo-nize them for be-ing sin-gle-mind-ed in their search for pow-er. ]


    "Some sway, but not enough for them to share the se-cret to en-ter-ing Gold Qi?" Sobon let doubt fill her voice.


    Lord Shi-da just shook his head. "Sects do not share se-crets, Lady Alas-si. Their knowl-edge is giv-en to their mem-bers, not spread. They search for tal-ent and knowl-edge, and are will-ing to take rec-om-men-da-tions should a new prodi-gy or great tal-ent ap-pear. There is only one that is close- by, the Scin-til-lat-ing Glac-i-er Sect, which is deep in the moun-tains. I am sure that they would agree your rate of progress qual-i-fies you as a prodi-gy, even... at your age."


    Sobon didn''t have to think hard about it. "I do not have the time or in-cli-na-tion to spend a great deal of time learn-ing in a re-mote lo-ca-tion, Lord Shi-da. I would be... in-ter-est-ed, to speak to a mas-ter of qi, if I could trust them to keep cer-tain things se-cret. Es-pe-cial-ly, to un-der-stand their teach-ing meth-ods, and perhaps offer something in return."


    Lord Shi-da seemed to un-der-stand that. "I will pass on a dis-creet in-quiry, though I am not sure that the Glac-i-er Sect has a mas-ter that would meet your stan-dards. I know of sev-er-al oth-er sects, but I will need to find out more to rec-om-mend any of them."


    Sobon stood and nod-ded at Lord Shi-da, who sent off an-oth-er qi pulse. A side door opened, and one of the staff came in with Sobon''s mon-ey, which she took, then bowed to the City Lord, and left.


    Out-side, Sobon was not sur-prised to find that Kibar had again moved away from the plaza foun-tain, only this time, she no-ticed him stand-ing in a side street, watch-ing her. Al-though Sobon moved past him, Kibar sent her a qi pulse, one that was mod-er-ate-ly well put to-geth-er, al-though they con-tained too much of the man''s voice in-stead of be-ing a pure mes-sage.


    [ I have been think-ing about spir-i-tu-al ful-fill-ment, as you said, ] the man''s qi puls-es felt a lit-tle heavy in Sobon''s mind. [ You seem to draw a dis-tinc-tion be-tween ac-com-plish-ment and ful-fill-ment. Why do you seek ac-com-plish-ment if not for ful-fill-ment? ]


    Sobon kicked her mind into high gear only long enough to craft a per-fect-ly formed re-turn pack-et, most-ly out of spite for the man''s heavy and pon-der-ous thoughts. [ That''s a stu-pid enough ques-tion to be of-fen-sive, ''sir'' Kibar. I have a pur-pose which, if I fail, will re-sult in a great deal of death and suf-fer-ing. The quest doesn''t make me hap-py, and I don''t ex-pect it to. While there is more to spir-i-tu-al ful-fill-ment than self-ish want and need, the idea that a per-son won''t do the right thing un-less fulfillment awaits them at the end is a doctrine of he-do-nism. Dif-fer-ent peo-ple have dif-fer-ent needs, and spir-i-tu-al ful-fill-ment is just one of many. ]


    Sobon could sense the man be-ing briefly over-whelmed by the mes-sage pulse, but didn''t stop to bandy more words with him. What-ev-er the man and his pa-tron god be-lieved, it was ob-vi-ous to Sobon that they were ex-pect-ing her to be some-one very dif-fer-ent than she was. Dif-fer-ent, Sobon thought, than Alas-si may have been, too, al-though she wasn''t think-ing hard about it.


    On the walk back, though, Alas-si seemed to con-sid-er that. [ Ful-fill-ment... ] the dead woman''s thoughts rat-tled around in Sobon''s head, when she fi-nal-ly deigned to put words to them. The woman''s spir-it was un-fo-cused, per-haps a bit dis-tressed. [ I had be-lieved such a thing was im-pos-si-ble. That af-ter all my mis-takes and fail-ures, and all my bad for-tune, there was no place for me in the world. Some-one who said oth-er-wise... if they could have got-ten me to be-lieve it, they might have man-aged to change me. ]


    [ What do you think now? ] Sobon could sense that the woman wasn''t any-where near done think-ing through the mat-ter.


    [ My own time is over. I think that if I had any de-sires of my own, it would be to see Lui suc-ceed, and since you are help-ing with that, I see no rea-son to sep-a-rate my fate from yours. And... I can ac-knowl-edge that you have made me, and Lui, and Mian, and your... adopt-ed daugh-ter, Ki''el, stronger. I am not sure what one like sir Kibar could of-fer me, to make me ful-filled, but it would need to be at least that much. I... don''t think I''d be hap-py... search-ing only for my own com-fort if Lui and the rest were left be-hind. It would be too much like go-ing back to who I was. ]


    [ I am hap-py to have your trust, ] Sobon re-turned, as she drew near to home. [ For my-self, spir-i-tu-al gods wor-ry me. I am sure that for those who have no plans for their own life, it is fine to let them guide you. But even back on my own world, I felt like they would lead me away from where I want-ed to go, and to-wards where they want-ed me to be. Per-haps it is un-kind to as-sume, but I would rather not be... en-tan-gled with them. ]


    Alas-si con-sid-ered that for a long time af-ter-wards.