Ruyo left the town with a few more low-level mages and a fresh supply of materials delivered in person. The next task was to return to Averell for training and communications.

She skimmed along the river until she caught up with the ferry, then sort of rested by riding and helping to push it along. Every so often she paused to examine the muddy banks; the soil really was different here. She could dry it out but would need earth specialists to do much with it.

By the time she reached the city she was exhausted and headed straight for the temple, waving to the guard on duty. "I'll be available in the morning."

"Do you have your key, ma'am? I'm told there are messages waiting."

"Yes; thanks."

Nusina floated over the altar and studied the temple network while Ruyo checked her mail. Elly and company were still in Starshore. They weren't thrilled about her running off, but Elly was studying and making some acolyte friends. Everybody wanted an update, so Ruyo pushed herself enough to write a few copies of a short note and magically send them out before declaring a halt for the evening.

She locked up for the night, let Nusina go exploring, and rested in her bedroom. She thought about her friends (especially mighty Tamur) and decided business was going well enough for now.

#

By the time she woke up, a note had arrived saying Elly would be returning by the usual route to activate the Sor's Hill shrine and train at Brotherhood. Ruyo felt guilty for not carrying any significant trade goods on this recent "vacation".

Nusina contacted her, sounding distant. "I'm at the Vissio estate, where I filled the lady of the house in." The spymistress must've been eager for news.

"Great. Ask for their opinion on the food-magic idea. The household staff, not just the nobles."

Downstairs, Nadia the body-double had just let herself into the building, carrying a satchel of letters. "Oh! Lady, good to see you."

"You too. Need anything?"

"Your proper priestess is doing the ceremonies. I'm just handling mail."

Ruyo made sure she was caught up on magic power, and talked about the dilemma of enchanting.

Nadia began holding papers over the altar and splashing them out of existence, sending them across the southlands. "I've never been important enough to follow the nobles' power games. Seems to me, though, that the more easily you can get food, the less anyone can control you. Already, if you're a follower of Ruyo you'll never go thirsty."

"But you'll still need clothing and shelter. And if the magic initiation is stunted by an item-making power, that keeps natural-born mages with a monopoly on advanced magic."

"I don't personally care about casting mighty spells, but I wouldn't want to feel like there's a hard limit on how good I can get at it."

While Nadia did her job, Ruyo checked in with Nusina. The spirit commented, "Whoever controls the temples controls any goods they produce. A personal power is more flexible."

Ruyo relayed that to Nadia. The other woman smiled and said, "I'm not getting paid enough to solve all these things."

Ruyo laughed. "Ah, well. I can stomach being a goods peddler for a little longer while we rebuild. I reserve the right to complain about it, though. You hear that, Nusina?"

"That reminds me. I'm told you must come and sample the beer for practice."

Ruyo told Nadia this and said, "I'm summoned. Come along if you want."

#

She did. At the nobles' estate the brothers were holding a small garden party with the last of the season's fragrant oranges. Nusina was chatting with one of the architects who'd built Ruyo's local temple.

Ruyo chipped in with some orange juice to compare with the real kind, and did the same for meat and her terrible attempt at beer.

"I'd think you'd be good with anything liquid," said one of the elder brothers.

"The texture and flavor of foods are tricky. Same with leather and meat and cloth." She accepted some beer and mead but tried to limit her research today.

Young Virid was interested in the ongoing healing experiments. "I've tried healing some little cuts with water elementals like you're doing. It seems to be easier that way."

Ruyo's patch of fish scales had faded, replaced by more of the dolphin-like smooth grey skin. "When I heal people, the spell is now slipping in the direction of changing them too. It's harder not to let it do that."

"Like your hands? It's a neat effect."

"My priest in Starshore doesn't think so. The tusked man Miras; don't remember if you met him."

"But you can do changes more carefully."

Ruyo leaned sideways in her chair and asked the household staff, "Anybody have a nasty scar they want to try replacing with gator scales or dolphin skin?"

The architect snorted. "Odd request. I'd be willing to try it, though." He lifted up one trouser leg to show a red-black trail like a lightning bolt along his shin. "I've had this for a decade."

Ruyo had him lie down in the guest room, and treated him. The elemental that she used as a tool helped to focus her spell, smoothing out the damaged old skin and pulling scar tissue away while coaxing the healthy flesh to regrow. She let the magic alter him even as it worked. In minutes she had given him a healed leg with odd, hairless blue-grey skin where the wound had been.

"Wasn't too hard," she said. "Did that hurt?"

He rubbed the former scar. "Feels strange, but no. I'll consider this an upgrade."

#

She spent several days training in Averell. One benefit of her job was the ability to call on whatever experts she wanted, paying them a mix of simple goods, magic, the city leaders' favor, and the chance to study with her in turn. So she sat in on lessons with a cadre of new enchanters, people who'd been trained by the city's mages to help in the war. Never before had Averell had so many novice students at once. She didn't need to remind them that the supply of new mages was due to her blessings.

Ruyo was both teacher and student here. She had worked with several of the people here indirectly since they'd been cranking out those bread-making sticks they were all sick of doing. They went over that whole process together and then got coached on how to refine it and branch out into better things.

The teacher said, "We know from the recent dig-site finds that it's possible to turn mana into a food-producing spell that runs without destroying the item doing it." He had possession of one of the tubes that Ruyo's party had called "glop generators".

Ruyo said, "Oh, right; how has that research been going?"

"We've hit on at least part of the spell. Lady, could you try imitating this long enough for everyone to see the pattern of it?" He showed her not just the tube but an intricate written diagram pointing out how it probably worked.

Ruyo took over an hour to get it right. It was an educational session for everyone though. She had to learn more about these spell diagrams and how a simple fire enchantment worked, and why her particular brand of mana couldn't fit into that spell structure. Comparing the fire blast diagram to a water one helped her see the common theme of energy flow, though, and conversion of mana to matter. But she had to try not to cast it the same way as her own food-making spell since she needed a durable item and not the one-shot kind... Tricky. And she had to hold the spell pattern together with raw force so that the others could sort of feel along it.

She and her antsy fellow students finally cobbled together a working imitation of the ancient food-tube. Theirs was a ceramic wand that slowly dripped with pale paste when she applied mana. "Yum," Ruyo said.

The enchanters passed the wand around, showing that with effort they could make it do the same thing. Nobody volunteered to eat the output.

"I think we need a test dog," Ruyo said.

The master enchanter said, "This is good, though. I don't know if any of you appreciate what we've done here. We're not generating some pure elemental substance, but a refined material that might be useful as food." He sniffed the bland, vaguely wheaty stuff. "Maybe. And last year, I would've told you that magic can't do that at all."

One student said, "It's a foot in the door toward something better."

"Exactly. The next steps will be to have the class try making another without Ruyo's help, if it's possible. Then to improve the quality and efficiency. Assuming a dog can eat this and live."

Ruyo demonstrated her personal food creation, which came to her much more easily. The students got to study the spell-shapes for comparison. "It's not exactly water magic," one said. Another added, "No way we can cast that one; it's like using a color of paint we don't have."

"Can you combine elements, then?" Ruyo asked. "Remember, I'm limited to just the one and you're not."

The instructor said, "We should get one of the handful of dark magic users in here, the ones Lady Elinor trained."

A student raised one eyebrow. "Lady Ruyo, is it all right with you to share our worship and get both?"

"Completely fine with me! She plans to be back in town soon so I'll ask her stop by. No promises though."