“That was excessive,” RuTing said.

  The automatic gates slammed shut behind them. In moments, they would open again so Fintan stood aside. He didn’t think the bored attendant was happy about answering their questions. The Xingren guards patrolled the narrow streets of the market wearing black uniforms. They had bronze shields with the red banner, yellow stars over a sabre.

  Even in the early morning, they were given a wide berth, but otherwise, Fintan didn’t detect any fear, and he was usually good at recognizing subtle emotions even when he couldn’t see someone. The Yuxians carried a physical eimai card, but it wasn’t so different from the Union, where their implants served a projected eimai over the net.

  True, the cards didn’t carry emotions, but they did represent status in their fashion. When Fintan closed his eyes, he had a feeling for presence, but it was a worthless feeling in crowds so dense.

  Not all the stalls were open, but most were occupied, and they had displays of products.

  “Where do we start?” WuXin asked.

  “The merchant said we should start with a crown maker,” Cherry said.

  The market was laid out in a logical grid, but they didn’t know where to find the crown makers. The humidity in the market was surprising, but easily explained because a number of stalls had piping, and the craft masters manifested components and materials they cut with precision tools. The damp air in the early morning was a mix of scents: burning resin, food carts stopped in the narrow streets, and oil. Every hundred feet, there was a drain for underground plumbing, and the stalls were raised a foot above the road, although the only obvious signs of water were a light precipitation from the night before that dripped off canvas on the ground.

  Last night, Fintan would have gladly rolled on the ground for a drip of fresh water, but he’d manifested a steady stream along with breakfast from the public fountain.

  What he observed was still a conundrum. He hadn’t seen solid rain since arriving in the afterlife, but the market was designed to withstand a deluge. They walked for half an hour searching for a crown maker before they found the heart of the market—the portal in the center guarded by Acolytes of the Adversary.

  If the Xingren were respected, then the Acolytes were feared. The whole street cleared for a contingent that walked from stall to stall. They examined items from frightened shopkeepers and a group of slaves wearing golden circlets returned their purchases to the portals.

  Fintan didn’t see their faces, but he suspected they were further along in their transformation. Thin robes draped over their bodies pulled taut around the tops of their heads, where curved horns stretched the fabric.

  They stayed away from the Acolytes, but their presence increased the tension. They wandered a side street of nuts and bolts without making much progress. The market was indeed for makers, and every stall had a new component. Wuxin’s eyes bulged from his head, and he frequently tripped over his spear. He might look like a Zeusopolan, but he was a technomancer, and they were surrounded by technology in all different states of construction. They saw electrical motors and copper wire, magnets and bearings, bushings and rods.

  They didn’t see anyone selling gold wire, thread, or crowns.

  “I’m not spending another night with Laoda,” Cherry said.

  It was still midmorning, but ironically, they were sweating. Fintan thought it wasn’t perspiration so much as condensation. Her sari was damp and stained around her neck, and he fared no better despite their equal burden. He envied RuTing’s braided leather skirt and WuXin’s leather armor. They had legs and arms exposed. If only Cherry had picked him a god with breathable fabric.

  “We need to divide up,” he said. “We can cover four times as much ground.” They had similar quantities of gold and silver thread. “We need gilders for storage a room.”

  “No longer than midday,” RuTing said. It was hard to measure time without the sun. The Zeusopolans used water clocks, but the Yuxian’s had clocks with symbols that rotated on wheels. They read the symbols like he read words.

  Fintan wasn’t sure if they were printed in standard characters, but they all knew what they said.

  “We meet back at noon,” he said, “Sell the thread if you can.”

  They divided, and he chose a street at random, but at the next intersection, he devised a plan. Yuxia was designed with irrigation in mind, but manifesting electricity without a conduit to channel the power would be worthless. The Zeusopolans carried their copper-cored spears so they could channel their Skills into lightning bolts. The technomancers had less power, but their machines used electricity.

  With that in mind, he studied the electrical grid suspended above the streets. Not all of the stalls had power, and he knew WuXin’s Skill was a combination of low-voltage current and manipulation of electrical fields. Even with technomancers, forging would require energy, and the Yuxians were burning coal for their furnaces.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Wrist-thick cables on steel beams swung lazily over the market, and he selected one and followed it to a transformer. The shop below was practically empty compared to the rest of the market, and shirtless men carried reddened bars freshly forged to stacks. The harsh pounding drove everyone else away, and the stalls beside the electrical forge were empty.

  As Fintan approached, the waves of heat dried his robe even as fresh perspiration burst from his pores. He stopped to examine the forged rods, wondering where his theory went wrong.

  “Do you see anything you like?” the ironworker asked. He wore an apron over his chest and had wax stuffed in his ears. He lifted his hand, and the hammering stopped.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting you,” Fintan said.

  “We need to stop for water. We are required by law to stop the forge when a customer shows interest, but no one has stopped here all morning. You could say we are in your debt.”

  “That sounds inefficient. Those bars must weigh...” Fintan stumbled with a calculation. He could easily carry a load of bars at full strength, but even with the slaves, the streets were too narrow for meaningful trade of iron stock.

  “You are new here,” the ironworker said bluntly, “Anyone who trades in Yuxia has to produce product in the Maker’s Market for the Adversary. This is a miniature forge. We produce a few products to demonstrate quality. The Builder is quality.” That was directly contradictory to the manifestations along the river, and Fintan’s incredulous expression must have been apparent to the ironworker because he continued. “I can see you are confused.”

  “The river,” Fintan mumbled. He shook his head.

  “They are non-believers. Their products are sold for cheap, practically given away. If in seven years and a day, they learn from their mistakes, they are freed, but most aren’t freed.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they don’t learn. Break the laws of Yuxia and serve Yuxia. We are far more generous than the Adversary.”

  “The slaves?”

  “Are they Adversary’s slaves, but all people who recognize the Adversary recognize his slaves, that is also the law. Those that don’t fit into the system have no other place than the Adversary. Like it or not, he is their God. How he treats them is none of our business. You must have come from far away not to know that.”

  “Very far,” Fintan said. Since the ironworker was generous with his time, Fintan slipped a hand in his robe and produced a spool of gold wire. “Do you know where I might sell this? I thought perhaps a crown maker?”

  * * *

  The ironworker’s directions were better than Fintan expected, but he was easily into the first of his two hours before he found the shop. Only two golden circlets were on display, and a bulk of the Xingren guarded the street.

  He expected they would be closer to the metal workers, but the electroplating was low voltage, and the shops had their own transformers to switch from alternating current to direct current. The circlets were delicate. He should have known to look for jewelers. He found RuTing and Cherry already conversing with a shopkeeper along with an auditor from the Maker’s Market.

  “So much for splitting up,” he said ruefully.

  “This gold is impossible,” the jeweler said. He had a small sample of Cherry’s thread melted in a crucible. “I’m not finding any impurities.”

  The jeweler’s colleague glanced at him from the circlet he polished with a fine cloth.

  “You are doing it wrong,” the other jeweler said. The circlet was made of many spiked fibers woven together, and the symbol in the front was a box. He used a magifying glass and screw driver to open the box from the inside and inspect a circuit board within. He scratched his thumb on a bur with a low curse.

  “No, it’s pure. Completely pure. I don’t think this gold was mined.”

  “Even manifested gold has impurities. I’ve seen it.”

  The first jeweler shook his head.

  “How much do you want for it?” he asked.

  “I have silver thread too,” Cherry said. “Just as pure. Ten for the gold, twenty for the silver.”

  “Pure silver? Does it tarnish?

  “Never.”

  “She’s charging twice as much for the silver!” the second jeweler exclaimed.

  “Silver is a better conductor than copper or gold,” Cherry said.

  “She’s right,” the first jeweler said. “How many spools do you have?”

  Cherry emptied her backpack on the table. Fintan and RuTing did likewise. The jeweler brought out an abacus, and the auditor suddenly became very interested in what they were doing. He had a metal foil of his own, and he motioned to a younger auditor and sent him running.

  “Because of the size of this transaction, the disbursement will go to the Bank of Yuxia,” the auditor said. He gathered Cherry’s eimai card and transcribed her identifier on the form.

  Fintan knew precisely what that meant. Yuxia was going to collect its tariff first. The jeweler provided an account number to the official while Cherry opened boxes. He clipped off a piece of the silver thread and put it in a cold crucible. He had an electric oven to melt the silver and chemicals to test the quality.

  They counted the silver spools and gold spools. They each carried hundreds of the silver spools and about forty of the gold spools. She’d kept her sewing bag folded and concealed, but with the spools alone, they were counting tens of thousands of gilders. They’d gone from broke to fantastically wealthy in a single day.

  At least Cherry did. They’d never talked about the dispersion of her ‘severance.’ She wasn’t strong enough to steal the silver and gold on her own.

  The fancy boxes covered the table, and they opened the rest and put them under the table so they could be counted.

  “Over twenty-nine thousand gilders,” the auditor said. “After taxes, over twenty-six. I will need your seal of approval to complete the transaction.”

  “You are going to ruin us!” the second jeweler said. At the size of the deal, the blood ran out of his face, and he sat heavily in his chair. His partner or boss didn’t seem perturbed.

  “Do you know what the Adversary will pay for a silver Crown of Thorns that lasts forever?” he said. He etched his seal on the foil. The transaction was halfway complete, but Fintan was more perturbed than ever.

  “What is a Crown of Thorns?” he asked.

  The jeweler handed him a circlet. It scratched Fintan’s hand, but when the jeweler turned a lever on his box, Fintan’s hand burned. His muscles involuntarily tightened into a claw around the Thorns, and he bled red drops on the ground.

  “The Crown is pain, but also pleasure.” The jeweler flipped the dial in the opposite direction, and Fintan’s hand opened. He felt a jolt of sweetness in his hand like a climax of joy, and he dropped the circlet on the ground. The jeweler didn’t seem to care that he scratched one of the expensive circlets. Cherry was selling him enough thread to make hundreds, maybe thousands.