"In that case I'm not sure. Either way, this is workable and shouldn't result in appreciable delays for you, Illia. Can you now run through the standard battery of meditations with Lady Hareth - I'll transmit those to, in case it helps?"

"Oh, sure."

And after the meditations - "should I at this point be attempting bigger things? Higher-precision things?"

"That depends a lot on you. We should see if we can figure out your aptitudes and resistances, and--what do you, personally, want to do with magic?"

"Help our people be healthier, live longer, serve our lords better..."

She very firmly does not comment on "serve our lords better." "So once we've got a decent idea of what ratios of different kinds of magic you should be learning I can get you started on healing."

"Thank you. I get a sense of that by just working on them all for a few days, and sensing which seems apt?"

"And to get a sense of your resistances you practice all three of them equally for a while and see which you need to do the most taking-care-of when you meditate."

"All right. What kind of timeline are our lords planning for this?"

"That depends on whether we've found Illia's sister," Fingon says, "and how swiftly we progress in capabilities, but we could send some people qualified to teach others the basics to Dor Lómin in two weeks."

"Fortunately, how to apply magic efficiently once you've got it is something that can be transmitted in words. I should probably start drafting textbooks--um. Do you have the printing press yet?"

"The concept doesn't seem familiar to me."

She imagines one clearly. "A printing press is a machine that has a frame in which one arranges small blocks, each of which has a single letter on it. Then once the frame has been filled you can ink it and create many copies of a single piece of text."

"How many of your people can read Sindarin without the vowels?" he asks Lady Hareth, frowning. 

"We could certainly get used to it, m'lord."

"Without the vowels?"

"They're done as markers atop the consonants. It would be difficult in your model of the press."

"That sounds like a solveable problem, but if you can read the language without the vowels I can certainly admit that solving it is pretty low on the priority list."

"It's possible. It might be a challenge for people who are just learning to read, but it might be worthwhile. I'll arrange for someone to try building the thing you described."

"Oh, I could build one."

"In that case, why don't you do that? What materials will you need?"

"Wood and metal, mostly--do you have forges around here? That would make this easier, but I can do without."

"We do."

"Excellent."

"Should that be a project for tomorrow? I can have the materials brought for you, if your needs are more specific than wood and metal."

"Oh--yeah, it's late, it should wait."

"It is late. I wanted to ask you what I should learn next, but I suppose if you're going to mass-produce instructional texts that's one way of achieving that. If we worked on them together, I could write them in our alphabet?"