Sorry, sweetie. It'll tell me there's more than one.

But it won't tell you there's more than two? How obstinate can it be?

I don't think it's being obstinate, I think there's something about the way the worlds work that means it can't answer properly, he says. Or maybe it's just not that good at numbers. It deals with them weirdly, in the symbols.

I guess we can poke it later. Goodness knows I'm not done with my original subworld yet.

Yeah. Although it'll make a difference to how you handle the afterlife thing, if you try to let people back into their original worlds, and you don't know how many there are...

Yeah. My first priority is getting these people comfortable. After that I can work out a system for letting them go home. Maybe as a stopgap I can let them communicate with the living, although the time dilation is going to be an issue there.

No kidding.

And the harpies can filter people for their ability to do harm by communicating with the living by ordering around nefarious minions or being abusive or something. And of course live people can write letters to the dead, I can have those magically handled somehow. This isn't like Downside where people sleep till they're processed, I think I might have to give all these subworlds a short sharp shock to minimize issues.

Kas giggles.

I'm concerned about this Authority character, personally. Kas, what can you get on that?

He lives at the top of a flying mountain that travels between worlds. And there's stuff the alethiometer doesn't know about him.

...I thought it knew everything, within the Alethia worldsheaf...

Yeah. But it doesn't actually say it knows everything, just that it knows - lots of stuff.

Does the mountain ever come here?

It's - been here. But not for a long time.

How long is a long time?

Since harpies.

How long is that?

Uncountable time ago, apparently.

Well, that's obnoxious. So I think a trip to this mountain is called for - what can it tell us about the safety rating and hostility and so on of said mountain's inhabitants?

What's on the mountain is... angels, says Kas. Not like Angela. It's impossible to hide from them if you're close enough to see, but they're physically fragile. Except for their leader - 'angel' is a submeaning of 'messenger', and it calls him 'voice/messenger'. Apparently he could kick my ass in a fistfight. He's not the Authority; he's some kind of second in command. Uh, and if he knew you exist he'd hate your guts.

Could he kick my ass in a fistfight? With my boosts? What about - Golden's not here, but Elspeth's in the house, could he beat her up?

He couldn't beat up Elspeth, he reports.

What about me, though, I don't want to ask Elspeth if it's not necessary.

He could beat you up easier than he could beat me up, if we were both unarmed, Kas reports.