"I hope they are able to send you home in time to prevent problems."

"I hope so too. Thanks for the help."

And they ride back.

Where Kiri reports the results of the trip to anyone who cares to know them.

"Can't pretend I'm not a bit relieved," Feanáro says, "now we can try to kill the Enemy before you get sent home."

"Crossed my mind."

"And we've at last made contact with the people you need to meet. The King on this continent is married to a Maia, and she's interested in helping you figure out which of your powers might serve against the Enemy."

"Sounds useful. Where is she? What kind of help does she have in mind?"

"Her kingdom is east of here, magically protected, we're sending a diplomatic envoy. And I think the idea is you could check whether your powers work on her, and whether hers work on you, in a controlled setting, and then talk about the capabilities of the Enemy."

"Okay."

"Not what you were hoping for?"

"I'm not completely at ease with powers testing but I don't have a better idea."

"Can you elaborate on your concerns? I'm not sure if there's a way I can assuage them but I'll be worse at it if I have to guess."

"Well, I don't think I have any particularly special defensive properties except indifference to temperature; there are tests it might be reasonable to do of her powers on me that would still be uncomfortable or risky. I remain generally concerned that I may make some kind of error in the use of any active mind power and it seems like there would be a problem if I accidentally did something to a god-queen she wasn't planning. Etcetera."

"She struck me as a very very careful and defensively-oriented and cautious person, for whatever that's worth. I do not think she'll want to take any chances."

"Okay, that's reassuring."

"The King's a very conservative person by nature too. Very protective of his people. He wanted oaths for us before he let us in; we told him we'd be accountable for you, since you can't swear to anything."

"What did he want sworn?"

"That we wouldn't harm anyone within his borders. We talked him down to that we didn't have intent to harm anyone and had never ever harmed anyone but orcs."

"Yeah, first one could have gone pear-shaped."

"I mean, the worst outcome is that they murder us? In which case we have to cross the ice again, I suppose, but I'd have sworn to that if it'd been necessary."

"...you could look at it that way, I suppose."

"Are you thinking of a worse outcome?"

"I'm accustomed to thinking of death as permanent."

"Right. Even if you get sent back I'll work on that until I have something, it's abominable."