"He clears it."

"Do you two draw straws for who has to come and talk with me?"

"He asked if he should do it or if I would and I said I dwell on you about the same amount whether we interact or not and I'd have to adjust the golem anyway. Straws did not feature."

"Okay." And he reads the settled-upon wording, aloud and clearly and a bit mechanically.

And Kib murmurs the update to the golem.

"Do I need to explain the arrangement to people or has that been done?"

"Findekáno told people. - Oh, and I don't know if it will ever come up but it may be that your father guessed about you and him. Pterodactyl rescue is a hint in retrospect."

"Enemy must not have figured out a convincing way to swear to things, or we'd be having much bigger problems..."

"Or he's saving it for a special occasion or something, yeah."

"He talks to me most nights, says that he already told the real versions and one of my brothers dueled and murdered Findekano and it was hilariously funny but he doesn't think he's going to use it in this iteration, other plans."

"Osanwe range is three hundred miles once you know someone well."

"Should've settled farther south," Kib mutters.

"It's not really important. I can - and have just sworn to - not send anything back."

"Conflating 'really' with 'strategically'."

"Everyone I talk to is the Enemy. At least that one's open about it."

"And meanwhile I for presumably inscrutable and/or evil reasons will be playing the part of 'upset that this is the way you have to look at the world now'."

"I think the hallucinations are mostly just to make it obvious to me that not only is escape impossible but it'd be a profoundly selfish act, too, and also to make sure there's no one I care about or want to see, so I only prefer that you all win the war very abstractly and without finding any of you personally worthy of living. I think he thinks that'll make it easier for me to be used against you."

"Makes sense."

"Won't work. So I hope it's true."

Nod.

"Getting me to hate all of you and be sure that returning to you would be a terrible idea is probably very doable, after a couple dozen of these; I'm already inclined to think that returning would be a terrible idea, actually - but I won't - I don't think you could get me to serve him on that basis - but there's the prophecies..."

"Complete with the missing hand, come to think of it."

"There exist circumstances under which I'll ride into a civilian city and massacre my way through it. He has basically perfect capacity to engineer circumstances. I - I'd massacre a city full of orcs, because I know about their oaths and there isn't a better way, all you'd have to do is wipe my memories and give me a set of corresponding ones about Elves -"

"Yeah," murmurs Kib.