"Oh. But in the—" He tries to think of words then grabs a piece of paper and another pencil and starts drawing the van on it.

"In that thing? The thing was all around me, enough stuff in the way does it. But it has to be all over the place, the fellow in the suit with his beard sticking out wouldn't be covered up enough."

"And suit that covered beard?"

"Yeah, that ought to do it if it's heat insulating enough."

He nods.

"So you understand what happens here?"

"No."

"You appear out of nowhere not speaking language with powers. We are the people who take care of people with powers."

"Take care of? Why do people with powers need taking care of? I assume most of you speak the language."

"It is a little more complicated than that... I need to talk to you more to get vocabulary."

"I guess that makes sense, although I don't know what vocabulary to supply you with to answer my question; if I did I'd be halfway to knowing the answer. Incidentally, is there a place for me to stay here? When I get tired?"

"I don't get just vocabulary you say. My power lets me—guess—other words. And yes, there are rooms."

"Okay, good. Is there anything you'd like me to talk about in particular?"

"Not really. I have questions but not enough vocabulary, you could ask so I can ask?"

"I don't think I understand the suggestion. Uh, let's see, what have I noticed - weirdly tall buildings, people with rectangles..."

"You can ask questions about here and then I will get more vocabulary to ask you questions, is what I mean."

"Yes, so what are the rectangles and why are all the buildings so tall? Do you use your - not magic - to do that?"

"—the buildings are tall due to technology, not magic, so that people can live more densely, but I'm not sure what rectangles you mean."

"People were - pointing them at me?" She makes a rectangle of about the right size in fire, holds it up illustratively.

"—oh! That's a—I don't have vocabulary for that, maybe you haven't invented it—it can record images and people can use it to talk to each other over very very long distances and they can look information up in it—"

"...how does it do all that?"

"Technology. I don't know in detail how it works but it uses electricity and very small bits of metal and the—" He waves around his head vaguely. "Electricity in the air? To store and transmit information."

"Huh. I wonder if Patience could figure one out. - she's a prime like me, I'm the sweela prime, fire and mind, she's the torz prime, earth and flesh. There's some extent to which earth includes metal, I only have her predecessor's information to go on about that and her powers might be different, she hasn't had them long."

"What exactly is a 'prime'?"

"We're members of five noble families in Welce who inherit the family-appropriate magic when our predecessors die. My great-aunt died and the primacy fell to me when I was eight."

"There are only five people with magic?"