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Tumunzahar makes Menegroth look like a contract project. Which, the Dwarves assure her, it was. The stonework is astonishingly careful and beautiful, silky to the touch up close while from a distance it gives the impression of stretching on forever above, a sky of stone with crystals for stars. Vast natural cave systems are connected by dozens of perfectly smooth, gently sloped broad stone pathways from which the fall, if she fell, would be several miles down. There are handrails. "We use those to move materials carts," someone explains to her, "we're not going to be reckless."
There's an amphitheater, a place where a hundred of the stone walkways twine around to create space for a hundred thousand people to sit in close proximity, and someone is giving a lecture or a demonstration at the base of it, the seats closest to him filled with eager, tiny, bearded Dwarf-children.
And they spiral down, and down, and down, past waterfalls and egg-sized gemstones left half in the rock and halls of crystal. Everything grows gradually more ornate and more perfectly maintained and the clang of hammers fades behind them. "People say," her guide says, "that we only have a council instead of a single King because there were nine winners of the competition to design the throne so we couldn't just select one person to sit it." And they push open the doors to reveal, indeed, nine thrones so elaborate it would be hard to choose between them, and nine squat bearded people sitting them.
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purposeful_glory
He'd have a hell of a time getting here from where he was last I saw him and would have been a bird at the time he would have needed to talk to Sarpalarë; you think the Enemy got enough information to feed it to someone else?
How long was he each of those people, a couple hours at a crowded public event? He'd need names and mannerisms. Hell, Moringotto may have known them well enough himself from Valinor to not need additional information at all.
We have to talk to Sarpalarë again. Whoever she thinks ordered her to do this probably didn't.
purposeful_glory
I wish I'd known twins were so uncommon, I might have told someone during the trial. Pause. Can you be sure, if you osanwë someone privately, that it gets to them and not someone else?
If I think 'I'm going to talk to Findekáno', I am. If I see someone who looks like Findekáno and walk up to him and osanwë, no.
purposeful_glory
Okay. Can you tell your father and definitely only your father that we want to talk to Sarpalarë, he wanted to be notified.
Are you trusting I'm me because otherwise I wouldn't have told you twins are rare? And I just let him know.
purposeful_glory
Have to start somewhere. But feel free to tell me something an impersonator wouldn't know.
She stands. Shooting something for you might be easier. I'm not sure we've had any deep private conversations. And she nods to the guards and walks into the building containing Sarpalarë.
purposeful_glory
Loki follows her. We could get Findekáno and your father, reduce the odds that you're all impostors.
Sure, I'll ask them to come. ...Do you think you can fight a Maia?
Sometime I'm gonna ask you for that story. Okay. A minute later Nolofinwë walks in, frowning. A few seconds behind him, Findekáno. Sarpalarë still looks bored.
Yes, Nolofinwë thinks, someone can copy faces and Irissë thinks that's who gave Sarpalarë the orders she's refusing to admit to receiving.
And possibly also an oath, Irissë adds. We're here because Loki thinks it couldn't impersonate all of us.
And possibly also an oath, Irissë adds. We're here because Loki thinks it couldn't impersonate all of us.
purposeful_glory
Well, there could be several of it, but there's less likely to be three than one; I didn't see any duplicates all at once.
"Sarpalarë," Nolofinwë says, "did you help the Enemy infiltrate this camp or had he already done it when he talked with you?"
purposeful_glory
...Loki does not think Sarpalarë is likely to answer that.
To Irissë: Why did you ask me if I can fight a Maia?
To Irissë: Why did you ask me if I can fight a Maia?
Nothing else shapeshifts.
purposeful_glory
Well, damn. Do they at least have the courtesy to see out of their eyes and hear out of their ears?
I have no idea. They can see and hear in forms that have neither, but maybe while they're using them they can be deceived by the same things?
purposeful_glory
I can cover them more thoroughly if I know not to localize it.
Yeah, try that.
Loki, says Nolofinwë, did you have anything you wanted to ask her?
Loki, says Nolofinwë, did you have anything you wanted to ask her?
purposeful_glory
"I think she's probably sewn up via oath or just a truly impenetrable web of lies to the point where she's not a viable source of information. She wasn't meant to get away clean to begin with."