"Uh, no answer on questions about preferences, answers on easy factual questions, is one very extreme way to not give the Enemy any information. That might be what he's doing. What I can't guess is whether he's processing normally and just not expressing or communicating preferences - but, no, he's not that good an actor - Kib, what color was the sky in the lost world?"

"Blue."

"Do you know if you're missing memories."

...amused snort.

"The Enemy'd know that, you don't help him by telling me."

Silence.

"Well, at least keeping him comfortable and not in apparent distress is going to be straightforward. Everything else might need to wait on the memory necklaces, and time, and whatever means we eventually discover for convincing Angband's survivors that it's real..."

"Kib what happened," Aydanci murmurs, not sounding like he expects an answer.

There is one anyway.

"He can tell what I'm thinking," Kib almost yawns, "so I stopped."

Aydanci goes absolutely still.

"Is that a human thing? Or a - Kib thing, most people couldn't..."

"Kib could," says Aydanci. "It might not even have been - strategic, it might just - privacy reasons -"

"Okay. So after we win the war I ask my father to develop some kind of absolute protection against mindreading that's internally verifiable as such, and he'll be okay, but that might be a long time. We didn't stand a chance against Melkor directly, today..."

"How long till we win," Aydanci says softly.

"I'm not sure." This isn't real anyway. "There might be a faster way to do it but I don't know what - you could take him to Lorien. He seems in a state where Lorien might help."

"You'd be down to one servantmaker and it might take slightly longer to kill. Him."

"Yeah.

If it helps any I think he'll be basically content in the meantime.

Kib, can the Enemy fake your magic dreams?"

"...mmm."

"Would require thought to answer? Okay.

Are there other things the Enemy can't fake? Some sensation associated with servantmaking - he's got less practice with humans....

We should make sure he's more than three hundred miles from anywhere Thauron can speak to him, that'll delay his recovery."

"Where do we go, then?" asks Aydanci.

"Dunno. Maybe Thauron is dead or badly injured and it doesn't matter. If not, I'll probably hear from him. Kib, will you tell us if you hear Thauron in your head."

"...enh."

"If I ask you every day 'did you hear Thauron in your head' will you be able to answer."

"Yeah."

"Thanks.

Would you rather we kill you so you can - have another try -"

This would require thought to answer, apparently.

Aydanci clutches at him, eyes watering. "We don't even know if it would work again."

"I know. And he'd have to live it all over again, and it might break him just as much the second time.

I don't suppose he knows enough about music to distinguish Thauron and Macalaure."