Spite can give him so many words! He is skeptical about him remembering them all but he doesn't mind reviewing them as needed.

Once he's pretty sure he's heard every sound in the language he maps Kaltish phonology to his favorite mnemonics. It helps some.

He tries some pictures just to see if they have them in Rainfold at all. Levitation? Snow?

They can make things float! He knows some people can cast it from soap bubbles or from dragonflies, but it takes really a lot of either of those things.

Rainfold has lots of snow in winter. It's pretty but it's very hard on the orders, since fewer people are able to survive on the streets in winter.

Showing him climate-controlled Hari homes would probably just be gloating. He doesn't.

He tries other pictures. Sheep? Forest? Water tower?

Yes, yes, uhhh never seen one of that last thing.

In that case he has more pictures. Water tower! Pipes! Cutaway diagram of plumbing inside a building! Opening a faucet in the bathroom!

These people obviously have any concept of paying people back outside of formal agreements, he can probably just show them things and wait for them to reward him. It'd be hard to work out a deal anyway.

Pipes. Have pipes leading to the fountains. Pipes in very very nice places, in the college and in the palaces. They're magic.

Mahan is mostly sure that you don't actually need magic for plumbing but only mostly. And now he's worried about what the pipes are made of here but how does he ask that...

He tries pictures of metals. Silver faucets, adamantite fences, steel coin-blanks... he hasn't seen lead in person but he's seen pictures and he sends those, too.

He can't recognize most metals by sight, but he gets the idea and sends his own pictures with words over them. Silver coin, copper coin, gold necklace, bronze candle holder, iron sword.

What are Rainfold pipes to the fountains?

Probably stone?

Stone is good. Thank you.

What are pipes in Har?

Silver and... Mahan shows him a picture of titanium. Silver pipes are good. A little pipe goes in water sometimes. Little little. A little silver is not bad, people aren't sick if a little silver. Bad pipes, he shows Spite lead again, a little is bad, people do bad things, killing and theft. Stone, I haven't seen that in Har, is maybe good. Is not bad pipes.

That's good. Does Mahan want more words?

More words, yes.

So he gives him more words. Colors, shapes, a collection of useful verbs. Eventually he gives him pronouns, because those get used a lot and he should probably know what they are.

He was sort of starting to pick those up from eavesdropping but even so he's a little confused about the pronouns.

Mahan should say 'I' for Mahan, 'you' for a person Mahan is talking to, 'he' for a man Mahan is talking about, 'she' for a woman Mahan is talking about, and 'it' for an object Mahan is talking about. Do you understand?

What if I don't see a person, what if I don't know a person is man or woman?

Then you ask.

What if I have thing, someone, he pictures someone in an all-concealing cloak, theft thing, I say person take thing, I say he? She? I ask theft person?

You say 'A person took my thing. I'm not sure if the person was a man or a woman.'

Thank you. Spite is he? Peth is he?

Spite is a he, Peth is a she.