The portal spits him out in an alley. He'll be hit by the smell of human waste and rotting flesh, first, and then he'll have the chance to look around.

There are a couple dozen people camping in this alley, most of them with blankets but without tents. All of them are darker than he is, and most of them look up briefly and then away, ignoring him. One of them asks a question he will not understand; another waves in greeting. Outside the alleyway there's the rest of a city, loud and bustling and tremendously crowded. 

The people in the alley are hungry and dirty and cold. A few are sick. Several wear cloths in front of their noses and mouths. They are mostly not dying. One of them is dead, presumably the source of the rotting flesh smell.

There's a girl in this alley, maybe twelve or thirteen, who isn't camping out. She was in the process of hauling the dead body into her wheelbarrow, but now she's been distracted by the portal.

She walks up to Mahan, excited, and gestures at the spot where the portal was a moment ago. She asks him something in words he doesn't understand.

What an obnoxious place. He checks his necklace. No connection to the imperial standards means he's... not in the same universe? Not in the same time? One of those.

"Anyone here speak Hari? I'm a medical death mage, I can make it worth your while to explain this."

Nobody here seems to know what he's saying. A few of them are still watching, but they don't seem to have any idea what to do with him.

The girl sighs. She loads up the body into her wheelbarrow, sticks her fingers in her mouth and makes a somewhat complicated signal whistle, and then moves to the mouth of the alley. She motions for him to follow.

He follows. He looks around for signs of magic use. Clearly they don't know how to use death magic but are they this bad at all the others?

There are some things that a native of the city would recognize as magical. The buildings are almost all about five or six stories tall, but a few are much, much taller. A few of the signs in front of storefronts have text that wiggles and shifts confusedly when he looks at it; after a moment the text is replaced with a picture, this one a pair of scissors, this one a bottle, that one a loaf of bread. Most of the other signs were pictures to begin with. The girl leads him past a fountain, which is clean enough that several people are filling cups with the water. There are lots of people, everywhere. Many are obviously very poor, but some are doing fine, and a few of them are wearing clothes that look fairly expensive.

At some point a small animal scampers toward them and up the girl's back, perching daintily on her shoulder. It looks kind of like a lizard, and also like parts of it have been stitched together and don't quite fit right. It glares at Mahan. The girl snaps at it, and then it glares at him a little more subtly.

So they have just illusion magic. Illusion and force, maybe. And this town is majority-human, that's weird, but not weirder than being nowhere in the Empire.

"Hi, uh, funny thing, I can't tell if you're a person and I'm sure you can't understand me anyway but you look angry."

The lizard-thing does something that might be a weirdly hostile yawn, then curls up on top of the girl's head, still glaring.

The girl stops at a building with five stories. The sign in front has three labels - potted plant on top, eyeglasses in the middle, wheelbarrow on the bottom. She wheels her wheelbarrow in through a secondary door, then leads Mahan in through the normal entrance. 

The front of the shop is very small, just a couple chairs and a shelf of herbs and a wooden counter. The girl jumps the counter and disappears behind a curtain for a moment, motioning for Mahan to wait. There's a minute-long conversation with someone else in the back of the shop, and then the girl is back with a stone tablet. She says a few words and touches the tablet, and then -

" - is it working, can you understand me?"

That's actually pretty neat, maybe they're not just straightforwardly behind.

"Yeah, I understand you, does it go both ways? I'm lost but I have skills, I can make myself useful."

"Nice! Yeah, both ways. It's not gonna last very long, though, I don't have anything to power it. A few minutes. If you speak a language we have then I can find something else pretty quick, but you look like you're from way far away, so it might take a while. What's it called?"

"It doesn't last? Never mind, I speak Hari and understand North Essi and Ereli and a couple words of Lexori. I'm a medical death mage, I can kill diseases for pay or if you can't figure out how to explain your money to me I'll just do it for food and a private place to live. Also you smell like you don't have soap, soap is very useful, I can tell you how to make some."

"We have soap!" she laughs, scribbling down the names of the languages on a slate. "Don't have enough undertakers. Or healers. If you know healing magic I bet one of the orders would put you up and get you a shop so you can do business and stuff, at least if you healed some people for them in exchange. My aunt'll know all about who can help you with that, I can talk to her after we make sure we have everything else we need. Gonna ask at the college if anybody knows any of these languages, I've never heard of any of 'em. You need anything else in the immediate term, other than like, food and a place? I can get you food and a place."

"I need food and a place, what's your price?"

"I want to learn everything about your magic! But you won't be able to explain it all before the tablet stops working, so to start with you can heal people for my aunt. That OK?"

"Yeah, what's she offering for how much healing?"

"Reeeally don't think you're gonna be able to navigate the city on your own until we figure out a long-term translation fix, so I dunno how much good money is gonna do you right now. She can set you up with room and board until I fix the language thing, though. I can set you up a place to earn real money, but that's gonna take a little bit and I don't want you to starve or anything in the interim."

"That's fine for now. How much does she want for it? Will I need to be on call at all times? Do I get to sleep without interruptions?"

She raises her eyebrows. "They have to see what you can do first, right? If you can only do tiny little bits of healing then they'll just end up assigning you to something else, otherwise you should be fine. They let you work decent hours and sleep in the orders, yeah. Where are you from, even, can I get a country or a city name to look up?"

"Probably won't help but I'm from Har. I can kill most of the infectious diseases that are common there! You might have different kinds, though, what've you got?"

She writes it down. "So plague stuff? I'm sure Imrainai knows people who know more, I'll get one of them to talk to you when you can talk. I'm an apprentice undertaker. I know some stuff but half the time I have no idea what people're dying of - like, people call it stuff but I don't know what it is. I'm gonna know more when I've seen more bodies. I know the water's really bad here, though, I wouldn't drink from the fountains. - aw, man, I'm gonna have to cut the spell off in a bit, do you have any other questions you need answered right now?"

"I can fix the water," he says as fast as he can, "easier than fixing people. Besides that I just want to know where I am."

If the last part got cut off, well, it's the water that's important.

It's not cut off. " - wow, like, entirely? That'd be awesome. You're in the Co-Monarchy of Rainfold, in Alavast, in Kalt. If none of that sounds familiar then I dunno where you meant to be, but you're way off course. And - man yeah I gotta cut this off, sorry," she says, before taking her hand off the tablet. 

She takes a step back, looking suddenly very tired. She stands for a second and then ducks behind the curtain and throws up.

He waits right where he is, examining the herbs while she's... busy.

Is literally everyone here sick? It's starting to seem like it. Well, no way to find out yet.

She's back in a minute. Looks tired, but she seems OK other than that, and in any case doesn't seem worried about the situation. She puts the tablet back and yells something to whoever else is back there, then returns and hops the counter again, somewhat less exuberantly than before. The lizard thing scampers up her arm and perches on her shoulder, cooing softly. She motions for Mahan to follow her again.

He follows.

"...Should've asked if you were a person," he mutters. "Sorry, funny thing."

The lizard thing gives a vague impression of a shrug. It doesn't particularly seem to be glaring anymore.

They pass a lot of people on the street who don't seem to be obviously sick with anything, plus a few people who do. The girl leads him into a complex with a courtyard. Naturally, the courtyard is full of people, most of whom seem to be injured or ill in some way. Several of them stare, but nobody disturbs them. Past the courtyard there's a building that appears to be some sort of hospital, judging from the sheer number of bodies on cots inside. The stench is worse here. 

She leads him to a woman who's re-bandaging what looks like an infected wound. They have some sort of conversation, and the woman selects a different patient, one who's suffering from something that causes boils and fever.

The girl looks at Mahan expectantly.

And now she doesn't have any microorganisms within an inch of the wound. And for good measure he checks for all the diseases he knows how to recognize: colds, rabies, caralendar pox, distemper...

Nothing he does results in the wound closing itself or any necrotic flesh coming back to life. Back home everyone would know not to expect anything immediately visible from a death mage doctor but who knows how much or little these people know.

The woman sighs, but she bandages the wound up. She motions to another row of patients, can he help any of those?

He starts with the ones with the convenient pustules because it's a pretty good bet that the species living in them is the species causing the problem. The rashes don't disappear but if they were feeling sick and tired that'll start clearing up when their bodies notice they don't have a disease to spend all their energy fighting. "These ones'll be fine," he says even though they don't speak Hari.

Then he examines the others, starting at one end of the row and going systematically to the end. Most of these diseases aren't familiar to him. "Not sure how to help this one," he says about almost all of them. He adds a shrug and a frown and tries to sound different than he sounds when he says he can help.

The girl waves goodbye and says something that sounds like it's probably meant to be a reassurance.

Her lizard thing stays behind when she leaves, peering up at him from beneath one of the cots.

Hard to guess if the creature is being rude for this place. He looks right back at it to see what it does about that.

It cocks its head at him curiously. It doesn't seem particularly offended.

Imrainai is sort of unclear on whether the stranger is doing anything. He seems to be doing something, but it's definitely not magic, unless maybe he has a tablet and some materials hidden on his person somewhere. She's not sure he could be doing it even with that, but she's admittedly not an expert in these things. She tells her patients that the man is a healer, but he's from very far away and doesn't speak the language yet. 

She distributes tea and bandages and tries to answer people's questions. When the stranger finishes a row, she motions to another. When the entire room has had the benefit of whatever it is that he may or may not be doing, she motions for him to follow her into a different building.

He doesn't take too long to finish the room. He follows.

She takes him to a room with many tables and benches, most of them with food on them. At the far end of the room, there's a table full of people, all women, wearing the same uniform as Imrainai - a long, simple brown robe and a necklace made from colored wooden beads. Hers has three red beads and two yellow ones. The rest of the beads are brown.

She doesn't sit with the others. She takes him to a table full of people who don't have uniforms, and gets him a bowl and some soup and some pieces of bread. 

"Food," she informs him, before eating her own.

He tries to repeat that word. He's not much good at accents.

Is it language learning time? He tries pointing to the table and looking confused.

"Table," she tells him, and then points to herself. "Imrainai."

If she points to him?

"Mahan. Human death mage." He points at her. "Imrainai. Human, some kind of mage?"

"Mahan," she repeats, and then tries to think of what 'death mage' and 'some kind of mage' are. Or what 'human' is, for that matter.

The lizard thing scampers up her arm and curls up on top of her head.

Death mage, Spite informs her, silently. He said it when he was talking to Peth, so I at least know that's the translation the magic gave. Kills diseases and possibly other things.

Well that's at least mildly alarming, but so is reanimating a dead dragon with rat parts, so aren't they all.

"Imrainai, nurse," she says, in Kaltish. "Human?" she asks, in his language.

"Human," he agrees. He tries pointing at Spite and looking curious.

What are we calling you this week?

Doesn't matter, I'm the only one of me around.

"Spite."

"Spite. Uh... One human," pointing to himself, then Imrainai, "two humans," gesturing at the other humans, "many humans. One spite, two spite, many spite?"

She shakes her head. "One Spite," she tells him, in whatever he's speaking. Then, in Kaltish - "One person, two people, many people."

He points to himself. "Person?" And to her. "Person? 'Person'" (in Kaltish) "is human?" (in Hari).

She nods. "'Human'" (in Hari) "is person, yes."

I'm a person.

You're not exactly a central example of the category. But yes, Spite, naturally I think you're a person.

She repeats most of the words she's given him in her language, gesturing appropriately - food, table, person, Imrainai, Spite, one, two, many. Counting seems like a good basic thing to start with, so she gives him the other numbers, too, up through ten.

He repeats all those words. His accent is pretty bad.

"One Imrainai, many people. One Mahan, many people. One Spite, many...?"

She shakes her head. "One Spite. Uh, one bowl, two bowls, many bowls," she says, gesturing, trying to indicate that she gets the idea. "But one Spite."

If they were discussing this somewhere that wasn't the middle of the dining hall, then she might admit that Spite was a dragon and that the plural of dragon is dragons, but that doesn't seem like a wise thing to do at the moment, and he's not really a proper dragon anyway.

Poor lonely Spite.

He tentatively repeats all the Kaltish numbers up to ten. "Ten one? Ten two?"

She gives him eleven and twelve, then up through twenty, then repeats them to him a few times until she thinks he has the numbers. She corrects his pronunciation several times, especially on the ones that she thinks would be incomprehensible out of context. That's probably enough words for one day, honestly.

"Sleep?" she asks, miming placing her head on a pillow. "Mahan sleep?"

He really really wants to ask some questions... but on the other hand there's no telling how long she'll let him sleep for and if he delays it to ask questions there's no guarantee that'll let him wake up later...

But on the gripping hand it's still afternoon in his time zone. He tries to explain time zones with an imaginary diagram that he traces with his finger on the tabletop. Look how different parts of this circle wake up at different times! And therefore go to sleep at different times!

Yeah that's clearly some kind of complex idea that he's trying to get at there. She's not at all sure what it is, but he sure is trying to get at it. Something to do with time.

"Not sleeping now," she says, giving him the chance to confirm it. "Now, one... two... three... later. Mahan will sleep later?"

"Mahan will sleep later. Uh..." Imrainai has at least ever heard all the relevant Hari words, so he tries explaining what he wants to know in Hari. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Death mages have twelve deaths," is not even slightly what he says but it sure is the obvious interpretation of those words with the knowledge Imrainai has so far. "Imrainai, twelve nurse?" He uses the Kaltish word she used earlier.

Do you have any idea what that means?

Means you can stab him eleven times.

You would have more friends if you spent less time being deliberately unhelpful.

"Imrainai is a nurse. Twelve what?"

Well, "what" is pretty clear from context.

"Nurse is what?"

"Nurse is - " she mimes bandaging someone and gestures in the direction of the other building. 

Oh, that's the Kaltish word for doctor, not the Kaltish word for her magic.

"In Har, Mahan nurse. In Har..." He holds up his left hand. "Har." He holds up his right hand. "Rainfold." He holds up his left hand and coughs softly. "Caralendar pox." He mimes trying to bite her. "Rabies." He tries to mime a seizure as unworryingly as he can. "Distemper." He makes a vague dismissive gesture with that hand and squares his shoulders. Like those are no problem. Then he holds up his right hand. He looks at his right hand like he's not sure what it is and whether it's going to bite him.

Ohhh. This can't be what he was trying to get at before, unless he was maybe saying that there were twelve specific diseases he knows how to cure? But whatever, if he wants a list of diseases then she can try giving him something to work with.

"In Rainfold," she says, and mimes vomiting. (She is not immediately sure how to mime terrible diarrhea.) "Cholera." She mimes struggling to breathe. "Blue Plague." She puts the back of her hand to her head and tries to mime something spreading from her armpits to her wrists. "Creeping fever. And many other diseases."

"Cholera. Blue plague. Creeping fever." He makes a dubious face. In Hari: "I need to recognize the germs I need to kill, now how do I tell you that. Do you even have germ theory." He mimes drawing something and looks plaintive. "Can I have some paper?" he asks in Hari, as if the words will do any good.

She doesn't have anything to draw with on her right now. She certainly doesn't have paper, though she can probably get a slate tomorrow without a problem. She mimes drawing on the table. "Now, no. Later, yes. Sorry."

...These people are poor. And Mahan is going to fix that! Somehow! He's not going to live in a place like this. He refuses. No.

Time to try explaining germ theory with their couple dozen words of shared vocabulary.

"Person, spite, yes. Bowl, table, no. Is what?"

She frowns, then nods. "Alive. Spite and people are alive. Bowl and table, not alive."

He has no way of demanding payment up front. He can maybe trust them to realize that someone who knows one thing might know two and someone who doesn't get paid for one favor doesn't do two. They're not essi.

"Caralendar pox, distemper, rabies, and many other diseases are alive. Cholera, blue plague?" He shrugs. Trying to suggest maybe. Probably. "Alive cholera." He cups his hands and mimes drinking from them. Then he mimes vomiting. "Not alive cholera." He mimes drinking and then doesn't mime vomiting. "Mahan... not alive." He makes a wild guess about which part of "other diseases" means what. "Many other alive not diseases. Many other alive..." Mahan smiles and makes a point of looking healthy. "Many other alive later not alive... person not alive. Many, many, many other alive not diseases. Many alive, person, Spite..." Mahan holds his hands out half a foot away from each other. "Diseases and many, many, many other alive..." Mahan brings his hands all the way together, hunches over, tries to suggest very tiny as hard as he can. "Diseases not alive, many other alive..." Mahan takes a breath, tries to think how to say it, gives up, switches to Hari. "Look, I can't explain sanitation in a language I don't speak. Please figure out that this is important enough to pay a translator."

She frowns and bites her lip. Definitely got the part about some diseases being alive? Somehow? Which I suppose is implied by the ability to kill them, but what does that even - very small alive things, was that it? That he kills?

Something like that. I dunno, they don't pay me to translate stuff.

Maybe someone would pay you for attempting.

You're cute. I take butterflies, no cash.

The lizard thing scampers off of Imrainai's head and over to Mahan. He places one very small foot on Mahan's hand and pauses, as though asking permission.

"Hi, funny thing!" he says in Hari.

This doesn't seem hostile, in any case. The lizard thing scampers up his arm and curls up on Mahan's head.

Not sure how to help this death mage, Spite expresses, in Hari. The words are clearly understandable and are also clearly not coming from anywhere else in the room.

What!

Okay.

What!!

You're telepathic! What! How!

Telepathic is what?

Telepathic is my thoughts, Mahan taps his head and points at Spite, in your head! Oh, now I can just show you what I wanted to draw!

He pictures tub of water. Alive cholera, he carefully thinks the Kaltish words. He pictures himself frowning at it for a minute. Not alive cholera. He pictures people drinking. He pictures the streets he walked through, but without lots of sick people.

I know this works! This is Har. He pictures Mar Geru in all its patchwork homeyness and grandeur, streets full of glossy-furred cat-people and tiny cute things and weird almost-humans with clear skin who walk like they're in no pain. No one is sick in the picture he shows Spite. You need a death mage to kill the diseases in your water! Or you can boil it! He pictures boiling water, people drinking it afterward, people not getting sick. And wash with soap! He pictures washing his hands with soap. Count yourself lucky I don't think it's worth trying to explain the fecal-oral disease transmission route without a shared language, you wouldn't like hearing it anyway.

You understand, right?

Well that sure is a thing. Whole lot of things, actually.

Spite understand. Tomorrow - an image of the sun rising, and of Mahan in front of the fountains - Mahan kill diseases. Later - an image of Rainfold with no sick people. An image of Mahan entering an extraordinarily tall building, speaking to the people there, gesturing at fountains. College will pay Mahan for information, he expresses, in Kaltish, over the image of the people in the building offering Mahan coins. Mahan yes?

Mahan yes!

Good! he thinks, before remembering that Mahan may not actually have the Kaltish word for 'good' yet. But eh, what the heck, if he repeats words like that then probably Mahan will pick them up from context. Thank you, Mahan. Tomorrow kill diseases. Spite sleep now.

He climbs off of Mahan's head and back to Imrainai. OK. He thinks the cholera is in the water and that he can kill it with his magic. He thinks boiling the water works, too, you should test it on your patients or something. I told him that if he could demonstrate a proof of concept and then take the idea to the College of Rainfold that they'd be willing to pay him for an explanation and a demonstration. He's a remarkably mercenary person but I guess if he fixes the water supply he'll've earned it. Also he claims he's from a frankly ridiculous place with a bunch of cat people and people with clear skin, but honestly I think we should put figuring that out on hold until he's solved cholera.

Makes sense. Or, uh, I guess we'll see if it makes sense. I will find you some butterflies. Somehow. But nice job.

"Spite and Imrainai sleep now. Mahan sleep now? Cholera tomorrow."

It's still been less than twelve hours since he woke up but whatever, gotta figure out the new time zone eventually. Sigh. "Mahan sleep now."

She clears the dishes away and then leads him upstairs. He really should go to stay with the men's branch of her order, but their complex is over a mile away and it's late and he's a healer and he's from very far away and he might not be able to speak to anyone there.

She leads him to a small room with a bed, a dresser, a shuttered window, and a chamber pot. These are pretty much its only features. She gestures at the room. "Room. Later, Mahan paid, Mahan will sleep in Mahan's room. Now, Mahan will sleep here."

It takes him a minute to figure out what the chamber pot is for and then he's very annoyed that he'll have to reinvent plumbing. Don't they have plumbing. Isn't that what the fountains are. Maybe they... like having their own waste around? Maybe it's a cultural thing?

He tries to ask Spite where to dump it when it's full. He's sort of expecting that they just dump them in the street at this point.

Spite climbs up on his head and gets the question. 

He sends the image of Mahan dumping the chamber pot in the street, and then of Peth frowning. No. Very rude. He sends the image of a man with a cart coming to take the waste to the sea, at the mouth of the river that flows through the city. Better.

"This is why your water makes everyone sick," he mutters in Hari. "Good, thank you, Spite," he says in Kaltish. "Good, thank you, Imrainai."

And now he'll just. Lie awake trying to be tired this early. What a lovely world.

Thank you, Mahan. Spite will sleep here. It's not a question, he still doesn't actually trust the guy to stay out of trouble on his own.

He climbs off of Mahan and curls up on the dresser, where he sleeps.

She closes the door and leaves them alone. Annnnd now that she's given her room away she'll just, uh, find somewhere else to sleep. 

She heads back to the other building and replaces the chamber pots there with clean ones. She empties the full ones into the larger barrels that will be hauled to the sea in the morning. She cleans the dirty ones off with stagnant water, and then, struck with inspiration, boils the water, in case that'll actually make them cleaner somehow. While she waits, she sits with the patients who can't sleep, sometimes praying with them or adjusting their blankets in an attempt to make them more comfortable. One of her patients seems to have died since she was here last, so she calls another nurse to help her carry the body out to the cart in another part of the complex. All of the people with blood pox are feeling better now, though, so she sends them to a different room and tells them that they are welcome to go home in the morning. Mahan must have done something for them, she certainly doesn't have the power to cure it that effectively.

There are still people who need things when she gives up and heads upstairs again, and the nurses still on duty can't realistically attend to them all. There will always be people who need things, and if she never ignored them then she would die down here, in this room, and would be unable to help any others.

She knocks on the door to a friend's room and explains that she's given her own away for the night. Her friend says that she is welcome to sleep on the floor, and so she sleeps.

They don't even have private places to sleep? Or maybe they just don't want to give Mahan any privacy. Wow. That goes on the list of ongoing humanitarian disasters to fix, right after waterborne disease and before indoor plumbing.

He lies awake being very still and cataloging the magic he's seen and the things they should be doing with magic but aren't. They do have illusion magic, they also have telepathy and maybe other kinds of magic that don't exist in Har, their knowledge magic seems to make people sick when they use it too long, they seem not to have death magic at all and if they have defense or sun magic he's guessing it's a lot rarer than it is at home.

He falls asleep several hours later. Being watched. While he sleeps.

Spite, being asleep, is honestly not doing very much watching. When he wakes up with the sunrise, he stretches and yawns and scurries out the window to look for butterflies. He doesn't find any. He does find some regular flies to eat, but they aren't very magical, so they don't make him feel tremendously better. After several hours he returns to see if Mahan has woken up.

Mahan wakes up a little late but not as late as he fell asleep. Having slept on it he feels better about everything. It's an adventure! In a terrible world he needs to fix before he can be comfortable. Maybe there'll be places to conquer or something.

By the time spite gets back he's just trying to figure out where he's supposed to go now.

Oh good. He goes in a different window and fetches Imrainai.

Then Imrainai will knock on Mahan's door.

"Imrainai! Good! Diseases now?"

- she was going to offer him food first, actually, but all right, if he's that eager to fix the water supply.

"Yes, kill diseases in water now? And then food later?"

"Yes, and then food later." He's not actually sure how to ask them to show him to all the fountains but presumably they can figure out that they need to do that. He hopes.

Imrainai can definitely show Mahan to all of the fountains! She knows her way around pretty well.

There are a lot of fountains, so this is probably going to take all day. They can at least hit the ones in this quarter of the city, and then they should eat food and come back to finish the job in the afternoon.

She remains super confused about where Mahan is casting his magic from, he can't have healed everyone with blood pox just from himself, but she's going to put that thought on hold until Peth comes back and reports on whatever she's found.

The fountains are tricky and probably no one here knows enough to appreciate what he's doing.

If he just fixed the water that was coming out of them then a minute later there'd be more tainted water. So he enchants the fountains to sterilize things that pass through them. And then he cleans any water already hanging out in the basins. As long as they don't need to replace anything the water'll be clean. ...The water'll be germ-free, he'll still be thinking about what's probably in it whenever he has to drink any.

He takes a couple minutes per fountain and doesn't seem to be visibly tired afterward.

Welp, hopefully he's not powering this with the souls of newborn babies or something. It doesn't help Imrainai's peace of mind that that isn't a ridiculous material for such a spell to consume, but she doesn't bring it up.

They honestly probably can't hit all of the fountains in one day. Maybe in two. In this half of the city there's a giant open-air market and lots of apartments and various businesses, as well as a section of town where most of the people are giants. It is not noticeably better or worse than the surrounding areas, though their buildings are fewer stories tall. 

Towards the end of the day they'll reach the center of town, where the queen's palace and the king's palace and the central square and the legislative forum are located. There are four fountains in the central square, each of them also a statue that depicts the a different person. There's a woman with a sword, a woman with a hammer, a man with a carved stone tablet, and a man whose hands are open and empty.

So there are other common species, besides humans and the one and only Spite. He's never met any giants before, at some point he'll have to figure out what they're like.

Who are those people, he wants to know. He tries asking Imrainai. "Fountain people?"

She's not sure she can explain this with the words she has, but they've shared a few more today, so she's willing to try!

"Arde, Tare, Cenric, Var," she says, pointing to sword, hammer, tablet, and the one with open hands, in turn. "They made Rainfold, many - " she frowns - "not later is earlier. Much earlier than now."

"Good! Making Rainfold is good." He points to Arde's sword. "What is that?"

"A sword."

"Thank you. What is a sword?"

She raises her eyebrows.

"Sword is - it cuts," she says, miming cutting into her own arm. "Very large knife. Kills people."

He sends Spite images of someone running toward him with a sword and being suddenly dead much farther than a sword's reach away.

"No swords in Har." And clearly no death mages here. Or any of the other kinds of magic that could beat anyone with a sword, no contest. Maybe they only have illusion and knowledge and telepathy.

Spite is still perched on Imrainai's shoulder and is totally unaware that anyone is trying to send him anything.

"None? No killing people, or other killing people?"

"Spite is sleeping?"

"Spite is - man, Spite, you explain yourself, that seems like your job."

She deposits Spite on his shoulder.

Spite nonverbally protests this, but not very hard. He climbs up onto Mahan's head.

Mahan has thoughts now?

Earlier I had thoughts! He repeats them. Spite didn't telepathy earlier. He borrows the Hari word for telepathy since he already taught it to Spite, but besides that he uses Kaltish.

Ah. Sorry. Spite telepathy when - an image of Spite curled up on Imrainai's head, then perched on Peth's shoulder with his head against hers, then curled up on Mahan's head. Not other times. Later Spite telepathy better. He sends the image of a massive dragon, flying through the sky and breathing fire at nothing in particular. Now Spite telepathy on head. Now Mahan wave when Mahan want telepathy. He sends an image of Mahan waving at him. Yes?

Yes. Thank you. Um, one Spite, not many Spite... so how can he know what he'll grow into, Mahan has no idea how to ask. Earlier, many Spite? He pictures a bunch of big dragons and then pictures them all dead and only Spite.

I think so. Other dragons much much earlier than Spite. He sends the image of the people from the fountains, with dragons flying in the sky above them. People scared of dragons, now dragons dead. Spite small now, Spite not scary. Mahan not tell people that Spite is dragon, so people not be scared. And Spite not tell people Mahan is death mage, so people not be scared of Mahan. Yes?

In Har, tell people "Mahan is death mage!" and people are not scared. Death mage is not diseases! He pictures the sign outside his office, people who wear the death magic symbol every day, people in a waiting room because they want to see him. In Har, agerah, he pictures some very big cats, people are agerah food. People are not scared! Agerah are mages. He pictures a human willingly handing over an injured toddler to an agerah force mage who stops the bleeding with magic while the blood that already covers the wound scabs over. He pictures agerah buying meat at a market. Rainfold people scared that dragons? Dragons scary?

Much much earlier dragons killed people. Much much earlier people killed dragons. Rainfold not kill dragons. Arde not kill dragons, Cenric not kill dragons, Var not kill dragons, Tare not kill dragons. Much much earlier, dragons in Rainfold. But now, no dragons. People not understand dragons. People scared when not understand. People not understand death mage. People think -

He sends the image of Mahan exactly where he is now, in the central square of Rainfold with Spite curled up on his head. Imrainai falls to the ground beside him, dead. The other people near them fall, and then people further away. The ones at the edges of the square scream in horror before falling silent and dying themselves, and then the square in the picture is silent, and he and Spite are alone.

So people scared.

Mahan sends him some images. The two of them trying to farm and not doing a great job. The two of them buying food from other humans. Mahan trying and failing to repair a building by himself. Paying someone else to handle upkeep.

Oh, and for good measure, he sends an image of himself singlehandedly clearing all the corpses out of the square. That would take kind of a while.

Sigh. Not tell people dragon, death mage.

Maybe Mahan and Spite tell people later. But not now. Yes?

Not now.

Gotta introduce these people to the concept of cooperation, too. Siiiiigh. At least Imrainai seems like she'll be pleased to find out that it's possible to treat other people as a valuable resource instead of an obstacle you just aren't strong enough to clear out yet.

Spite climbs down Mahan and back up Imrainai.

He's capable of killing arbitrary amounts of people and animals with some kind of magic. There may or may not be a range limit but if there is it's pretty far. I have no idea what his materials are. He could kill everyone in this city at any time, although it's possible that a few places like the college and the library or the undertaker's might be able to oppose him. He's not going to do it because he thinks trying to farm by himself sounds like a pain.

.......did he give a reason why he isn't going to attempt to take over the city?

Well he didn't really promise he wouldn't, see. Doesn't seem like a near-term plan but I really didn't want to bring it up.

Well that's, uh, good to know.

"Many more fountains in Rainfold. But late now." She points at the darkening sky. "Mahan sleep?"

Yeah fine he'll just brute force the time zones until he's tired at local sunset.

"Mahan sleep now. Later many more fountains."

She nods. 

She takes him to a different complex this time. "Mahan sleep in other room now. Women sleep in other building. Men sleep in this building."

"What are women? What are men?"

"Women are - Imrainai, Peth, Arde, Tare. Men are Mahan, Cenric, Var."

Huh, okay. "Spite is woman?"

"Spite is... Spite."

"Spite is in women building earlier."

"So were you!" Sigh. "Need more words later. Better for Mahan to sleep here, OK?"

"OK."

At some point he really needs an explanation of the sex segregation but it can wait. It's a little concerning, though.

Well, he'll sleep in the men's building, anyway.

"Thank you. Mahan want Spite here? Or no?"

Oh! It's a question. They think it's possible to want someone to watch you sleep. Mahan is a lot less offended now.

"No. Thank you."

"OK! More fountains tomorrow."

She talks to one of the uniformed men in the courtyard and explains the situation in broad strokes - Mahan is a healer, he's from very far away and doesn't know the language, he's a guest of the order but she can't keep him in the women's complex overnight (again), would they please keep him here and make sure he gets breakfast and his own room.

The man seems fine with this. He takes Mahan to a room that is about as bare as the last one, but this time there isn't a Spite in it.

"Thank you!" he tells the strange man.

He flops on the bed and thinks for a while and falls asleep faster than he did last night.

In the morning a different man knocks on his door and brings him breakfast on a tray. It's simple but it's warm.

"Thank you!"

Simple, warm, and sterile before he puts even one bite of it in his mouth.

It's probably for the best. When Mahan is done eating, the man attempts to explain that his friend is back. "You know Imrainai? Imrainai is here again."

"Imrainai!"

Maybe this man would like to show him where Imrainai is waiting?

The man will do this!

Imrainai is waiting in the courtyard. She appears to be here without Spite this time.

"Other fountains?" Mahan asks her.

"Yes!"

She shows him where all the other fountains are. She tries reviewing old words and teaching him more words on the way, pointing to objects and naming them. Street, cart, sign, adult, child.

He repeats every word she teaches him! He tries to get her to teach him words he'll need for talking about plumbing later. And people, he's pretty sure "person" is their word for humans and he needs a word for people.

It's disturbing that she hasn't tried to explain Rainfold's laws yet but he doesn't have a good way to ask about them. Yet. Which is probably why she hasn't tried explaining.

She can give him plumbing words with enough creative prompting, but the other concept he's looking for escapes her. If he asks her about giants then she'll cheerfully tell him that giants are also people, but since they're really very human this is probably not very helpful for resolving ambiguities.

She'd like to explain the laws and will definitely try if he asks, but that sounds hard, so if he doesn't then she's mostly going to hope that he can't get into too much trouble while being fairly constantly supervised by monks or nuns or Spite. And that he can figure out stuff like 'don't murder anyone' on his own.

He doesn't murder anyone today.

"Is Spite a person?"

She has to think about this, but not for very long. "Yes, Spite is a person."

There they go, then!

"Person is Spite and giants and...?" He gestures at the two of them.

"...humans? Giants and Mahan and Imrainai are all human. Spite is not human."

"Giant and Imrainai... uh," Mahan gestures at his crotch, "later child?"

She makes a face, though she doesn't think she actually endorses being offended under the circumstances. "Imrainai might die, but yes."

"How many people? Humans, Spite, other people?"

She bites her lip and seems to be talking to herself. "Hmm. Humans, dragons... zombies don't count, if you made them people somehow again they'd just be humans - much earlier, people say there were other people. But now, no. And people may be wrong."

A lot of that goes over his head but he sort of gets the part about humans maybe committing genocide against every other species. If these people ever come in contact with Har he's gonna want them to know how useful thwilit are to keep around, at least, but he doesn't know a Kaltish word for honey. Kaltish probably doesn't have a word for honey. Since they don't have thwilit, maybe because they killed them all.

"In Har, not human people, uh... sell food. Good food. Good, good, good food. Eat flowers and later..." Mahan mimes vomiting. "Good food."

Belatedly he realizes that maybe if you don't grow up with it eating another species' nectar vomit might sound gross. Oh well.

She looks amused. "Good food, but vomit later?"

"No, uh, not human people vomit, is good human food. Is... not disease vomit, is not-human people, hm, eat now and later." Hm, maybe they have livestock. Hard to be sure what she'll recognize. "You have not-people, uh, say moo or baaa," he tries to mimic the sounds precisely instead of using words, even onomatopoetic words, "eat, vomit, eat later? Is not moo, is not baa, is people. Is not..." He wrinkles his nose and grimaces. "Is good. Not human people sell."

This must sound absolutely insane but he's not backing down. This definitely happens!

Well now she's concerned that he's from somewhere where cows and sheep routinely eat their own vomit. (...do cows and sheep routinely eat their own vomit?) She frowns and then laughs. "Need more words!"

Maybe they can count on the Hari death mages to keep them safe. Since these people's idea of fighting is to try to cut each other with giant carving knives.

"Need more words," he agrees.

Oh no, now he looks worried. It must be a very important concept? Maybe if he has more words.

"Alive not-people are animals and plants. Moo and baa, animals." She points to a plant growing in a pot on someone's windowsill. "Plants."

"Thank you. ...Need more more words."

She nods. "Uhh... magic? Mahan kills diseases with magic?"

"Thank you! Magic. People are magic! Human people are magic! Not human people are magic! Animals are not magic, plants are not magic." Unless they're enchanted, but he has no idea how to say that yet.

She looks confused at this. She supposes it's true, since, after all, you can cast from just yourself. But you can cast from anything. "People are a little magic." She holds her fingers up to indicate 'a little'. "Animals, plants, less magic." She brings her fingers closer together. "Food, less magic than that. Streets, water, less magic. People use magic, but all things are used for magic."

"Used for magic? Used for magic is what?"

"Used for magic is... hmm. Peth had a tablet for saying things to Mahan, yes?" She holds her hands up and traces out approximately the size and shape of a tablet in the air.

"Oh! Yes! Used for magic is magic things? Talking tablet and not disease fountains, magic things?"

"No. ...yes. Maybe? But not - not the thing I'm saying. The tablet has a spell. It lets people do magic without understanding magic. But Peth - Peth vomited after using the tablet, yes?"

"Yes."

"Peth used Peth to cast the spell, to do magic. Peth is a little magic, so a little spell. Big spell, Peth vomit. Bigger spell, Peth hurt very very much. Very big spell - " she spreads her arms wide - "human can't cast by using human, not even if they die. Need to use other things. Mahan understand?"

"...understand a little... death mage," he uses the Hari word for this, "not use things. Death mage can cast by not using things."

"...wow," she says, and thinks that over. "That's very reassuring, actually."

"In Har, people cast by not using things," he says in Kaltish. "Death mage, heat mage, force mage, illusion mage," he says in Hari, because she can probably guess that he's listing different kinds of mage, "cast by not using things," he says in Kaltish. "A little spell, not using things. A big spell, eat food, cast a big spell from food."

Or a little one, technically, but the amount of food he needs for as much magic as he's doing lately is pretty negligible. The walking around from fountain to fountain is costing him more.

She nods, processing this. "Not in Rainfold, not in Kalt. In Kalt, any person cast magic, but need to use things." She frowns. "Mahan is very very sure - understands, very much understands, Mahan is not using things, now, in Rainfold?"

"Not very much understand Rainfold. In Har, little spells, people not understand. Later big spells, food food food, later people understand, cast using food. But little spells little little little, using..." gesture indicating an almost invisible amount. "In Har, little spells, not understand using. Later, big spells, understand magic is food. In Rainfold, little spells, not understand using things. Little spells in Har, not understand, later big spells in Har, understand. Maybe... big spell in Rainfold, understand in Rainfold?"

She rubs her temples. "If Mahan - if Mahan is using things in Rainfold without knowing, that's maybe bad. Maybe use a thing, important, big thing, and not know. I hadn't thought about - I don't know if you can do magic without understanding but if you can and it's Kaltish magic that's very bad."

"Big spell now and understand."

He stands still. All he's visibly doing is watching the sky but he sure does look serious about it.

Oh dear.

"...Mahan?"

"Big spell now and understand," he repeats. "If it's Kaltish magic and don't understand it's very bad."

"I don't understand Mahan now. If Mahan is using Kaltish magic and not understanding, then yes, bad, and we should talk to other people who understand more. And not cast big spells."

"If we cast a big spell now then we understand now. Understand if Hari magic. If not Hari magic, very bad. If Hari magic, not very bad. Very big spell, if Hari magic, can't not understand. If not understand, not Hari magic. Understand?"

"No, no, no no no. If you cast a big spell and it's Kaltish magic and you don't understand that you're using it then a bunch of people could die. Can we at least talk to Peth or the undertaker or someone first, I bet the undertaker knows whether you can cast from something without understanding it."

"People could die, that's bad?"

"That's very bad!!"

"What is very bad if people die?"

"The people are dead then! Can we talk to the undertaker now, please?"

"Yes."

But he's going to keep going with his spell on the way.

"Anyone could die," she mutters. "I could die, you could die, there's just - just don't do anything until we talk to him, OK?"

And she guides him back to the shop with the wheelbarrow sign. It takes a while, they were on the other side of the city.

He doesn't bother to tell her when he's sure his magic is working just the same as it usually does. He keeps testing it anyway.

He does look around for Peth.

Peth is totally here! She has a conversation with Imrainai that Mahan mostly won't be able to follow, and then she calls for the undertaker.

The undertaker is an extraordinarily old man; he looks like he might keel over and die at any time. He looks Mahan up and down, but doesn't bother to address him. "You want to know if he can be casting from something without knowing it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Can't be. Magic doesn't work like that. It's very deliberate and it follows set forms. What form does he use, speech? Dancing? Writing?"

"He, uh... he doesn't. He's dead silent and I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a tablet."

"Well, then he's not casting any magic I've ever heard of. Could have any rules at all. Or he could be telling a pack of lies. That's the most likely thing, of course. But if he were using our magic then he couldn't do anything with it by accident, it's not possible."

"Oh. OK. Cool. Thank you," she says, as the man ducks back behind his curtain.

"You are not killing people without knowing it," she informs Mahan. "Unless that's a thing that happened in Har, I guess."

"If I kill people I know it," he agrees. "More fountains?"

"Yeah but - can we go back to - if people die that's bad."

"It's pretty bad," Peth agrees.

"Spite said kill everyone is good."

"There is no way Spite said that."

"Spite said people don't understand not want to kill everyone. Spite said people think Mahan and Spite kill everyone. Spite said people don't understand I don't want to... the food, I want other people to give me food, I want other people to do the buildings nice. Spite said other people don't understand."

She looks like she doesn't know whether to be horrified or fascinated or amused. Eventually she rests her head in her hands and lets out something akin to nervous laughter.

"You poor thing. OK. When people are - very different, like you and like Spite, and very powerful - can do many things - people think they might not understand things everyone else understands. Everyone else understands that killing people is bad, OK? But you can kill many people and you don't understand everything, so they might worry that you don't understand that killing people is bad. And if you didn't understand you might kill people. Mahan understand?"

"Thank you. Killing people is bad. ...Don't understand everything, what other things are bad in Rainfold?"

"Uh." Oh man, how does she explain every possible bad thing, if Mahan can't come up with murder being bad on his own. "Might need more words. Theft is bad, taking things that are not yours. Going into other people's buildings without permission, bad. Hurting other people, hurting other people's things, bad. Dumping waste in the street or in the river, bad. Lying about a thing people pay you for, bad."

Oh, so they have a nice, civilized, reasonable code of laws. He'd sort of been expecting otherwise.

"What if child?"

"What if child what?"

"Child can't understand what things are bad. What if child does something bad?"

"Older child, like Peth, same as everyone else. Smaller child has parents. Small child without parents, child is taken to the ward orders and ward orders keep child out of trouble. Very bad thing with small child, courts decide."

"Parents is..." He mimes becoming increasingly pregnant and then holding a baby. "Yes? If parents don't want small child, take to ward orders?"

"Yes. Ward orders for children, eld orders for old people, poor orders for very poor, sick orders for people with diseases, mad orders for disease in thoughts. Imrainai is in sick order, cares for people with diseases."

At some point when he has more words he'll have to figure out why old people are on the list. Maybe he misunderstands the word? Maybe she specifically means senile people? There's no telling right now. "What order for bad things, killing, taking things, lying about selling things?"

"Cell order! Rainfold didn't have one, earlier. Now, if a person hurts someone or takes things, maybe hurt, maybe sent to cell order. Maybe better. Not sure yet."

"Rainfold does not have people? No, uh... words. In Har, things can be your things, people can be your things, taking your people is theft. No having people in Rainfold?"

She blinks. "Oh! No. No having people in Rainfold, no slavery. Other places have slavery. In Rainfold, all people, uh... people have themselves. So lots of people here, because people want to be sure they can have themselves."

"You mean you've been hanging out with him for like two days and you haven't even told him where he is?"

"I'm getting to it! Uh - in Rainfold all people are equal under the law. Mahan understands equal, understands law?"

"Law is things are bad in Rainfold, killing and theft and lying about selling things? Bad if I kill Imrainai or child or giant or bad person or Spite or everyone? Not, uh, bad if I kill Imrainai, good if I kill bad person?"

"Laws are - hm. Some things are bad but are not against the laws. Men sleeping in the men's building is not a law, order says it is good for them to do that but the government - king and queen, people who tell other people in Rainfold what to do? Government does not care, only order cares. And yes, bad if you kill anyone. It's against the law to kill anyone unless the courts have said."

"Teeechnically the king and queen can't just arbitrarily tell the citizenry what to do. But if you break the law - uh, if people do bad things the king will stop them."

"King is what?"

"You remember the fountain people? Arde was first queen of Rainfold. Cenric was first king. The queen - queen pays people to build things, to take care of city. The king makes sure people follow the laws and don't hurt other people, and makes sure people from other places don't hurt Rainfold."

He has so many questions and no words for most of them.

"Thank you. Person is not queen, later queen, later not queen? People say yes, person is good queen, say no, person is bad queen?"

"The queen says, this is a good person, says this person will be the next queen when the queen dies. If next queen is very very bad, king and many many people say queen is bad, not queen anymore. Most are queen until death."

"Huh. Thank you. In Har, uh, 'king and queen'" (he makes a wobbly gesture, they're not exactly the same thing) "not king and queen anymore, many people say 'this person will be the next queen' and, uh... one or two or ten people say this person, this person is not queen. Many, many people say this person, this person is queen. Can be 'queen' earlier, people say 'queen is good queen' or 'new person is good queen' and if many people say 'queen is good queen' then queen is queen more. If many people say no, new person, then new person."

She nods thoughtfully. "Makes sense. In Rainfold, good to have one queen for a long time. But also good that if very bad queen, not queen later."

"Yes, good for Rainfold. Imrainai said king makes sure other places don't hurt Rainfold. Other places?"

She nods. "Other places are - Rainfold is a city? Other cities. Different kings or queens in different cities. Not both king and queen, Rainfold has a king and queen but other cities don't. Dagnyfell is a city, Alkarra is a city, Regnas is a city. A few cities, maybe."

"Regnas is bad!"

"Regnas is... Rainfold is better."

"Other places is bad. Har is... words. Water," he says, making a big expansive gesture. "Not water." He indicates a squarish shape with both hands. "Not water is Har. No other places. No other places hurt Har, no killing. Is good, better than Rainfold. Later Rainfold and no other places?"

"...there have to be other places. Har is an island? Water all around? Peth - "

She gets Peth's slate, and draws a square with some trees on it surrounded by waves for water. "Har is an island?"

"Yes. Har is an island, no other places, water all around. Earlier Har is many cities, one island. Now other places are Har. Earlier many cities hurt other cities, now one Har, no cities hurt other cities. Not scared, better than Rainfold."

"So the water makes it harder for other places to hurt you, that's good. But Rainfold isn't an island."

That's... missing the point.

"Earlier, one island had Har, Anavel Sani, Thervigenia, Republic of Anemone Bay, Ethornak." Mahan mangles most of those names as badly as he mangles Kaltish but it's not like Imrainai can tell. "Now Har is Har and other places. Now Ethornak is Har. Now Thervigenia is Har. Now Anavel Sani is Har, has Hari law, doesn't hurt other Hari places. Earlier, many places hurt many other places. Har hurt other places more. Har took places that weren't Har's. Now places are Har's. Rainfold hurt other places, take places, make other places have Rainfold law? Later Rainfold an island, no other places?"

"Ohhh." Pause. "Then we'd have to kill a bunch of people, though. And one king and queen can't rule all of the other places, other places are far away and they wouldn't understand things that happened there. Or would understand much later. Too late to do anything."

"Maybe king and queen choose a little king and little queen, little king and queen in other place, understand earlier, do anything earlier."

"Maybe? Could be better for some places. But - if you fix the water and kill the diseases, if you make Rainfold very good, more people will want to work with Rainfold without being hurt. Fewer people die."

"Say you can have Rainfold fountain water if you have Rainfold law?"

"Maybe! Better than killing people."

"Killing Rainfold people is bad. Killing other place people is bad?"

"Yes! Sometimes - if people hurt Rainfold, need to hurt them, maybe. But better not to."

"Yes. Hurt people who hurt Rainfold, don't hurt people who don't hurt Rainfold, maybe people don't hurt Rainfold. Thank you saying Rainfold law. More fountains? Talk to queen and king?"

"More fountains first. But - augh, other laws." She thinks about trying to explain all of the laws herself in his limited vocabulary and - nah, nope. "You still have that translation tablet, Peth?"

"Yeah, but it really hurts and I'm not gonna give you a book to burn for it."

"I'll cut it off early," she says, although honestly she is way more in favor of throwing up after this than of trying to explain Rainfold's legal code in charades. She gets Peth to give her the tablet and tell her the activation words, and then -

" - I'm giving this, like, two minutes, is it working?"

"I understand you."

"Good. Rainfold's laws are simple but given the givens it would be negligent not to at least attempt to spell them out. If you're not planning to start a business or buy land or become a government official or have any children in the immediate future, then probably all you need to know is don't steal, don't trespass, don't defraud anyone, don't damage the property of others, don't dump waste in public or in the river, don't assault anyone - I am not going to define assault perfectly but anything that could injure someone is out of bounds - don't kill anyone, don't kidnap anyone, don't verbally threaten anyone, don't grossly disturb the peace, don't rape anyone, don't use necromancy. Do you need any of those concepts explained."

"Rape and necromancy?"

" - well then. Necromancy is the branch of Kaltish magic associated with death. I am almost but not entirely certain that your magic does not count, and since you're using it responsibly I expect that no one will be inclined to use an uncharacteristically expansive definition of the term, but it is illegal. Rape is having sex with anyone who didn't unambiguously tell you that they were all right with having sex with you. You're gonna want to err on the safe side of that."

"Thank you. Now that you know more about what I can do do you think healing and water treatment are still the best use of me?"

"I think that if you're right about where our diseases come from, then sterilizing the water is the best thing you can do for the city in the immediate term. It's also a great first step for getting actually important people on your side, which you'll need if you really want to go about conquering other cities. If you were less powerful I would probably be spending more effort trying to convince you that you shouldn't do that, but given the givens I'm just going to try to give you the information you need to do whatever you're going to do without getting completely ridiculous numbers of people killed in the process. And without running off and trying to conquer the rest of Kalt for someone less, ah, committed to the concept of human rights."

"Why shouldn't I do that? And what are human rights?"

" - oh God help us. I don't have time for the first argument, suffice it to say that I am against killing people and that good intentions don't generally prevent people from committing unconscionable atrocities after they've embarked on a quest to unite a continent with bloodshed. If you are set on uniting the continent then you should at least attempt to do so through nonviolent means, with your powers I bet you could make some real headway. Human rights are the concept that everyone should be able to expect certain things while living in their society, like - like not being randomly murdered or enslaved, people should have a right to not be randomly murdered or enslaved. If you conquer the continent for Rainfold you'll at least have a shot at ending up with a society where people are mostly free and mostly safe; if you head next door and conquer the continent for Regnas then we all go back to men legally owning their wives and unmarried daughters. Which is stupid, so don't do that."

"Right, have to make it nice so people don't rebel. I'll defer to your government about how and when to get Rainfold in control of the world. Any chance you could use me for materials so we can talk longer?"

"Well that's heartening, thank you for that. And I seriously doubt that it works like that, but if we can somehow exploit your - whatever it is you do - to get infinite materials for Kaltish magic then that would be pretty great, we should at least test it. Probably it won't work and it'll make you a little sick. I would genuinely love to spend hours figuring out all the concepts you don't have, but I think that was more than two minutes and wow I hope I don't regret this conversation. I don't think I will but - augh."

She takes her hand off the tablet and - yep, she feels horrible now, she's going to duck into the back for a bit and hope there's something bucket-shaped around.

"She's bad at not talking," Peth informs him.

Sigh.

These people just have the worst world. They're as clever and hardworking as anyone in Har and they just don't have any resources and they have too much land and too many people for all of them to cooperate.

And now he can't ask them if there's anything he can do to pay Imrainai back for talking to him. He gets that it's just because she'd be in trouble if he broke a law and she can't just stop him. It still feels like a favor.

"Talking was good. Thank you."

She nods. "Nobody knew any of your languages. Nobody who'd talk to me, anyway. I think there are things that are less costly than the translation tablet, but I need to talk to more people to find out what they are. - I don't know if you understand all those words, you probably don't?"

"Don't." Sigh. "Understand everything later. Other people don't understand Kaltish, come to Rainfold, want to understand Kaltish, do what?"

"I think mostly you pick it up on your own or you go to the poor orders, unless you have money to pay someone to teach you. But you don't wanna go to the poor orders. They try to help but they don't have enough people. Imrainai's order taught her, but for a long time she couldn't really talk to anyone."

And when he's done fixing their diseases and getting them indoor plumbing he's going to have to reinvent public language education.

Sigh. "More fountains, more words?"

"Yeah. I can't today, though, I gotta work. ...I guess Imrainai was gonna help you but I guess she might be out of commission for a bit. You want to go with Spite?"

"Spite is good!"

"OK then!"

She makes her signal whistle again.

A couple minutes later, Spite crawls in through a window and climbs up to Mahan's head.

Mahan needs Spite?

Spite! Need more fountains and more words.

Spite knows words and fountains!

He can pretty easily direct Mahan to the locations of the remaining fountains, especially once he gives Mahan the words for 'left' and 'right' and 'forward'. After that he's happy to show Mahan pictures and name them, or give names to whatever Mahan pictures.

Mahan wants so many words. He seems to think he can learn dozens in a day.

He enchants the fountains and tries to ignore how hungry he is from secretly testing his magic earlier.

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.

He thanks Spite. He learns Kaltish. He enchants fountains. So many fountains.

Eventually all of the fountains have been enchanted! It's pretty late in the day by this point.

That's the last fountain. Do you have more plans now?

Talk to queen? Talk to Imrainai, maybe Imrainai say talk to queen, maybe say other thing?

Imrainai, I think. I guess she probably went back to the order. Probably needs permission to spend another day on this, but probably she can get permission.

Imrainai needs permission? No slavery in Rainfold, she said.

No slavery, no. But if the order members just go wherever they want and don't talk to each other, there won't be enough people to look after the sick.

Oh! I understand. Probably she can get permission, this is less sick people.

Yeah, I think so. But it's important to tell people. Do you want me to take you back to the men's building and come back with Imrainai tomorrow?

I want that. Thank you, Spite. Do you want things? You showed me words and fountains.

Hmmm. I need butterflies right now but I'm not sure how you'd get any. He shows him a picture of a butterfly. Maybe when you have money. 

Butterflies. Hm. Alive?

I'll eat them dead but alive is way better. 

I don't know if I can get butterflies. Maybe.

It's OK if you can't! Just if you happen to see any.

He leads him back to the building where he slept last night.

And he can sleep there again tonight if they're okay with that.

He keeps an eye out for butterflies or nets for sale on the way.

There aren't any obvious butterflies. There are stores that might sell them, but neither of them has any money right now.

The monks recognize him and are happy to put him up for the night again.

He'll just have to figure out money after he solves all this place's problems.

Well. He sleeps even earlier this night. He'll be on the local schedule in no time.

The monks feed him breakfast again. 

Imrainai is waiting for him in the courtyard outside, this time with Spite.

"Hi, Imrainai and Spite! What is today?"

"Today we go to the college. I'm not exactly sure what we're going to do there, but I have some friends who can probably point us in the right direction."

"What is college?"

"The college is the really really tall building you saw earlier," she says, starting off in the right direction. "It's where - hm - many people go there to tell other people things that they know, so that other people will understand them."

"Many other people... maybe understand me?"

"...maybe. We'll see. They won't know your words right now, but maybe you can tell them and maybe you can help them understand what you do with diseases."

"I can tell them some things. They can't understand other things, I need more Kaltish."

"Yes. But they might be better at teaching you than I have been."

She leads him towards the college.

The college is a single very large, incredibly tall hexagonal building at the edge of town, looking out over the ocean. There are two fountains and about two dozen marble statues at its main entrance, and the walls of its enormous entrance hall are covered in huge, ornate mosaics. Most of the people here wear simple robes, not unlike Imrainai's, though there are also obviously wealthy people, a few men (and the occasional woman) in leather armor, and there are still plenty of people in rags.

Impressive. Places that look like this at home are usually old government buildings, so maybe that means the college is an arm of the government here.

He'll just go to whichever part of this place Imrainai points him to.

She leads him to a central courtyard, where there's a hole in the center of the building that goes all the way up to the sky. There are four large platforms here, going up and down at staggered intervals. They serve all floors above the first ten; lower than that, and you have to take the stairs. The stairs might well be faster, given that the elevators stop at every floor, but that doesn't mean you want to walk up and down twenty-six flights of them every day.

They get off at floor thirty-two, if he's counting. The walls here are mostly painted murals. They pass a few doors and then enter the back of a relatively small and cramped lecture hall, which contains a few dozen students. A woman at the front of the hall is sitting on one of the tables, lecturing. She nods, but doesn't otherwise acknowledge their entrance. A few students turn and stare, but none of them say anything.

He'll let Imrainai be the one to figure out whether to interrupt the lecture and how to tell these people why she brought him here. He listens for words he already knows, but he's not optimistic about that.

It's pretty technical; he'll be able to catch a lot of prepositions, but will miss most of the content. He'll catch the word 'words' several times. Imrainai doesn't interrupt, though the professor seems to have lost at least a fifth of her students. There's not very much more of class left, anyway, and after a few minutes she dismisses them and waves her guests to the front. Almost none of the students actually leave. 

The professor retrieves a silver dish and a rolled-up scroll from her bag, says a few words, and lights the scroll on fire with a small flame that shoots from her hand. A murmur goes through the lecture hall. The professor ignores it and touches her hand to an exquisitely inscribed bracelet on her arm.

"So," says the professor, in what he will hear as Hari, "I understand that you're Mahan, and that you come from a land called Har."

He hopes that scroll is being sacrificed instead of someone getting sick again. "Yes and at home I'm a doctor and we have an understanding of disease that you don't seem to. Where I'm from most people die of old age or violence or magical accidents, infectious disease outbreaks are usually contained before they reach more than a few dozen people, individual cases of infectious disease are usually cured within a day, and some of that could be replicated without magic if you made good use of heat and soap. There are probably other things you could benefit from knowing but that's probably the best use of limited translation magic."

"I appreciate your concern for our people and our resources," she says, smiling. "I'm Chavi, a member of the linguistics department. We're interested in creating a comprehensive record of your language, for academic purposes. It sounds like the college of medicine will also have a lot to talk to you about, once we can talk to you through nonmagical means. We've got several more minutes of this spell, anything you've been dying to say?"

"The type of thing infectious diseases are is a type of thing that also helps you digest food and stay healthy. Everyone has lots of different kinds of this thing, microorganisms, and one of the reasons I can't heal everyone is because I don't recognize some of the microorganisms here, so I can't tell the local cholera from the way people here digest plants. If I could see lots of healthy people and lots of people with an infectious disease I'd learn how to fix that disease. And to a first approximation this only works for the kind of diseases that cause epidemics. Can you pass that on to Imrainai?"

"Of course. Paper," she says to one of the students, who pulls a roll of paper out of a bag for her. Chavi begins taking notes. "Doubtless the medical department will have countless questions for you, but I'm sure they'll be happy to begin with a simple explanation and a demonstration and then go from there."

"I'm willing to demonstrate things. Are you one of the linguistics people?"

"We all are, to varying degrees," says Chavi. "You came in at the tail end of a grammar lecture. I hope the dozens of observers don't bother you, it's not every day they get to see translation magic in action. I'm sure they do see foreigners every day, though I imagine most of them are not quite so obvious."

"Yeah, I think I'm from another planet. So what if we use some translation time for one of us to explain grammar, I can explain mine or you can explain yours. Might be faster than trying to go from examples?"

"That's possible," she says. She is, conveniently, very good at explaining Kaltish grammar, and is also good at asking questions that lead to a working understanding of the basics of his own.

He's not a linguist and even though he knows three languages two of them are really heavily influenced by the third. He seems to expect her to need to be told that the different vowels contrast with each other and doesn't seem to expect her to need to be told that numbers go before the thing they count.

He does his best to come up with mnemonics for Kaltish grammar.

She's able to get a list of examples that work for her pretty quickly, though it still takes some amount of time to cover the basics. She stops with about five minutes left and asks him if there's anything else he'd like to communicate in the remaining time.

"People here care a lot less about privacy, is it possible to get any protection from scrying?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Perhaps. I'm not aware of anyone who knows how to counter scrying, but the college is probably about the best place to look for it, if an enchantment exists. I'd try the divination department."

"Thanks."

Yet another ongoing humanitarian disaster. Yay.

"Mhmm. Scrying is costly and therefore rare in the first place, so it might be tough going. Good luck, though."

That is... barely better. This fucking world.

"I guess that's good. Anything else?"

"Not from me. You have a place to stay in the city?"

"I've been staying with the sick order."

" - ah. We can set you up in the dorms, if you'd prefer. I expect it would be nicer, and probably more convenient if you expect to do a lot of business with the college."

"I should ask Imrainai if she thinks that's a good idea."

"Suit yourself," shrugs Chavi. "What do you think, Imrainai, should we set Mahan up in the dorms?"

"That would make sense, if you can get him in for free," says Imrainai. "He'll want his own room."

"Fine, fine. She says you'll want your own room."

"I will, yeah."

He glances at Imrainai, trying to see if she looks worried or betrayed. Not that he's sure what they said, he's not great at Kaltish.

Maybe slightly worried, though not any more than usual. Perhaps she looks a little more blandly neutral than she's been with him.

"We can arrange that," says Chavi, and then hops off the table. "We're about out of spell, so if that's all, I'll discuss things with the college of medicine and get you formally registered and leave you and, ah, Imrainai to sort out anything else that needs sorting out."

So Chavi's trying to steal him from Imrainai. After she helped him. Uh-huh. Letting Imrainai lose out on whatever reward she was expecting will send a terrible signal to anyone who might think of doing him a favor in the future, but he's not sure what to do about that now. Get rich and then pay her later, maybe? But there's nothing he can do about it right now except turn Chavi down.

"Thank you, I think that's all."

"All right!" she says, cheerfully, before shooing her remaining students out the door and then heading out herself.

"So. Will you stay at the college?"

"Will staying at the college hurt you?"

She considers. "No. It will make it more effort to visit. More effort to be here to explain things. But I think it will be good for you."

"I will stay at the college if it doesn't hurt you."

There are more questions he'd ask if he could but he can't.

"All right!"

She has no intention of giving up on babysitting him, regardless of how complicated the logistics get. If the circumstances were less dire, then she would have to think very hard about her duty to the order and how likely she is to be of continued use to Mahan or to the city. Given that at last check-in he was still bent on world domination, though, she feels like it would be pretty irresponsible to neglect the situation. 

She handles checking him into the living quarters in the middle of the tower, since Mahan's vocabulary is still pretty limited. The room he's assigned to isn't particularly large, but it's private, and it has a writing desk and a dresser with some robes in it in addition to the bed.

"Do you need anything else now?"

"Not now. Do you need anything?"

Such a consistently thoughtful budding warlord. "Not now. Well, not from you. I need to talk to people from the other orders."

"Thank you."

He shuts the door in her face and flops on the bed.

Imrainai heads off to figure out whether there are any novice sisters currently staying at the college who could possibly cover for her at the sick order compound. The college has an infirmary staffed by members of her order, and with some creative reshuffling of schedules and assignments, she might be able to stay here as many as four days a week, though of course she will often be occupied with other things.

She checks what Mahan's schedule is expected to be. She discusses with a trusted member of one of the word orders how long it's likely to take for the queen (or, for that matter, the king) to notice any of this. 

Spite climbs in through Mahan's window about an hour after dawn.

An hour after dawn Mahan is doing pushups. He stops and grins when he sees Spite.