"Are they impossible to control? At all difficult to destroy? What I'm getting at is, would you be offended at the idea of summoning exactly one long enough for me to get a good look at it before killing the thing?"

"Possession of those candles is illegal, waking shadows is illegal, and I don't recommend talking like that around the other paladins."

"I figured as much." Silent staring-at-landscape time.

And eventually here is a campus of paladin-related buildings with walls around it, near a small city. Kaja lands.

And Nick clambers off. "What kind of things does one do for a living around here?"

"In the compound? One is a paladin or a novice or a retired paladin. Elsewhere? Farmers and shoemakers and moneylenders and stonemasons and carpenters and innkeepers and such things."

"Which leaves me wondering how I will afford food and raw materials and such. None of the devices I described to you can be built from nothingness."

"Well, there are the moneylenders I mentioned."

"But the question is, will they trust someone with strange devices promising unheard-of benefits enough to deem it worth the risk of me taking their silver and never being seen again? I suppose there's only one way to find out."

"You can show them the devices you do have," she points out.

"I think I will go find a moneylender, then." His computer can absorb enough of the language to be going with, in an hour of wandering around. "Thanks again for the ride."

"...You don't speak Cirth, do you?"

"Not yet. My computer will pick it up well enough in a few hours, I suspect."

"...Computers can do that?"

"Yes. It's not perfect, though. And I'm missing three-quarters of the gear I would have for learning a new language under ideal circumstances. And it won't give me the language, not yet, it'll just be a sort of translator."

"Huh. Still, more efficient than having even a retired paladin follow you around."

"If you'll come talk to the Bright Sister I will be able to offer you the use of the campus cafeteria for the time being, at a minimum."

"It seems polite to explain myself to her, to the extent that I can, since you've just ferried me into her compound."

"I'll get my armor off first and see to Ragnar if you don't mind waiting."

"Not at all."

Nick has been standing in a corner, doing computer things. He follows. "Any rules I should know?"

"Be polite, call her Sister - that should cover it, more or less."

He nods. "Let's go, then."