"Maybe not. We use wands to do stuff including healing and levitating stuff and turning things into other things, what do yours do?"

"People can use wands but don't have to, what they do have to have is a spellbook. Wizards are prepared casters, they decide in the morning what spells they have access to. They learn spells through study, you have to be smart to be a wizard and more intelligent people are better at it."

"Smart people are often better at magic but don't... have to decide what spells we can do in the morning? That sounds very limiting. We have textbooks and references but not 'a spellbook'."

"Is your kind of magic hereditary?"

"Yes, usually."

"Huh. I think we call those sorcerers."

"We use that word too but not nearly as often."

"If you don't have clerics, do you know of your gods?"

"Wizards as a culture are not very religious."

"Clerics get their power from one of the gods. I'm not - very sure that's responsive to what you said but it seems like an important piece of context."

"I guess gods would seem pretty likely to exist if they gave you magic you wouldn't otherwise have."

"Is it unclear to people here if any gods exist?"

"People manage to be awfully confident about it but that's how I'd describe it."

"The people who think there's any usually think it's just one, at least around here."

"Oh. Well, there's dozens but maybe only one who is active here, or none who are active here and legends about one."

Elsewhere:

"I want to see my brother in law."

"Which one?"

"The one I have to ask permission about, if I wanted Masaharta I know where to find him and if I wanted Telcar I'd just be out of luck, now, wouldn't I."

"It'll be conveyed to the pharaoh that you asked."

"It's time-sensitive."

He frowns at her assessingly. 

"- it'll be conveyed immediately."

"Thank you." Pace pace.

He enters a few minutes later. The guards prostrate themselves. 

"Ismat. And... Baqir."

One guard stays. Everyone else leaves. 

From the floor: "Your grace, Merenre just vanished without a trace in front of my eyes, I think the obvious explanation is an inside job since that's supposed to be impossible through the dome and ought to be damn hard from inside, and I think the obvious reason is someone's got it in for you and means to fiddle with the succession first."

" - huh. Stand up. Get Eisa and Hamid," he adds to the guard. "Did you see anything else -"