"I agree. I don't have a way to get them out - there are daeva whose power is moving things the way mine is making them, but the Maiar aren't things in the right way, I believe."

"Do daeva have a limitation around magic?" Leareth is frowning. "There is a way in which something made purely of magic – a shield, for example – is a 'thing' to a mage, but not to the un-Gifted." 

"Uh, I don't think fairies do, since a fairy can move another fairy pretty trivially and fairies themselves are magic. But are still concrete objects that are at least pretending to be made of atoms. But I can't make magical things, and I'm not sure about angels."

“I see. Our magic can definitely locate objects or entities that are magical but lack a material form. Summoning extraplanar entities could be considered comparable. Of course, I am not certain that Maiar would register to mage-senses or a search spell, since they are not of our world. How feasible would this be to test?”

"The surviving Maiar are a five day journey away. Also I'm pretty sure they all at least one of hate me or are evil."

"Reasonable, I suppose. Some of them are evil - what do you mean by that? What are their goals?" 

"Worked for Melkor of the massive-scale torture and warmongering in various capacities."

Nod. "And what are they doing nowadays? I am not sure whether to expect them to be relevant, or interfere in plans we carry out." 

"The two nonevil ones I know about have respectively stopped participating in the operations of the country she's queen of so it doesn't have a forcefield any more, and been howling constantly to the dismay of everyone in earshot. The evil ones were covered by the oath I demanded of Melkor, I checked them all before I holed Valinor."

"I see. Well, perhaps if we do need to speak to them, they will object less to Vanyel or myself. I suspect it makes sense to consider potential plans in detail here, first, before committing to a five-day journey away from this place. I have some fledgling ideas of how Valdemaran magic might be applied; it sounds as though you do as well. Your letter had mentioned my theoretical musings on modifications of the Gate spell?" 

"Yeah, for getting them out of the hole. I'm pretty sure an angel removing the hole would not work because Melkor would've thought of that, my guess is they'd kill all the Ainur there more thoroughly in the process, so it'd have to work while there continues to be a black hole there."

"I am guessing that raising an ordinary Gate to the inside of the black hole would not work?" Leareth's lips twitch. "Even if it were safe and in any way a good idea to attempt, which I assume it is not." 

"It probably isn't but I'm not sure. What's the greatest distance ever Gated?"

"About a thousand miles. That was starting from a permanent threshold, which has its own power source so does not drain the mage using it as much. I suspect greater distances are possible in theory, if there were places more than a thousand miles distant where it made sense to go, which in Velgarth there generally have not been." 

"Then you might not have noticed stepping through the gate a change in the direction of gravity or how it applied through the gate; it'd be more conspicuous if you did about six times that distance at least."

“I am not sure if this is comparable, however, it is possible to raise a Gate such that the two termini are perpendicular. This is not generally useful in practice, but, for example, one could jump down into a horizontally oriented Gate and emerge sideways from the more conventionally angled terminus. This is experienced as a change in the direction of gravity.”

"But that change of gravity isn't propagated across?"

“Not that I have ever remarked on, no. A difference in air pressure due to altitude is also not conveyed across as wind. Though it is also disorienting if one is crossing, and uncomfortable if the difference is significant.”

"Then it might be safe, but I'd want to test it with a magnet-contained pinhole and the other end of the gate not near anyone before trying it on the Valinor hole."

Leareth nods. "I agree, I would wish to confirm this with a test using as many precautions as possible. However, in the world where it does prove safe, there is still the problem of efficacy. Certainly it would not be safe for one of us to cross into the black hole to retrieve the Maiar, and it seems unclear that they would be able to cross on their own, even if their area-of-effect is usually mobile." 

"Uh, a black hole can't hurt me, I just couldn't do anything useful once there."

"Does 'anything useful' include getting out again?" 

"I can do that too, actually, but it requires some rigmarole and abuse of my indestructibility and I've never done it so it might take a few tries."

"...I confess, I am very curious how that would be done." 

"I'm indestructible. I'm not invulnerable, I can get a papercut, but if you stabbed me with a sword it'd do about a papercut's worth of damage. So, near a black hole, I'd feel very heavy, and have a hard time moving around, but I wouldn't be in danger. And what counts as 'I' is somewhat controllable. The specific thing I'd do if I fell into a black hole would be I'd make a structure of keratin connected to one of my existing nails, surrounding the black hole and projecting out from it, until I was far enough away to get away by flying or something. Then I could disconnect the excess and it'd collapse into the black hole."