The Ardelay twins loiter in the palace for a few days, then fall back to the Chialto house, in plenty of time to receive any prompt reply to the correspondence Kiri sent out when they arrived in the city.
"...Scuffed my shoe on a corner of a table leg," offers Kiri. "That's a lot to sort out but it's more just available than it is intrusive or even particularly distracting. I can get sort of a - summary - of the whole thing without it taking up that much more of my attention than I use on other people, but getting detail requires focusing, it's like you're a complicated moving painting. It might be harder to affect how much or little attention I'm focusing on you if you were closer, but this range would do if you wanted to communicate something to me, I can definitely spot at a glance the general outline of what your primary attention is on."
'Corner of a table leg' fits in the general category of explanations that Sarelle was favouring. She nods and files the information away, along with the knowledge of how far away her hand was when Kiri reacted to reading her. She is pleased that it's not overhwelming; this way seems more convenient for, as Kiri suggests, communicating things. (She is also pleased that she is noticeably different from most people; it's a direct confirmation of a theory that she could not previously have confirmed.)
"My sample size isn't huge. There's a bigger gap between you and anybody I've read before for long enough to register observations other than 'oh crap', than there is between any two of those people, but that's only about a dozen other subjects," cautions Kiri.
While it is useful to know that this evidence is not as strong as it could be, the fact that it supports her otherwise well-established and verified-to-the-extent-previously-possible theory is still a worthwhile confirmation.
She skates her attention around in the supplied warmth. It's very absorbing; she could probably be not-bored for the entire carriage ride if Sary cares to remain within range for that long.
Sary is presently wondering whether there is still worthwhile information to be obtained from this experiment, since she does not care to hold her hand out like this indefinitely. She concludes that there doesn't seem to be, but waits to see if Kiri has any comment to make.
She produces a notebook and starts scribbling cipher in it. After a moment she pauses. "Ekador has a perfect visual memory and for this reason has been avoiding looking at even my ciphered writing - I don't think you're quite the same situation, but all the same should I avoid displaying it in your direction?"
"Yes. My visual memory is not perfect, and I wouldn't memorize it on purpose, but given enough exposure it's possible I could partially solve your cipher. It might be prudent to avoid that exposure as much as possible."
"Okay." She draws up her knees and secures her notebook on them, pointed well away from Sarelle. "Very interesting batch of primes we have now," she murmurs.
The moat is very pretty. Loel contacted the people Kiri recommended, and the result is a deep, broad channel circling his estate, walled and floored in the same yellow stone as the house within and the mountain on which it all rests. The water in the channel is so clear that someone standing on the edge can look down through all fifteen feet of it and see the rippling patterns lightly etched into the stone blocks on the bottom. It is thirty feet across, and the single wooden bridge is twenty feet wide, anchored at either end by thick chains but left to float freely in the water. The whole thing could reasonably be called decorative... but that bridge looks like the kind of thing a coru prime might have designed to be swept away at need.
When they arrive, they will find Loel sitting at a little table in his garden, next to the path that leads from the bridge up to the house, playing with envelopes. Mercifully, there seems to be no blood involved this time.
She picks one up and inspects it. It seems to have been dyed a faint blue, shading lighter and darker in places according to no particular pattern. When she opens it, the slip of paper inside shows the same pattern, and is just slightly stuck to the inside of the envelope.
There are a few with wax seals (some imprinted with the symbol for coru, which is the standard Lalindar seal, some with luck instead) and no outwardly visible markings; a few more that are like the first one, but with different patterns, the blue fainter or more vivid. One of the sealed ones is open, with a small spot of warped paper just under the cracked seal. Sarelle inspects it curiously and then picks up one of the other sealed envelopes and sniffs it.
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While it is useful to know that this evidence is not as strong as it could be, the fact that it supports her otherwise well-established and verified-to-the-extent-previously-possible theory is still a worthwhile confirmation.
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She skates her attention around in the supplied warmth. It's very absorbing; she could probably be not-bored for the entire carriage ride if Sary cares to remain within range for that long.
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She produces a notebook and starts scribbling cipher in it. After a moment she pauses. "Ekador has a perfect visual memory and for this reason has been avoiding looking at even my ciphered writing - I don't think you're quite the same situation, but all the same should I avoid displaying it in your direction?"
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Eventually, they all show up at Loel's place, which is bemoated.
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The moat is very pretty. Loel contacted the people Kiri recommended, and the result is a deep, broad channel circling his estate, walled and floored in the same yellow stone as the house within and the mountain on which it all rests. The water in the channel is so clear that someone standing on the edge can look down through all fifteen feet of it and see the rippling patterns lightly etched into the stone blocks on the bottom. It is thirty feet across, and the single wooden bridge is twenty feet wide, anchored at either end by thick chains but left to float freely in the water. The whole thing could reasonably be called decorative... but that bridge looks like the kind of thing a coru prime might have designed to be swept away at need.
When they arrive, they will find Loel sitting at a little table in his garden, next to the path that leads from the bridge up to the house, playing with envelopes. Mercifully, there seems to be no blood involved this time.
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"Loel!" calls Kiri across the moat. "Company!"
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"Hullo again," he says to Loel. "Where should all this go?"
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She picks one up and inspects it. It seems to have been dyed a faint blue, shading lighter and darker in places according to no particular pattern. When she opens it, the slip of paper inside shows the same pattern, and is just slightly stuck to the inside of the envelope.
"Clever," she remarks.
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"Wet," she reports. "Interesting."
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