I'm Cam. And Korovai's name was in the history.

He reflects for a second or two before he says, It is good to meet you. There's a sense that, while this is a rote courtesy in his culture, he took the time to decide whether it was true before saying it.

Then he clasps Cam's hand again and closes his eyes and does not visibly do anything for about half an hour.

...Cam holds his computer with his free hand to read, and makes air.

He lets go and opens his eyes.

How long did that take?

31 minutes.

Not too bad, then. It worked perfectly.

...he could start conjuring for indications of how his father handled his disappearance, but. For a moment he finds it difficult to clarify his priorities.

Be careful if you make things where you can't see them, you need to know e.g. anatomy to get something neatly distributed in a bloodstream or anything and you can wreck stuff by displacement or interpolation without meaning to.

Thank you, I'll remember that.

Thoughtful pause.

I could translate you one of the standard introductions if you gave me your language.

That sounds worthwhile. Would you like all the languages I speak or just Eivarne?

Is there any reason not to include the lot?

Language transfers take time, but I expect at most a few minutes each, and I only know ten, two of them fluently.

Go ahead and send them all if that's okay, then. I know a lot, they'll have company.

All right.

Eivarne first - clearly his native language. Satni, Avashin, and Northern and Eastern Hialene, all with clear relations to each other and Eivarne; he speaks those very well but not quite natively. Four more assorted languages that he's even less fluent in, three of them cousins of Satni while one is closer to Avashin.

And then Aiha, the language from which the word 'taieli' comes, which he speaks with perfect native fluency and which shares no discernible roots with any of the other nine.

"This is slightly but interestingly different from getting languages when summoned."

"Oh?"

"It happens over a period of time and I'm getting your vocabulary instead of a comparable but distinct one."

He nods. "The way you get languages when summoned seems very convenient."

"It really is."

"But language transfers in this style are nearly as convenient, so it would probably not be worthwhile to pursue your method."

"Especially since it comes bundled with the summons."

He nods. "Yes."

"Anything else I have that you need?"

"Your form of immortality is interesting but ultimately I think I prefer mine."

"I like mine a lot but don't like how it couldn't do anything about whoever attacked me."