we are not truly immortal

[dark_light]

After Glass's party is over with, Amariah and Kas go home.

Amariah fetches down their alethiometers.

"It's about time I took care of Alethia's afterlife, whatever it may be," she says quietly. "What can the alethiometer tell you about what I'll find?"

Comments

[lifes_sake]

"What are the things that cause suffering?" asks Cam.

[truthwright]

"What inhabits the afterlife and causes suffering is not dead," says the alethiometer.

[lifes_sake]

"How does it cause suffering?" Cam tries.

[truthwright]

"It has knowledge and hungers for truth," says the alethiometer.

"What exactly are you getting from all this?" wonders Kas.

[lifes_sake]

"Not much," Cam tells Kas. And to the alethiometer: "What knowledge does it have?"

[truthwright]

"This is weird," Kas declares.

The alethiometer repeats, "Knowledge." Kas frowns.

[lifes_sake]

"Why, what's it doing that you're picking up?" Cam asks Kas.

To the alethiometer: "What truth does it seek?"

[truthwright]

"It's talking the same way it always does," he says. "But then you're talking back in English. There's way less - depth to what you're saying."

Meanwhile, the alethiometer is repeating itself again: "It hungers for truth."

[lifes_sake]

"Do we have truths that will satisfy it?" Cam asks.

[truthwright]

"You can sate its truth-hunger," says the alethiometer.

"I didn't know this thing had a word for your kind of wizard," Kas comments.

[lifes_sake]

"I didn't hear it talk about wizards - did it?" And to the alethiometer: "Me, or the others like me too?"

[truthwright]

The alethiometer says, "Who can speak the truth can satisfy truth-hunger."

"If I'd asked it that question, I might've said it answered, 'Cam can do that'," says Kas. "But it doesn't talk about people by name; it talks about them by who they are. And it talked about you by you being a wizard. Why, is that important?"

[lifes_sake]

"Maybe. I mean, something is hungering for truth, maybe only wizards can talk to it, maybe we should bring Tilly and Jellybean, but on the other hand maybe it's calling me a wizard to tell me apart from Amariah and Shell Bell and the key thing is my truthy aura and we should bring Elspeth," says Cam. "For that matter, I'm getting sufficient heebie-jeebies around this that maybe we should borrow Mary from Stella, or Alice from Golden."

[truthwright]

"...Can I talk to it for a sec?" says Kas.

[lifes_sake]

Cam hands Kas his, and takes the other, which he asks: "Are wizards particularly helpful for the thing in the afterlife that hungers for truth?"

[truthwright]

"You can speak the truth," says the second alethiometer.

"It called you a wizard again," says Kas, who is watching Cam instead of questioning his own.

[lifes_sake]

"I'm just hearing 'you'... I'm going to ask Jellybean and Elspeth in here so it can compare them..."

Through Jane: [Hey Jellybean, want to wish upon a star and come be in Alethia so the alethiometer can 'see' more than one wizard?]

And a similar invitation to Elspeth.

[her_imperial_radiance]

Elspeth shows up a moment later.

[pythbox]

[Sure,] says Jellybean, and he makes the wish. Immediately upon arrival, he kisses Cam.

[lifes_sake]

Mmmm, kisses.

"Are wizards, like the self-defining over here, a source of truth like what the thing in the afterlife wants?"

[truthwright]

"Wizards can speak the truth," says the alethiometer.

"That's the exact same thing it just said," says Kas.

[lifes_sake]

"How would the princess in this room," says Cam, lacking a full wizard name for her and unsure how the alethiometer will comprehend names, "interact with the thing in the afterlife that hungers for truth?"

[truthwright]

"She speaks the truth," says the alethiometer. Kas cracks up.

[lifes_sake]

"Was something funny about how it said that?" Cam asks Kas.

[truthwright]

"It was just the same two meanings backwards and forwards," he says. "Truth/speak/speak/truth. But the first part meant Elspeth, and the second part meant her power."