He told Casvar on the two hundred and twenty-fifth day. He told him everything — the stone record's first function, the translation mechanism, the crossing point's real nature, the records Soa had carried.
Casvar listened without moving.
When Kael finished, Casvar was quiet for a long time. Not the productive quiet. The other kind. He was standing at the window of the upper room and the Fractures on his skin moved in their slow river-motion and he did not turn around.
Kael waited.
Casvar said, finally: "I knew."
Not a question.
Kael said: "How much."
Casvar said: "The stone record describes the translation function in the second section. The section I did not read to you."
Kael said: "There is a second section."
Casvar said: "Yes."
The word held the same weight as before. The confessional register.
Kael said: "Why."
Casvar said: "Because the translation function requires a living-world origin. Which means the Kaer must retain the quality of their original life — the attachment to the world they came from, the fact of having been there, the specific character of a person who arrived here and chose to stay but did not dissolve the choosing into the staying." He paused. "I was concerned that if you knew the full function before you had established yourself here, you would treat the establishment as provisional. As the preparation for something rather than the thing itself."
Kael said: "You thought I would keep one foot in the door."
Casvar said: "I thought you might. I thought the knowledge of a translation function — the knowledge that the world you came from could be reached, communicated with, listened to and spoken to — might prevent the full commitment that the seat requires."
Kael said: "Were you wrong."
Casvar turned from the window. He looked at Kael with the assessment face, and underneath it, the thing that was not assessment.
He said: "I don't know. You tell me."
Kael thought about the new slate. The vocabulary of staying. The 300 written in the language of the other world for no one but himself.
He said: "I am here. The seat is mine. The three dead follow me at the usual interval and the territory has six hundred and twelve souls and I bought chalk last week from someone who said welcome and meant it." He paused. "And the crossing point is opening, and the world I came from is reaching, and I intend to understand the translation function and use it correctly. Both of those things are true simultaneously. They are not in conflict."
Casvar looked at him.
He said: "That is the answer I needed to hear."
He said it the way he said the things that mattered — the flat precision that was not coldness but the specific warmth of someone who had learned to say important things in the register that would not embarrass either of them.
Kael said: "Show me the second section."
Casvar opened the cabinet.