The Heralds probably won't believe him either way. 

Vanyel might. 

....Maybe. Nayoki often suspects that Leareth is giving Vanyel too much credit because of - she would say "personal fondness" except it's Leareth and she's not sure what it is. History. 

:You should ask him if he will attack you with his mace if you go in to talk to him: she suggests. :I would find it very understandable if he did, but - I think he is not going to promise not to and then do it anyway.: She's spent a lot of time staring at his mind by this point and she's fairly sure of that. 

Leareth heads over to the Work Room. Stops at the door, takes a breath. 

:I am: he resists the urge to just introduce himself as 'the evil archmage' since that's what the man is thinking of him by anyway, :Leareth, the one who had you kidnapped. We intend to return you to Valdemar, since you were not responsible for k'Treva and seem disinclined to push for a war.: Given how he has thoughts like war being the most tragic of human endeavors.

:I realize we have no grounds to ask you for favors, but - I believe it would reduce the chances of a war that neither side currently wants if you are willing to bring certain information back to Vanyel. Particularly if any of your god-magic could be used to confirm that I am telling the truth about having no part in the attack on Haven or k'Treva Vale.: 

Nayoki is still reading his mind and very curious how determinedly unhelpful he's going to be about this! 

Oh more complications for the law puzzle. Guid- fuck. Okay. No Guidance on the law puzzle.

So, on the one hand, kidnapping Blai and burying him in enchantments should be a very bad way to do anything. It should just make your life and everything you were trying to accomplish in it worse if you kidnap Blai if Blai can finagle that at all including at disproportionately enormous costs to himself. He would pretty straightforwardly die just to make it be a bad and useless idea to have kidnapped him and would also have done this when he would have gone straight to Hell.

On the other hand, if it would make things go better for Valdemar, who have not kidnapped Blai at all, and let them avoid having a war, he would like to help them out. They might really like a report from Blai about the evil archmage! They should probably not listen to one damn word Blai says because he's been buried in enchantments by an evil archmage('s lieutenant), but it's at least within the realm of possibility that they could, with local magic and their knowledge of it, get a report from him that they would and should trust. It's an almost unique property of communication-from-the-evil-archmage-to-Valdemar, that it could be a thing the evil archmage wanted to accomplish by kidnapping Blai and also worth doing anyway. The fact that the evil archmage should have a fucking embassy like a normal person if he wanted to be able to communicate with Valdemar doesn't obviously change that.

On the mage hand the evil archmage can just say whatever nonsense he wants, they only have Blai's read on Vanyel's impression to go on about him being maybe lawful evil. Blai did not prepare Detect Law or Zone of Truth because those are not spells you prepare when you're anticipating hostile archmage action. Also an archmage could shrug off or deliver a mistaken impression to Blai's spell like it was nothing so it would be kind of farcical to try. (Why didn't they specify that the guy was an enchanter. Blai wouldn't have gone for the Protection from Energy if he'd known he was an enchanter.) He cannot remotely guarantee that this whole shenanigan isn't, say, intended to look like a mutually beneficial communication attempt and actually, via slotless sorcerer bullshit, render Blai into some kind of mind-read-able Sepia Snake Sigil or some utter nonsense like that.

Iomedae would come up with the right thing to say here but Iomedae was Splendid and already half-divine in her mortality and IMMUNE TO ENCHANTMENTS. None of which applies to Blai. So he doesn't have a right thing to say, so he's going to resolve the law puzzle in favor of the first consideration. You get nothing you want this way, fuck you. He has misplaced a rook and starts over again this time with Berolina pawns.