Keiran tenses suddenly. 

"...Well. My Companion says that Enara contacted her and wants us to consider letting Blai cast some spell he supposedly has to suppress compulsions, 'in case that helps us check anything.'" 

"...Enara is still in contact with Blai? Didn't we put him in a shielded room?" 

"Presumably she already knew his spells? Though I'm not clear on why she would either fail to think of it or fail to bring it up until now."

“It’s a good point that Jisa could have keyed Enara to the shields. I assume Melody would have noticed - and said something - if they were in contact during the interrogation,” a hard look at Melody, “but seems like a good idea to fix that loophole. Is there anything else for tonight.”

“…No, I don’t think so. Let’s all get some sleep, there’s a Council meeting to run in the morning.”

Savil will go detour on her way back to the Heralds’ wing to tweak the shields on the Work Room where they’re keeping Blai.

Oh no.

:Blai? I think probably Katha's Companion did pass on my message to the Heralds, but - I think they've realized we can talk and it was unintentional, Savil is outside and seems to be modifying the shields, I'll be blocked in a minute. ...Sorry, I didn't think of that. I - it's possible they're going to sleep on it and will consider trying it in the morning, but I don't think you should wait up.: 

:Okay.: It's really hard to stay awake in a completely pitch black room by himself, and he doesn't have windows or a light spell. His non-light-based means of staying awake involves expecting to be tortured if he falls asleep, which actually works great, but if there's no reason to do it, he isn't exactly enjoying it enough to carry on anyway. He lies down on the mattress. He sleeps.

Nobody is currently reading Blai's mind in order to have concerns about his world and/or life based on this thought. 

Enara paces and - eventually decides that she thinks it's still more likely this is a bizarre godplot than that she was mind-controlled without noticing. She sends the third message, the one for 'out of contact with Blai.' It's deeply unclear what Van or Leareth can do about it, but - at least they know, and won't be counting on Enara and Blai pulling out a miracle here that seems increasingly unlikely. 

She tries to sleep. 

Melody is also trying to sleep and it's not working, even after the first candlemark of clearing her backlog of crying. 

It doesn't make sense, a plaintive voice in the back of her mind keeps repeating, and it doesn't help to keep telling herself that it's not like the world owes it to her to make sense, or that she feels like half of the feeling is just that Van is dead and that wasn't supposed to happen, not like this, not - abruptly in the middle of everything and accomplishing nothing. It feels like - it's not that it would hurt any less, if it had all happened in the way they were expecting (which could have included Vanyel sacrificing himself in a last-ditch attempt to stop Leareth that didn't even work) but - 

- but part of her mind is stuck in an endless loop that has nowhere to resolve, and the quiet pleading voice is insisting that at least she wouldn't be stuck, if anything made sense, at least she could grieve properly. 

There isn't really any such thing as grieving properly, she reminds herself, there's no right or wrong way, she's said that to her patients a thousand times. 

That doesn't help either. 

...Fine, if she's going to be dwelling on this in the middle of the night anyway instead of sleeping like a responsible adult who needs to be capable of putting on her professional face again in the morning, she should at least do it properly. 

Fine. What part of the not-making-sense has her stuck like this? 

...She doesn't think Vanyel could have been that wrong about Leareth. Wrong about how seriously he was considering an alliance, maybe. Not wrong about - him being the sort of man who would respond to his various grievances with the world by trying to build a god and who might actually have a chance of succeeding. Someone who moves in a straight line toward his goals. Someone who does have principles, albeit in a baffling sideways sort of way. 

They've spent so long arguing around what Leareth might or might not be capable of, debating the how of everything that's happened, and almost ignored the question of, you know, why Leareth decided he wanted Vanyel dead. Maybe because it felt self-evident, given how the original dream ended, but - is it, really? Especially given everything they know now. It makes perfect sense that Leareth would kill Vanyel if, after they met, Vanyel said to his face that he couldn't countenance backing down from the war (and Van would say that, if he believed it.) 

If Leareth could have incapacitated Vanyel and held him prisoner in the first place, though, why kill him at all? Even positing an elaborate scheme to trick Blai into casting a prophecy spell without actually having to mind-control him (and how could Leareth have known about the prophecy spell beforehand?), why in the world would sending in a Vanyel-impersonator require the actual Vanyel to be dead? Surely it would be better to keep him alive, so he could be interrogated more on demand to help keep up the ruse. 

...That's what it comes down to. On the night the Death Bell rang, there was a story that made sense, that was in many ways a shocking reversal but didn't, yet, feel like it couldn't hold together with everything they had already seen about Leareth.

But everything since Blai arrived in Haven is just adding confusion, and - at some point they should stop adding new layers of complication to their theories and admit they no longer know what's going on. 

And if they no longer know what's going on, and all they do know is that some of the pieces of this puzzle cannot possibly fit in with the others and so something has to be a trick, then - how do they know which of the pieces is a lie? 

It's so, so tempting to believe that maybe Vanyel isn't dead, but maybe they've all been overcorrecting for that.

Maybe all they have is the Death Bell on one side, and a dozen pieces on the other - individually much less convincing, but they add up - and they don't, actually, know which side of that is more likely to be a plot aimed at deceiving them. 

(Like double vision, dizzying - the sense that there are two different worlds, on either side of a distorted mirror, and she doesn't know which they're in -) 

Jisa was the one who brought up that the Star-Eyed had the capability to send a Changecreature (that coincidentally happened to go after Arven) and to take out k'Treva. And that She might have the motive, too. And - if Someone wanted to overdetermine it even harder that Valdemar would be steered into a war, well, killing Van definitely seems like a way to do it. 

- but still doesn't fit very well with what Enara and Blai know - 

- well, all it actually takes is the Heralds believing Van is dead, because they might not have seen it or known how it happened, but they had confirmation from a magical source of truth that in eight hundred years had never been wrong. 

Aughhhhhhh it is not fair how much that hurts to think about. 

They don't have enough of the pieces to rule out all the theories except one. But - how hard have they really been trying? One thing they haven't done is, well, actually sat down with Enara, or with Blai - who, to his credit, is willing to seriously consider that his head may have been messed with and his thoughts aren't trustworthy - and explained what they think happened, and seen their reactions. 

There was a decent argument for that at first - both having separate people questioning Blai and Enara, and making sure that neither of them were aware what and how much the Heralds already knew, to make it harder to tailor their story - but they've done that, that strategy has been tried, and their nicely unbiased pieces don't fit. 

...on the one hand, 'the middle of the night without telling anyone' is not the ideal time or circumstances to be doing this. On the other hand, if they are being steered down a track which would be a terrible mistake if they knew the truth, then - she doesn't know how long is left before the point of no return. 

Melody grits her teeth, and gets up, and splashes water on her face. She'll go to Healers' and get some of the stronger stimulant, the Tayledras-sourced one they handed out to some of the soldiers; chava isn't going to cut it if she's expecting to stay up all night and keep going tomorrow. Gods, I haven't been this irresponsible since I was twenty. 

Talking to Blai first is...safer, given that she doesn't know which side of the topsy-turvy mirror they're on and maybe he does work for Leareth at a remove - though most of the still-live theories posit that he didn't know, possibly with the aid of some mind control to help keep up the ruse, but not the kind that would shift his own beliefs and values and goals. Which implies a smaller risk that he's been fully turned and will work against Valdemar now. Also he's locked in a Work Room and can't use any of his magic and they confiscated his communications talismans, and Melody spent a lot of time in his head and is pretty sure she would know if he were keeping something in reserve. 

Half a candlemark later - it's by now around four candlemarks after midnight, still a long time to go until dawn - Blai is woken by a polite but firm knock on the Work Room door, followed by Melody coming in with a candle. 

(There's a guard posted outside the door but he's very junior and the dean of Mindhealers is showing up with an expression that means she's on serious business. He's not going to argue. It's not even that odd for her to be up on business in the middle of the night, given what the last couple of days have been like.) 

:I'm sorry to wake you but I think we need to talk more.: 

oh shit he fell asleep time for Vicar Rey to break every joint in his body and leave him for Vicar Vilar to - oh wait no that's not the thing that's happening. :Yes, how can I help you?:

Gaaaaah???? Melody has so many concerns about the - wow, presumably that's when he was a priest for the evil god - aaaaaah! She hates it!!! 

(Absolutely none of this shows on her face, even by Chelish standards. One thing Melody has down is making sure her patients don't have to deal with her less-than-professional emotional reactions to their problems.) 

She sits down on the stool. 

:We didn't tell you anything about what happened here while you were gone. That was deliberate - you came back with a story that makes absolutely no sense given events here in your absence, and claiming to have met with Leareth, we had to assume the discrepancy was because you had been compromised and we didn't want you to - have a chance to tailor your story. But we got your report, and had a meeting, and - something is off here. That thing might well be that Leareth either did something to your head or pulled a very convincing ruse without actually mind-controlling you about it, and everything you reported to us isn't what it looked like. But - it might be something else. Talking to you now could be a risk, but - I don't think it's much of one, we have you very quarantined, and - if the events in Haven are the ones that aren't what they look like, then I think we need to take every chance we have to learn that.:  

She takes a deep breath. :Yesterday - well, gods, it's nearly morning now - a day and a half ago, the evening you arrived at the kyree caves - we learned that Vanyel was dead. Specifically, we learned it from the Death Bell, which is directly tied into the working that King Valdemar did at our kingdom's founding to set up the Web, has a link to every Herald and Companion, and has never in eight hundred years been wrong.: 

What is Blai thinking in response to all of that. 

Well, his first guess is that Leareth might have attached Vanyel to his immortality setup somehow, since he seems interested in having Vanyel around, but like, you'd think Vanyel would notice after the fact that he'd blipped into a Clone or a phylactery or a resurrection insurance office or whatever it is they have here, even if it were easy to miss beforehand? Or a god did it, the gods seem involved in the Companions and things attached to Companions might be pretty easy targets, and this might be the highest stakes thing to happen in eight hundred years, you don't get archmages bent on creating gods coming by every Starday. Or there's a fake Vanyel. He's not super clear on how any of these people know each other and in particular is rounding off Companions to paladin horses who can't even talk except that he's noticed Companions can Mindspeak; so maybe a fake Vanyel could have passed fine to the whole party, it certainly wouldn't take much acting skill to fool Blai. Blai has no idea what the state of the art in transmutation or illusion or whatever it'd have to be is here, so he can't help much with figuring out if it's technically possible. Or of course Blai's been bamboozled to the Abyss and back but if that's what's going on he's extra unhelpful.

...Wow, she did not at all consider that Vanyel might show up as ""dead"" to the Web because Leareth had, what, done something bizarre to him involving making Vanyel his next body if he dies??? Is that even possible? - maybe Blai wasn't thinking of that exactly, the emotional overtones don't fit - everything goes by very fast and it's hard to catch when he's referencing so many concepts totally unfamiliar to her, but she thinks he's considering that maybe Leareth made Vanyel immortal and Vanyel almost-dying is what triggered the Death Bell? That's - she also doesn't know if that's possible, actually - 

Either way, it sounds like it's possible in Blai's world but Blai is really not the person to ask about whether it's possible here. Inconveniently, Jisa might be one of the best people and she's both not here and plausibly compromised.

Melody makes a mental note and moves on. 

:Our top theory had been that Leareth sent someone in to impersonate Vanyel, yes, and that you in particular wouldn't have been hard to fool.:

Frown. :The easiest time to do it would have been when Vanyel was returning from delivering Feniss to Waymeet, and was separated from you. But - there are reasons I don't think you know why it would be impossible even in principle to fool Stef if Vanyel died, so I think we would need to assume he was substituted too. But that Jisa wasn't, because we have Enara here and she's definitely not an imposter - the Groveborn would be able to tell - and Enara would be able to tell if her Chosen had been sneakily replaced. Which means Jisa must have been under some mind control, but we wouldn't have to posit an undetectable Wild Gift no one has ever heard of. Mindhealing would do, since she was the only one able to check for it. Enara says you were all asleep, and could have been kept that way while Stef was replaced - 

- which doesn't explain Yfandes, because she couldn't be fooled about Vanyel, but a Yfandes-impersonater would find it awfully hard to fool another Companion. Also Enara didn't believe she or Yfandes slept at all during that period, and it's possible you could cover that with mind control but it's back to positing something undetectable, since I've looked at Enara and so have some mages, she's clear of anything we can actually spot.: 

A pause. 

:- Wanted to run a question by you. Would your goddess repudiate you - take away your magic - if you were being forced via a lot of mind-control into doing something that would probably cause a disaster? How about if you were just being tricked, like in the scenario I just described?: 

:I am for personal background reasons not as well catechized as I should be, so I am guessing. My guess would be that Iomedae would withdraw my spells if I were using them against Her interests, but that it is expensive for Her to do this - because it communicates information, and that's expensive for gods as I know them. So She might cut it pretty close. I would also lose my spells if I drifted too far from Her in alignment, automatically, which can happen due to mind control - if my beliefs about my present alignment are correct this would happen if I became Evil or ceased to be Lawful. My alignment is hidden under Hers so I can't tell for sure if I am definitely Lawful Neutral but it's certainly the way to bet. I've been doing my best to read Her in on the situation but I do not know if She has the budget at this time to intervene for anything short of an impending Evil god, I'm only mostly sure She could intervene if it did come to that, and I'm not sure She'd win if any other gods supported the new one coming into existence. Withdrawing my spells only might be the way that would play out; it would have to be both of cheap and effective.:

Slow nod. :So it says...more than nothing...that She hasn't. Probably. But not as much as we might like.: And of course if Leareth did muck around with Blai's memories via an undetectable Wild Gift, Melody can't necessarily trust his report on a world and a goddess she has no prior knowledge about. :She might have left you with your spells if She thought you were being tricked into doing something against Her interests but would realize in time? ...Also it sounds like you think it probably doesn't matter enormously if it was mind control or just controlling your environment, since She would be looking at the consequences?: 

:All my information is from Golarion, where prophecy doesn't work any more. I don't know exactly how that affects things or how it works on a planet where it's not broken.: