There's some panicked shuffling around. Finally an elderly priest comes forward.

"We have received a very large number of prophetic visions and such about this," he says. "I am only relaying a decision made in the capital, but, yes. You have our consent to do this thing."  

And then his eyes glow with Vkandis' light. 

You are hurried. I will help. 

Vkandis has a particular efficiency advantage for setting things on fire. Things such as cities. He can't get everything neatly, not in the minutes they can spare, but Iftel has a large population, concentrated in a dozen major cities, and they can get a million that way. 

Vanyel Gates them to the border with Karse. Despite whatever the god is doing to help out, he's getting very tired. 

...He wishes he could go back for Karis, and Arven. Brightstar is already dead and he barely had time to say goodbye and - no, he absolutely can't think about that right now, it can wait until after. Everyone is going to have lost far too many people, by the time this is over. 

(Assuming they're not too late...)

Foundation repeats the same question in front of the more fragile temporary shield-wall that's sprung up around Karse. Gets the same answer. 

The fires are visible in the distance. 

The air feels heavy, almost like it does near the Valar. Telumë's body turns to look at Vanyel. 

I see what we have to do. Sauron is going to Ashuel, in Velvar. He is almost there. Telumë will need to do the Gate. He knows the way. Help him. 

The light fades from Telumë's eyes, and he falls–

Vanyel catches him. They don't have any Healers. He tries singing a Healing song. Hopes that they still have enough time. 

Telumë wakes up a couple of minutes later, but it's another few minutes before he's alert enough to both understand Vanyel's frantic instructions and also attempt a Gate to the place he remembers. It's very close to where he reincarnated. He supposes Sauron wouldn't know that. 

(Coincidences within coincidences...) 

It's not a very good Gate but it'll get them across. 

They arrive on the outskirts of the city, and Vanyel has to catch him again and support nearly all of his weight. Telumë isn't particularly following what the plan is, here. He's dizzy. It's horrifically hot despite being late autumn. 

He really hopes his god has a plan. 

Vanyel holds Telumë and reaches out with his mage-sight, stretching north, north - is Sauron close...? 

Yes. One more fucking city and then this will all be over, all be worth it -

The figure of an exhausted-looking and familiar human teenager stands in his path, on the road, visible from the distance. 

Oh, and also Vanyel, who isn't sure what he's supposed to be doing here. He supposes he could Final Strike? He's unclear how that would help though.

- how - but they don't actually look equipped to fight him - what happens if he tries lighting them on fire on his way into the city - 

That super doesn't work. Also for some reason he can't get past them into the city at all. 

Fine. He draws to a halt. I hope you are enjoying yourselves. If you are very brave and very determined, little heroes, you can probably take every life on this continent before I can. 

Vanyel, despite himself, chuckles. The air is feeling heavy and strange again, and Telumë is straightening up beside him. "Oh, you know, I don't think we actually need that many." 

Telumë lifts his head, looks Sauron in the eye. He can feel the light coming again, but it takes another fraction of a second before his vision doubles and then mostly vanishes. 

He thought he would be afraid, but he's way too goddamned tired for that, and it's not like he remembers Sauron that clearly from a previous life.

"You are not going any further," he says, and there's a strange echo in his voice - it's his words, but not his words alone. 

Telumë's god - if he has made it - cannot possibly have any claim on this land here. So he has to be working only through Telumë and Vanyel, and - 

- spending power is the last thing he wants to be doing right now but he focuses his energy to make the ground open up underneath them, to make the air itself catch fire, to make a thousand shards of glass fly out of nowhere -

The ground falls out from under him, the air burns, the glass flies, but somehow - it looks more like it's by lucky accident than as though there's a shield in the way - none of it touches them or causes them any inconvenience. 

–And then the light fills him to the brim, and the world disappears. 

Telumë stands in a shining city, the details unclear in the blazing light all around him. 

How would you destroy a Maia, his god asks him. If you had the power of a god. 

Tear apart the raw magic that it's made of for parts, obviously, but - he doesn't know the technique that would work, he has ideas for research avenues but that would be a project of ten years–

No. It is enough that you could know it, in the future. Buildings shift, a door opens, a path clears. The light is even brighter ahead. Because I see the future, and I know it now.

Telumë's body that the god is wearing takes a step closer to Sauron - a step on air, since the ground is, in fact, no longer under them. The air around him glows brighter. 

He should back off, have this fight only once he's confirmed that they've done this everywhere - he flings up a mountain between them and him, turns in the other direction -