"Yeah. The loom thing was a hint."

"I wondered. It seemed an odd choice of demonstration. Does your world of origin lack magic entirely?" 

"Not a speck," she confirms.

"How interesting. Do you know anything of the mechanism by which you arrived here?" 

"No. I was in my - sky ship -" She gestures vaguely upward. "And then I fell onto the Shin'a'in Plains and had to fight some mounted archers who objected to that and didn't take 'I don't speak the language' for an excuse but Van and Yfandes and another Herald and her Companion showed up and the Companions translated for me and I got out without having to hurt anyone except I kicked one guy off his horse."

Leareth blinks, mildly startled. Thinks for another fifteen seconds in silence. 

"Do you have combat training, then?" he says finally. "I would not have thought a world with a human-friendly non-magical 'god' - is there a local word for it? - would still have war." 

"I like swordfighting for fun. As a sort of theater thing. It's a superintelligence."

"A superintelligence... Yes, I suppose that would be accurate." Leareth smiles, slightly. "You will need very different things to build it than I had naively thought, then. But - I can perhaps see better why you can do it without the - cost - of my own plan. I suppose your world, not having magic, would have gone along a different path of advancement than ours." His eyes narrow again. "Does your world have gods? Predating the superintelligence, I mean." 

"No. It has religions but the gods don't do stuff."

Leareth looks faintly surprised, then thoughtful. "Ah. Yes, I suppose that makes sense. Hmm. You will need - non-magical materials, then? You must have a great deal of technological advancement to cover before you will even have the tools to build a superintelligence without magic. Were you an artificer in your own world, that you know what route to follow?" 

"No. I have a smaller thinking machine built in to my body which knows a lot. I usually have it dormant but this is important."

"Fascinating. Does everybody in your world have one?" 

"Not everyone. Most people."

"I see." 

Leareth falls silent. Eventually he turns to check on Vanyel again, asking the Healers something in a language that Page doesn't recognize. 

Vanyel is still unconscious, but he's at least breathing more normally. 

"They think he will be all right," Leareth tells Tarinda. "If he is not waking up at all in a candlemark, we ought be more worried." He lets out his breath in a slow sigh. "I am...confused, by what just happened. It was clearly an intervention by the gods, but it was far more blatant than anything that has ever happened to me - and Vkandis has set me on fire before. More to the point, it was ineffective. There was a vast amount of collateral damage - probably deaths, even - and you are unharmed. I have no idea what She was thinking." 

"If he - if anybody dies you have to freeze them, it can often get them back from frozen - always if it freezes somebody itself but still sometimes if they're just normally frozen -

The ground did open up beneath my feet twice and some trees fell in my direction? But I'm very fast."

"I noticed. Does anyone else in Haven know about the necessity for freezing? If not I need to pass a message to them now and I am unfortunately not sure if they will believe me." 

"I told some people. They seemed to take it seriously."

"Are there any mages in Haven with the capability to do so? My spies informed me that Herald-Mage Sandra was injured in the first 'accident'." The emphasis he puts on the word makes it clear that he's suspicious it was accidental at all. "And Savil was not conscious when I left, although she did not seem badly hurt and her Companion did not appear worried, so I judged it better not to kidnap her as well. There will be enough drama from my decision to bring Vanyel somewhere safer." 

"I don't know."

"Perhaps I had better send help. I am not sure how the Heralds will react, though." 

:I told Kellan what was happening: Yfandes explains. :That Van urgently needed medical attention and Haven was in too much disarray and - well, Leareth, you saved his life, right, I thought that was a pretty strong indicator. They might still be panicking over it but I think you could send over some people without too much risk: 

Leareth rises. "I will go do that." He says something else to the Healers, and slips out of the room. 

Tarinda repeats the flash-freezing instructions "and then put them on a mountaintop that's frozen year round, I guess".