"You haven't actually told us your history, beyond that it matches," he says to Leareth. "- and that he was, uh, trying to build a god who'd fix everything wrong with Velgarth."

"I see." Malduoni does not look surprised at all. 

"I suppose I ought to tell you, to - make the case better." Glance at Hagan and Mahdi. "And, at this point, I see little reason to hold it back from either of you. My world had a Cataclysm about two thousand years ago. Two powerful mages fought. One of them was myself, the other my teacher and mentor. I lost most of my memories and do not have surviving records, so I am unsure of the details, but - I did not want to fight him and I certainly did not want to kill him. I was winning the war, and then - things went very badly out of control, he destroyed his own stronghold to prevent my reaching it, and handed a weapon I had not known existed to some of his allies, who used it to murder me. In the process setting off said Cataclysm, which left the world badly damaged for millennia. I had already arranged immortality, and so I - came back." 

"...Yes. I see certain similarities." A piercing look. "Are you still planning to solve your Velgarth's problems with a god." 

"I will do the obvious thing for when one has discovered an entire new world, which is stop and orient and reassess all of my plans in light of this." Sigh. "And - in light of the knowledge that, here, it did not even work." 

"I am sorry." 

"Do you know what went wrong? We figured you didn't. Because - banning all the gods from a country - is what you do when you don't know what you actually need to do."

He says nothing. Which is an answer by itself. 

"For what it is worth, I do not think that it was Abadar. Though perhaps I am over-updating on the fact that he - offered? requested? - to make me his cleric. I assume he would not, perhaps could not, do that if he were against the sorts of goals that someone like me - like us - would hold." 

"Really. I assume you did not accept." 

"We had a mission to Rahadoum scheduled first." 

"I bet He knows."

"About Aroden– Oh. I suppose He might have all of the requisite pieces. From what I told the pharaoh, and - if He spoke to the gods in Velgarth, and asked about my history, He might learn a great deal... And I am not sure if He thinks in the right way to - put it together that way, a mix of human stories and the way gods think, but the pharaoh is brilliant." He ducks his head. "I am sorry. I did not think of that." 

"It seems the pharaoh of Osirion has been offering you substantial help. What is his goal here." 

"To help conquer Cheliax? He has his doubts that it is possible even given the resources you have - I assume you have copious additional secret plans, I would, but I did not tell him that. I suspect he also hoped to benefit from being on friendly terms with the mage from another world, which he did." Glance at Hagan. "You might be able to guess more." 

" - he's my brother," he says to Aroden. "I think that's probably pretty much it? Leareth can do reasonably cheap permanent teleportation circles - well, an equivalent thing - and they've got the Healers - he wants to build Axis in Sothis, now he's closer. I don't think he'd guessed when we left but it wouldn't surprise me if he's pieced it together before we get back."

"Also Nefreti said to Hagan 'your brother would love him, if not for the burdens they have both taken up and cannot put down'. And said that Abadar loved you, and that Leareth would be safe here even if he recognized him."

(He had finally started to be less confused and now he is more confused again and still does not especially like it.)

"So that is why you came here," he says, heavily. "To offer your help. I can tell that you are not lying, but it nonetheless seems - rather too convenient." 

"Yes. I know. The existence of other worlds - the fact that the first person to come to this one had a very specific relationship with me, but also made a much better first impression than I would have... I am not sure what it means. Only of the facts I observe. I do not think my existence was engineered by the gods of your world, much less whichever one betrayed you." 

"Buncha things were convenient. Vanyel has to fight a dragon, the day he arrives here. The adventuring party that gets sent to help includes, uh, me. We find the buried palace of the pharaohs of ascension, which gave us the crystal ball and the way to kidnap Leareth. But it really kinda looks like if anyone was steering here they were steering at - you succeeding. If Abadar knew enough to do all that and wanted to fuck with you he could just, uh, sell the information to Asmodeus."

"It does look that way. Though, sometimes the gods' plans can be very indirect - less so since prophecy was lost." 

"It is not lost in my world. The gods use it quite effectively." He frowns. "Nethys, we think, sees all worlds. Thus recognizing the similarities in our stories. If any of your gods could have engineered this, it would be Him, but - my impression is that He is not so much one for engineering things at all." 

He goes still for a moment. "I see." 

"I don't suppose you could fix our headbands."