Malduoni shuts the door. He's smiling. 

"You have a wife and children?" 

"Yes, do you not?" He shakes his head a little. "You ought meet them. After the war, when there is time to spare. Parmida and I married very soon after the - events of my death. When I finally told her the truth about myself and she believed it, she wished to go into stasis so that she would be here for me when the time came. I could not keep her alive as long as I could myself, the magic is harder... I missed her very much but it is what she wanted. My adopted son Saba is in Axis. I would like to introduce you, someday, when it makes sense to visit. You would like Axis. I had a city there once, it was beautiful. My daughter Zahra is retired and has a lovely little house - she knits in her rocking chair and she makes magic items for the war twelve hours a day. I love them dearly." 

Leareth nods. Blinks, absorbs that. "I - think our recent lives have been very different." 

"I know. I have been there too. The thing we do is always what makes sense - the shape we need to be, to win. I needed them." A smile flickers. "I hope you have the chance to need people, Leareth. I know it is frightening for people like us. Nonetheless, I recommend it."  

Leareth nods. He isn't sure what to say. Well, it can wait. 

"I told the pharaoh I would contact him when she had come and gone, so I will do that." 

"Of course. Rejoin me after." 

So he checks on Khemet with the mirror. "Nefreti came and they spoke. She agreed to move the House of Oblivion so it opened elsewhere; she did not specify her plan much more than that." 

"What did she want an apology for?"

"He was her - teacher, I think? Their conversation was very high-context. He left town when she was chosen as a cleric by Nethys, I think out of fear that Nethys would notice he was not dead. Her feelings were understandably hurt." 

"Huh. All right. Well, I don't see how you lose a war with two casters like them on your side."

"We will see. Is Vanyel well?" 

"I should perhaps go and check that he isn't making too many diamonds. He has a bunch of his friends back, though, that has to help."

"It must. I am, as always, grateful for your help." Pause. "If Mahdi and Hagan are still interested in joining us, we will have directions for them first thing in the morning. Fazil would be welcome, I suppose, once my troops are out of Rahadoum anyway - though I expect Vanyel might appreciate his company at the Worldwound." 

Nod. "There are a lot of useful things a Good cleric can do in a war effort that manages to have none of them while fighting devils, but I'd rather have Vanyel have lots of backup. I suppose his role should only last...a maximum of an hour anyway...after which maybe Fazil can drop by."

Leareth does an instant mental calculation of number of Final Strikes and resurrections fit into an hour. "Ah. Thank you. I - suppose I will be in touch if anything changes in the interim, and if not, tomorrow morning." 

"That sounds good."


He goes to see whether Vanyel needs to be stopped from making diamonds.

Vanyel is currently sitting in an informal meeting with Savil and the newly-resurrected Heralds, after squeezing out two more diamonds at hourlong intervals. He looks like he could perhaps use a nap. 

He tells his staff clerics to tell Vanyel that he is not allowed to make any more diamonds, rather than interrupt their meeting. 

Then Vanyel will find this out an hour later when he asks a cleric to help him again, and be confused and annoyed about it! "Why not? We've only got today left to prepare." 

"Don't you not fully recover all your magic even overnight, if you work too hard?"

"I guess not entirely, but all I'm doing is repeatedly becoming a giant fireball, it doesn't matter that much." 

"That relies on some assumptions about the strategic situation that might not hold, I think. There might be a lot of fighting before we get to the point where that plan makes sense. Or everything could go catastrophically badly and actually tomorrow morning we're fending off a Chelish invasion of Osirion because they caught on, with wars you never really know."

"- All right, fine, I'll rest." 

Meanwhile Khemet is negotiating with a trumpet archon of the hosts of Heaven. It is enormous and birdlike in proportions, and seems to be made of marble that flows naturally, allowing the same movements as flesh but not quite moving in the same way, as its wings beat and it tilts its head to look at him. 

"...so we'd like you to accompany the Heralds to the Worldwound, heal them, provide information on the weaknesses of demons where relevant, and retrieve their bodies for us when necessary. I think that if we have enough support up there tomorrow, we can close the Worldwound forever. We are grateful for your consideration."

        "You're not Good," the trumpet archon says, wings beating far too slowly to be suspending it in the air like that.

"I know I still have a lot to learn, but I think I serve Good in the world, in this. And the Heralds are, all of them I've seen so far. They volunteered to help our world as soon as they learned of it. We are - put to shame, really, for a nation which is not threatened at all by the Worldwound to see its gravity immediately, to commit themselves at once to helping to solve it. If we win this, it will be because they are Good."

         "But you aren't."

"I'm sorry."

          "I don't want an apology but I do want to know more."

"About my...not being Good? I think it is because my motives are mostly self-serving and I only fight Evil when I'm really sure I can win."

           "Hmmm. Say more about that?"

"With all due respect, is this - important -"

         "It is important to me."

"I don't think I can change it."

         "It's not important to me that you change it. It's important to me that you tell me about this. You spend your nation's treasure to fight the Worldwound, to do more than that - I know there is              more than that, though I will not ask you what. I understand that armies keep secrets for many reasons. But -"

"...the pharaohs are always lawful neutral. Aside from the ancient ones who were evil. Guess you could say it's traditional."

         "I disapprove of this tradition."

"I understand. I - a lot of traditions are very hard on people, and it might be good, someday, if there were less of them. But I don't want to wait to do any good until I'm - ready for that. I guess. And it means - everyone I know is in Axis."

         "You don't want to go to Heaven."

"No. I don't."

           "Not just because everyone you know is in Axis."

Khemet is having such a bad day and he hates it very much. "I guess I have a lot of reasons. I think - I think it is still better to fix the Worldwound than not do that."

           "You keep doing that. Framing it around a question I'm not asking."

"I don't want to go to Heaven because I want to go to Axis and retire. I am very very tired and if I had to do this forever I am not sure I could see my way through to doing it at all. All right?"

The trumpet archon is crying. 

Khemet knew that war was very terrible but he thought the terrible part would be giving orders for people to go off to die, not having his first conversations in six years with people who have no reason to respect his office and immediately discovering he's incompetent at it. This is SO MUCH WORSE. Leareth says that Abadar-headache is worse than being stabbed and he would take a WEEK of Abadar-headache over today. 

"Do you still want to help."

          "Of course I will help. You poor child."

"Thank you," says Khemet through gritted teeth.