Nod. "I suppose I am mostly relieved that he will - not break anything. But yes, I think it bothers him too. And I would feel far more comfortable letting him return, especially to Urtho's Tower, with an adult. I think he would need years more to be ready to handle it alone." 

"Do you know how old you were when you tried the first time?"

"I am not sure. I think I remained to study at Urtho's Tower for at least five years, probably less than ten, and once I returned to Predain I would not have dallied. So - twenty or twenty-five, most likely." 

She nods. "Can you say something in the trade-tongue the letter was in? So I know what to point Tongues at."

Leareth nods and says 'I hope this message finds you well' in trade-tongue, as the first thing that came to mind. 

And, "replied to your message in cache, can provide further proof of identity, lack records of this lifetime, fear for your safety, help needed?" she says for the Sending, in the language he just spoke.

And a long, long way away, in another world very far from this one, a sturdy wooden sailship about twenty yards long crashes up and down on the waves, nothing but grey fog on the rain-lashed horizon. 

A young man is hunched under a canvas canopy which partly keeps the rain off his map; he supplements it with a mage-barrier, staring at the waxed paper. 

He startles, grabs the small bolted down table to steady himself. 

Kun, did you hear that? 

Yes, the original inhabitant of this body - who has lately been daydreaming about cakes with fresh fruit and pretty girls dancing with him rather than paying any attention to the navigation - answers. You weren't imagining it. You reckon -? 

I am not sure what to think. 

Well, you gonna answer? 

He doesn't exactly have a lot of time to consider the question; he, too, noticed that the entirely unfamiliar magic has some sort of incomplete loop. Waiting for him, but presumably not for long. 

"Not in imminent danger," he says in the same language, which is not entirely true, but he's not yet at the point of trusting this mysterious presence claiming to be himself from the future to be less dangerous to him than storms. "Can meet at southern tip of continent west of sea." 

He hopes so, anyway. 

She repeats this. "Do you want me to do another Sending to ask when?"

"If you have the spell for it, then yes, that would be good." Leareth is frowning. Something is making him uneasy here, and but he can't put his finger on what. 

She has a pearl of power; she draws the spell back so she can start casting it again. "What's wrong?"

"I am not sure! Just... Something feels a little off and I cannot explain why." 

She tries to think of things that could be bad. "Maybe...he's a prisoner and someone made him give that answer? He decided to take a lifetime off and spend it on a tropical island with a gourmet chef and three hundred sex slaves and not put it in the notes so it didn't screw with the overall pattern? He thinks he has some evidence we're lying?"

"Maybe." Sigh. "I - do not strongly have the sense that he is lying, exactly. Just that it felt very much as though he is holding back some significant context. I suppose it is not unreasonable of him, not to trust us yet, just -" Shrug. "We will have to see what he says next." 

Tad, we might not make it to the southern coast. 

Tadesse has no specific rejoinder. 

Look, just because you're some sort of immortal warlock soul and you'll come back, doesn't mean I'm fine with dying when we could've gotten rescued!

I know. But if we gamble wrong, and he is an enemy, it - could be worse than death, for you. 

Gusty sigh. You're so goddamned paranoid. 

And it has saved all of our lives more than once. A mental shrug. I suppose we will see about this time.

"We'll meet you on the southern tip of the continent. When."

A week, he's about to say, that's around when they should arrive if any of his calculations from when the stars were visible ever, using the map he drew back when he had enough magic to scry any significant distance, are accurate in the least–