She's a little ways off, but well within range. 

All of his emotions are suddenly convinced that if he interrupts her then she's going to be angry and hurt him, but also he feels that way a lot and it's usually not very correlated with the actual situation. 

:Are you busy: he asks her. 

:Give me five minutes and I'll be there.:

The amount of time in her fire-word is not precisely five minutes; it actually gestures at a range of time from about three to seven minutes, measured in the half-lives of several radioactive isotopes. 

What an excellent concept to have! Leareth adds it, quietly, to the tally of things that seem actively good about this world assuming anything is real and that "is this real" is a coherent question worth asking.

He's abruptly way too tired to keep pacing, and sits down to wait. 

She arrives in slightly less than six minutes. 

"Are you okay? You were having nightmares." 

Concern over the well-being of the referent, specifically of the form: their state of rest. Unpleasant dreams, often but not always caused by hostile forces in the Neath. 

Wow, that is kind of an impossible question to answer. 

:That happens often: he says, without much inflection in his mindvoice. :Not your world's fault: 

"I'm sorry to hear that." 

Regret at the vicissitudes of the world which causes such phenomena. 

:Anyway. I am done resting for now. Can I help you with anything: 

"What can you tell me about how you got here?"

Hypotheses discarded and not replaced. 

Okay. He can probably manage to talk about this coherently, as long as he's careful. 

:I was in Arda - the world I described to you as flat with the Tree-fruit chariot sun. I was - not doing anything special, and suddenly there was a very strange sort of snake and it...ate me. And then I was here: 

"That...might be a Fingerking?"

The snakes which dwell behind mirrors.

:I did not get a very good look - not with magic senses at all, I was...caught off guard. It - I think it had a mirror where I expected its face to be. Or just held in its jaws, maybe, unclear: 

"Fingerkings are the only thing I know of that combine snakes and mirrors but of course I haven't heard of everything." 

A set with only one known element. The confession of ignorance. 

:There are almost certainly more than tw– than three. Worlds, I mean. And kinds of magic to go with them: Leareth shakes his head, sort of half-shrugs. :It - did not seem related to any of my existing enemies, either in Arda or in Velgarth where I had travelled from: 

"That is true. If I can get access to magic from other worlds, maybe that's the lever I need to challenge the Judgments."

Acknowledgment of another's point. An infinite array of possibilities spreading out in front of one. The necessity of challenging the powers of the world. 

...He feels respect and admiration for her. Over and over, the things she says - or the much-less fakeable thoughts and feelings behind her words - keep reminding him of that. 

It's not enough to bear weight. Not yet. But at some point he would really, really like to stop feeling like he's falling, and have something - someone - solid, to hold onto. 

Asking what the Leareth-before-Angband would have thought of her is an impossible question. He's shortcut that in the past, because he can check what his past self thought of Vanyel, it's written down. And Vanyel approves of Maitimo, and that's enough.

There's nothing so verifiable here, but...maybe he can at least ask his imaginary mental model of Vanyel. That's a more coherent and answerable question. 

He takes a deep breath and looks up at Lucy. :I - think that I probably want to help you. To find magic you need. To challenge the Judgements, if that needs to be done. But...I will have to be more certain that it does need to be done. To know why you came to this conclusion: 

Leareth closes his eyes. :And, and - and also it is hard for complicated reasons that are not really about rational arguments and are very inconvenient I am sorry: 

Nod nod. 

"The reason the Judgments need to be challenged is that one of the laws that their light enforces is that the dead stay dead. That's not all of it, but it's a big part." 

The laws of the Judgments, as iron-hard as the Judgments can make them. The refusal to allow those low on the Chain the eternal life which the Judgments enjoy.

That is a VERY GOOD reason, and - and Leareth has FEELINGS about it, and he doesn't, actually, want to cry right now, it won't especially get in the way of Mindspeech but it'll be distracting for him and Lucy both. 

:Do you know if they have a reason for deciding on this policy, which they are willing to communicate to mortals: 

"Judgments are not...as a rule...willing to communicate with mortals. Our sun is to some extent an exception but they're still not going to talk to any human being who tries to talk to them. I mean, for one thing, human languages can't reach. I can talk to them, and translate for my mother and brother, when I brought them up to introduce to them, but unless you come to be able to speak Correspondence your ability to communicate with them unfiltered is--I mean maybe there's some other workaround but there isn't an existing communications channel."

The arrogance of Judgments that sees the lowest rung of the Chain as beneath notice or moral consideration. The example of a specific individual as exceptional in willingness to defy the dictates of its kind. The nature of human language as carried purely through vibrations in air which is largely absent between the planet and the star. The ability of Correspondence and its magic to reach through space. A willingness to communicate with the kin of one's beloved descendant. An openness to novel possibilities. 

Leareth is unsurprised. He does not, as a general rule, expect gods to care about communicating with mortals, or to be very good at it even if they try. 

(Melkor being an unfortunate exception and he is going to not think about that right now.) 

:Can you explain the Correspondence in more detail: 

"The Correspondence is a magical language innately spoken by various beings mostly above a certain height on the Great Chain. It's possible for people who don't innately speak it to learn words in it, and even use them magically, but they can't create words and they almost never understand all the layers of connotation that a word in Correspondence carries." 

The word she thinks is the Correspondence's name for itself; it carries all these characteristics and more: that it is capable of reshaping reality, that it burns, that it exists in every medium which has ever been used to communicate. 

:You have spoken words in this language while I was observing, yes?: 

"Yes. For magic, and to communicate with the Bazaar."

The state of having performed a referent act. The reality-altering traits of the Correspondence. Speaking with a beloved ancestor.

:I could see the magic. I think - maybe - I could learn it...: 

The prospect is incredibly terrifying. 

:...I...do not have access to most of my magic right now. Because–:

....no, in fact, this is too hard to form words about, let alone entire sentences.

He curls up on the sofa and hides his face against his knees and shivers.