Fëanor is panicking, but not because of the dead body—that's easy enough to fix; even in the old days Mandos was always pretty lenient about accidental deaths. He's panicking because, in the back of his mind, he half-expected this result, and it confirms all his worst fears about the true nature of his species and their relationship to the fates of the world.

Tony didn't expect this result; he thought there was a good chance that they'd end up aging or de-aging the test subject instead of sending him through time, but that would have been pretty harmless to an elf anyway. He definitely didn't expect to kill him. Luckily, death seems to be cheap for them.

"It's probably the god Strange met while he was dead," he answers Leareth. "He did mention him saying something about time travel being impossible, but he also had a vision of it working just fine, so I didn't put too much stock in it." 

Leareth's head is currently pounding from the mixture of extending his mage-sight past its limits in an attempt to track down that mindvoice plus the sheer blazing quantity of magic involved. 

He shivers. Takes a deep breath. :If Mandos is the god of this world, but not of Strange's world–: 

Wait. 

- no, wait, damn it, he should have made this connection days ago, and he only failed to because he can't, currently, really think about that entire area. 

:- Strange is human. From Earth. If he went to Mandos, then - then...: 

Leareth trails off, and -

- and then reaches directly for the god-mindvoice, because at this point, why not. 

:Do you have the dead of Velgarth - of my world - as well: 

SOME OF THEM, PERHAPS. MY CALL IS MEANT FOR ALL THE CHILDREN OF ILLÚVATAR, BUT YOUR WORLD HAS OTHER GODS WHO ARE—NEARER, AND HEARD MORE LOUDLY BY THE SPIRITS OF ITS DEAD. HOWEVER, IN LIGHT OF RECENT EVENTS, THOSE GODS MAY NO LONGER BE AROUND. IS THERE SOMEONE IN PARTICULAR YOU WOULD LIKE ME TO CHECK FOR?

I AM GOING TO SEND BACK CALANÁRO, he adds, after a moment. NORMALLY I WOULD GIVE HIM A LONG SAFETY LECTURE FIRST, BUT I AM MUCH TOO BUSY.

A large number of Leareth's people are dead and arguably he should be properly making a list, but in fact there's only one name at the top of his mind right now. 

:Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron - also called Demonsbane and Hero of Stony Tor -: 

YES. HE IS HERE. I WILL SEND HIM BACK AS WELL, IF YOU THINK HE WILL BE OF ASSISTANCE IN UNDOING THIS MESS.

There are a thousand things he could say, and none of them would be right and in this moment none of it matters to Leareth anyway. 

:Yes. He would be: 

Four and a half days earlier, in local subjective time -

Vanyel remembers dying. 

He remembers dying, and that it didn't hurt. 

...He died in the Foresight dream.

The final moments etched into his memory are of Leareth. Leareth's shock and - desperation? - reaching for him, and Vanyel doesn't think that anyone, not even the immortal two thousand year old mage he was created by the gods to fight, is that good of an actor - 

- wait. Focus. 

He remembers dying, and - wherever he is now, it feels like the Shadow-Lover's realm. Except not. Something is indefinably different... 

The all-too-obvious difference, is that the Shadow-Lover is not currently talking to him and offering him the usual choice of whether to move on or go back.

It's very quiet, wherever-here-is. Peaceful. He's not in pain. 

Apparently he's...going to be staying dead, then?

Probably he should - care, or ask questions, or find the Shadow-Lover and argue with him, or something, but it's peaceful here and he could, instead, just...not do that.

He drifts. 

It takes a long time - if 'time' is the right concept, wherever-and-whatever this is there's something odd about time passing here - before Vanyel bothers to pay any attention to his surroundings, other than noticing the quiet. But, eventually, he does. 

He doesn't, technically, have surroundings. Not in the physical sense. But—this place is something, in a deeper sense than anything natural sight or even Othersenses can see. It is a fortress, a prison at need, but for him a—port? His mind, used to seeing through eyes, tries to make sense of the raw reality that's now around him, and he imagines that he's standing on a stone floor in a room so vast he cannot see its walls or its ceiling. There are an uncountable number of other spirits surrounding him, though he can't recognize, nor indeed more than barely see, any of them.

In one direction the floor seems to slope down toward the shore of a sea, and an open sky shrouded by white mist. He can go down to the shore and get in a little boat and pass on into the mist. He would find perfect peace beyond it. He would not return.

...It's tempting. But, no. Not yet. 

It reminds him in some distant way of k'Treva, it's not very similar but, for him, k'Treva has always been the place for resting. And for waiting. 

Waiting for what? Vanyel isn't sure. He hadn't been expecting there to be this much existence, now that he's dead for good. 

Eventually, for lack of anything else to do, he starts walking. Not toward the imaginary-shore-and-sea, but in a different direction. 

He walks for a very long time. Days, maybe. It's very hard to keep track of time here.

Eventually he ends up in a place that he probably didn't want to go. Before, he had been in a place that offered freedom; this is a place of imprisonment. Not for him, nor can the inmates harm him, but what he sees in here will still frighten him. Hideous, twisted humanoid creatures; demons of fire and ice; things in shapes too vile to name. Many of them are throwing themselves madly, vainly, repeatedly against the bars of their cells.

But there is one who doesn't quite seem to belong here.

He looks, at first glance, like a beautiful not-quite-human with red-gold hair, but to Vanyel's Othersenses it seems like—that isn't his correct shape? His wrists and ankles are bound by short lengths of golden chain, which also show up on mage-sight; "chains" is, in fact, just a metaphor for what they are. He's sitting, dejected-looking, against the wall of his cell.

"Help me," the prisoner says, in a quiet, pitiful voice.

Vanyel...supposes he's frightened by the the horrific demon-shapes behind the bars, but he doesn't care very much. He's seen - not worse, but bad enough - and besides, he's already dead. Nothing matters anymore. 

When he hears the pleading voice, though, he stops walking. A call for help is always going to be salient to him. He swore an oath to the King, after all, to heal the wrongs and bring aid to those who suffer - 

Not particularly expecting it to work, he reaches out with Thoughtsensing and mage-sight, tries to get a closer look at the prisoner who may not be what he seems. 

The prisoner is not supposed to be here. He was tricked into assuming this form, used as a decoy for another shapeshifter's escape plan.

(Serves him right, for all the tricks he's played on people over the years, but he had put that all behind him, and died honorably—with another trick, but that's what he's good at, and when half the universe was at stake he didn't think much of the rules of honorable combat—)

Aaaaaaaaaah. 

All right. Focus. What is he supposed to do about this. Vanyel was extremely not expecting the Shadow-Lover's realm to have a demon-prison in it, much less a wrongfully imprisoned– well, not innocent person, but clearly he isn't supposed to be here. 

Can he sort of yell with Mindspeech and try to get the Shadow-Lover's attention. 

A god who could, plausibly, be the Shadow-Lover appears beside him.

I AM HERE, CHILD, he says. WHAT IS THE MATTER? THIS PART OF MY HALLS WAS NOT MEANT FOR YOU.

The first time Vanyel saw the Shadow-Lover face to face, he knelt. Called him 'Lord.'

That was a long time ago. 

"Shadow-Lover," he says, calmly, neutrally. "Guessing you didn't have the option to send me back, this time. Anyway. Maybe not. I don't think it's meant for him, either." He points at the not-exactly-innocent shapeshifted prisoner. 

I AM KNOWN BY MANY NAMES, says the god, half-curiously and half-sternly. BUT I WILL NOT ANSWER TO A FALSE ONE, AND THOUGH MY HALLS BE A PLACE OF ETERNAL TWILIGHT, I DO NOT LOVE THE SHADOW.

I DO NOT, NORMALLY, HAVE THE OPTION TO RETURN MORTALS TO THE WORLD OF THE LIVING AT ALL. THESE, IN FACT, MAY BE SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES—

A pause.

HAVE YOU KNOWN—SOMEONE ELSE—WHO HAS RETURNED YOU FROM BEYOND THE EDGE OF DEATH, BEFORE—?

"- Oh. You - but - you're not -" 

Looking back, Vanyel thinks, he should probably have noticed that he was confused a long time ago. 

"I don't know who or what you are, but the god of death I have met before is called the Shadow-Lover. Four times, so far. He - always gave me a choice. To go back. Because I was still needed." 

I HAVE MANY NAMES, BUT IN THE TONGUE OF THEM THAT KNOW ME BEST I AM CALLED NÁMO MANDOS, MASTER OF SPIRITS, KEEPER OF THE HALLS OF THE DEAD. IF THERE IS A 'SHADOW-LOVER' CALLING HIMSELF GOD OF DEATH TO MEN, THAT IS...QUITE CONCERNING. WHAT—WHAT IS THE FATE OF THE SOULS OF MEN, AS FAR AS YOU KNOW? AND HOW FAR, INDEED, DO YOU KNOW—IS IT COMMON, ON YOUR PLANET, FOR SOULS TO RETURN?

He takes a look at the prisoner. THIS ONE IS INDEED NOT WHO HE SEEMS, he says. I KNEW THAT THE ONE WHO BELONGS IN THIS CELL HAD ESCAPED, BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS CAUSED BY THAT NONSENSE OF FËANOR'S. I DID NOT KNOW HE HAD IMPRISONED ANOTHER IN HIS PLACE.

Loki changes back to his proper form. His chains and the bars on his cell vanish.

"Thank you. No thank you for leaving me here this long."

"I have no idea what happens to souls who weren't, um, picked out as a pawn of the gods to fight their wars for Them. The Tayledras believe people reincarnate and live new lives. One person I know got bound to a magical sword but that's unusual. - Oh, I guess some of them come back as Companions? That's just in Valdemar though." 

He looks over at Loki. "- Also. I - sorry, I read your mind a bit, I didn't mean to I was just confused, sorry, but - something about half the universe at stake? What?" 

"Uh, I'll let the (actual) god explain, I'm sure he knows more than I do, but yeah, half the universe is dead."