"I have not decided that yet! ....I am, in fact, quite sure that Hell is not 'the worst thing ever'. If the situation facing me were choosing whether to help Asmodeus defeat - what was His name - defeat Zon Kuthon, I would choose that in a heartbeat. And if I were sufficiently convinced that is true, and not merely convenient propaganda, that Asmodeus is going to win anyway... Well, if your people retrieve us and transport me to Cheliax for interrogation, that by itself would be evidence, and would shift my calculus here. But I will note that it has not happened yet." 

Has she not actually - no, she hasn't actually tried to explain -

"By the time it does you're going to have a lot less bargaining power, though. Once they've captured you they might as well learn everything they can from you, and once they've learned everything they can from you you're much less valuable. If - if they walk in and we're sitting here together working on magic items and I report that you came around eventually and can we have a lot of quartz, we can give everyone spell resistance... they're still going to have to verify under a Truth Spell that you're not planning to immediately betray us but they won't open by torturing all your secrets out of you! Because we're in a hurry and it'd take a while for you to be useful after that! If you're useful then you get to stay intact which is in your interests, even your interests that don't mesh with ours perfectly!"

"I shall take that under consideration." 

Leareth has, in fact, approximately decided that if the time limit for expected retrieval is getting very close, and there's still no sign of rescue - even failed rescue - then he might as well do exactly what Carissa is suggesting. He's pretty sure he could pass a Truth Spell on not intending to immediately betray Cheliax, especially since that clearly wouldn't be in his interest. 

(And the various pieces he's already set in motion - Nayoki leading his organization, Vanyel, Valdemar - would not at that point be something he had any control over.)

Most of the pieces are outside of his control already. But he has a little under four candlemarks, still, to convince Carissa that her own prospects would be better if she left with him rather than wait for the leadership of her horrible country to retrieve them. 

Maybe now isn't the time to push that any harder, though. He needs to sound reasonable to Carissa, which means focusing on instrumental realities, not values... 

"Noting that I have a - different, and in some ways tighter, definition of 'staying intact' than you seem to - what do you think it could look like, if I were to agree to make shield-talismans for Cheliax?" 

Well, that might be encouraging. 

"I think they'd want your oath that you won't operate against our troops, for a very detailed specification of that, and that you weren't deliberately weakening the talismans or introducing flaws, and that you won't escape, and then they could get you a lot of quartz and see if any of our people can be taught how to make those."

It's still the middle of the night. 

It feels to Vanyel like it's been about a century, but in fact they lit the fifth time-candle only a short while ago. He spent several candlemarks explaining everything he heard from Leareth to the other mages, and then comparing it against their rather limited observations from the skirmish north of Valdemar. They've updated the Web-alarms, because why not. It might give them a few seconds or minutes' more warning. 

For whatever good that does them. Leareth was very upfront that he didn't know everything about this other world's magic. That he had only mindread a couple of 'wizards', as they call them, from a random scout party. 

Valdemar is in so much trouble. 

Savil, her face drawn and distant, reaches under the meeting-room table to squeeze Vanyel's hand.

Then looks back to Katha and Keiran. "So? What've we got?" 

Herald Katha looks even more tired than Vanyel feels right now. 

"Well. We found the Ifteli soldiers, all right." 

Kilchas doesn't, quite, slam his hand down on the table. More of a medium thump. "And?" 

Katha glances over at Vanyel. "They didn't know as much as, er, what your Leareth supposedly figured out, but - none of it conflicted. They're terrified. - We've brought them to a secure Guard post and are providing food and Healers." 

"He's not my Leareth," Vanyel says absently. He's distracted. Thinking. "...So, um, do we - believe Leareth, then?" 

"It's like you said, boy. Why would he lie about this? Makes him look bad, really." 

Savil's hand, under the table, tightens over Vanyel's. She can tell that he's tense. That he's scared. So is she. 

Vanyel can guess what she's thinking. 

...She doesn't know the half of it. There hasn't been time for her to absorb it, fully - that he's been keeping this secret for over a decade. That he's learned so much from Leareth. That it's Leareth who he's afraid for, now, as much as Valdemar's future.

"Well, we haven't caught him out in a lie yet. And, sure - like Kilchas pointed out, it's not obvious why he'd want to. Since on the one hand, it'd be in his interest to make this 'Cheliax' sound worse than they are, but if he's hoping for a rescue, he wouldn't want to scare us off from attempting it." 

"He didn't ask us to rescue him," Vanyel says. Pointlessly. 

Randi is back in bed; with his illness, he doesn't have the stamina for all-nighters anymore. Shavri is attending him. Tran, they didn't even bother waking yet. And Vanyel is - distracted. 

This should absolutely not be on her. And yet. 

Savil sighs, but manages to keep all of her grumbling internal. "So. What now?" 

"I'm not sure! ...Er, I've sent some agents to try to open communications with Leareth's people. On the assumption that they'll have someone near the spot where we saw the Web-alarm yesterday, and that they'll - be open to help." 

"What? Are you sure that's a good idea?" 

"I mean, no! I'm not sure of anything here! But - if what Leareth told Vanyel is even slightly related to the truth, then it'd be stupid of them to murder our agents. We're both in trouble here." 

Kilchas' breath gusts out. "Simplifies a lot, doesn't it. Having a common enemy." 

Nobody seems quite sure how to respond to this. 

"- I think we might as well," Savil says finally. "Contact Leareth's people, I mean - if they're even really out there. We should get some Heralds over there, so we can put them under Truth Spell, confirm they're not planning to use this as an opportunity to infiltrate Valdemar or something. But if they're not doing that - and it seems like a stupid time for it, if Leareth's really a prisoner - then we might as well fight together, no?" 

Keiran still looks not-totally-sure of this, but she nods. 

Katha takes a deep breath. "And - I want to get some of our people into Iftel." 

"The barrier doesn't let Heralds across. You know that." 

"I'm sure Katha has plenty of agents who aren't Heralds. Right, Katha? ...I mean, at the very least, we're already sending them Healers - why not recruit some of them as spies at the same time -?"