:I understand completely and you are behaving completely reasonably. There are things I prefer to avoid discussing; specifically, anything that can hurt the empire. And if you would be willing to do that at some point, I would appreciate that; I don't think you're lying to me, but why trust when you can verify:

And the immortal horse-conspiracy... yup, that looks about right. Groveborn serve as sentient heralds of the Will-Behind-Valdemar, coordinating the Will's efforts to keep Valdemar in its preferred incomprehensible end state. (Usual check to make sure that he doesn't know if the Will is a god or a god's creation.) :I think I understand some of this: In particular, it gives Vanyel a neat way to be able to both love Yfandes and distrust her creators, as long as she's taking orders from a Groveborn she's supernaturally commanded to obey (fact check, figure out a comfortable way to ask the question without drawing attention to it), even if she's a good person without the (compulsions? Check.).

So is Karse run by a god, too? (Presumably a different god; he knows gods are evil and alien, but there's evil and alien and then there's 'ordering two countries you control to fight each other', seriously why.) :Interesting. Is there anything more you can tell me about Karse?:

:Hmm. So I think the important part here is that Karse was founded by worshippers of Vkandis. Their histories claim that the founders were refugees from another region that didn't let them worship their god freely. They've always been a religious state, and the Temple and priesthood have always been a formidable power; they're technically a hereditary monarchy, but whether the Son of the Sun, which is what they call their high priest, has been the de facto ruler has varied over time, depending on how strong and well-liked a particular King was. Their current King is - not exactly weak, but we believe he's made many of his policy decisions based on what would please the priesthood, and we suspect the war was one such decision. We believe that nearly all their Gifted children are taken from their families as soon as the Gifts are recognized, and raised by the Temple as priest-acolytes. Their Law is religious in nature, taken from the Writ of Vkandis - which, er, I'm not as familiar with as I might like - and the Sunpriests act as judges. They go through periods of being very expansionist and trying to conquer and convert their neighbors; I think this was moderately successful early in their history, when most of the neighboring land consisted of tiny city-states, and they've successfully nibbled off some of Hardorn in the past, but our border with them hasn't moved despite several wars. Er, does that answer your question?: 

:All this makes sense: Yup, this is how politics usually work; all you need is divine will for everyone to trust and its proxies proceed to start acting the way almost anyone else does when you give them power. :I think so. I'll want to know more about their military organization later, but that is less important than either confirmation of the facts about the war or starting to learn the language:

:Also, I am going to say this explicitly, as I said it to your sovereign, even though I probably should not until the war confirmation is made: You need bodyguards. I will explain a proper way to organize the Guard for a major leader afterwards, but Herald Vanyel, you need professional soldiers charged with ensuring you do not die. If you are worth five thousand men in battle, preventing a one in a hundred chance of your death is easily worth twenty men charged with protecting you for the duration of the war:

Vanyel nods along. 

- and then, with the mention of bodyguards, his expression shifts, to...almost that of a child about to start a petulant complaint about whether they really HAVE to go to school today. 

Vanyel takes a deep breath. Focus on the logical arguments for why, in fact, he SHOULDN'T have to be followed around all the time by twenty Guards. 

:I - think that might actually be pretty costly? And I'm not sure how much benefit it'd gain us. It would reduce my mobility a lot; I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but Companions aren't like normal horses, they're much faster and can maintain a given pace for far longer. Not to mention that a party of twenty is a lot more conspicuous than someone traveling alone! Also the only real threat to me is from mages, and the Guard doesn't have anyone mage-gifted: 

:Vanyel, think. They launched their attack under the most favorable conditions for them; you have since successfully held the line, so the conditions are becoming less favorable for them. The Karsites' only chance for victory, long-term, is if they win some sort of major coup; assassinating you would be the least expensive thing what would qualify, therefore, you should expect Karsite assassination attempts. Transferring twenty soldiers to the duty of protecting you has almost no chance of losing Valdemar the war, unlike your death. Also, the primary threats to you have nothing to do with mages -: (he's going to leave Gate-striking out completely for now, he doubts anyone else in the country has the skill for it and Vanyel is on his side) :- since the three simplest ways to assassinate you would be poisoning your food, cutting your throat while you slept, or stabbing you in passing in a hallway:

:And as for the conspicuousness, this is a reason to be clever, Not a reason to give up on it. The simplest possible solution would be to have strings of relays while you are on the frontier, since normal horses can keep speeds up for short periods of time much better than long. The second-simplest would be to have Heralds who were not mages guarding you while you were at the front. There must be some Heralds who have combat training but are not vitally necessary for some other purpose who could be deployed here, for the duration of the crisis; some work normally done by Heralds that could be offloaded onto non-Heralds while the Heralds helped keep you alive:

Vanyel bows his head, looking very unhappy. 

:- We absolutely can't spare twenty Heralds. Mages or not. I'm not sure we could spare five Heralds. There - are less than a hundred and fifty in total. And we're already cutting out huge amounts of important routine work, and stripping the interior of Valdemar and the less risky borders, so we can move people to the front: 

:Five trained men could certainly guard you for short or medium periods. The reason we would want as many as twenty would be so they could work in shorter shifts; tired men are less effective at spotting dangers. Certainly when you were stationed somewhere long-term, you could safely have a guard of twenty, with the five Heralds traveling when you travel and otherwise returning to their duties:

He can tell very clearly that Vanyel does not want bodyguards. Vanyel is being stupid; if Janos's absurdly overconfident guesses are right, he's Valdemar's only long-term hope, and if they aren't, he's still Valdemar's only short-term hope.

:Also, what routine work requires Companions? I would think that for most administrative affairs, clerks would do perfectly well, and I don't know if generals are usually Heralds: - though they ought to be - :but surely they must have deputies who can watch border forts while they command in the south; if Hardorn is not in a position to defend itself from Karse, surely the odds that it would invade you are negligible? Are you worried about Rethwellan? Lineas? Baires?:

Vanyel can tell he's being judged! However, he's very unsure which aspect of the situation Janos is judging him or the Heralds as a whole on! 

:I'll consider it: he allows. :In terms of routine work - the biggest thing is making sure that every town in Valdemar has a Herald pass through at least once a year, because only Heralds can cast a Truth Spell, and so the court appeals system relies on us. Also, we need to keep enough Mindspeakers deployed in the right circuit regions to maintain the relay and know what's happening on our borders - a lot of our Mindspeakers only have a comfortable range of fifty to a hundred miles, so we need multiple relay points to reach all the way to our borders. In terms of neighbors, the borders with Iftel and Rethwellan aren't worrying. Hardorn has an ongoing bandit problem, and they don't have good enough rule of law internally to prevent that from spilling over, but it's tolerable in the short run. The north and west are a bigger issue, actually. Lots of unclaimed land or small holdings, very little rule of law, so a major bandit problem. Most bloodpath mages that wander into our borders come from there:

Okay, the trial situation is legitimate. (Allowing for "only Heralds can cast a Truth Spell being true", which it... probably isn't? Actually, wait, if the Truth Spell is horse-powered than he DOES NOT TRUST IT AT ALL.) If they legalized compulsions, then that would give them lots more pseudo-Heralds from all the non-Herald mages! Or use of Thoughtsensing for it! It is a TERRIBLE time to suggest it, but it is also true! Still, they could stretch it further; he doubts that removing literally five Heralds would break it, or that there are no Heralds assigned to comparatively useless things who would not be more useful keeping Vanyel from being assassinated. :I doubt that removing a small number of Heralds would be worse for Valdemar than your death. I have no doubt but that your Companion agrees with me: Given that Vanyel explicitly said that half her job was warning him to take care of himself, and also that building rapport with the evil horses is very high priority...

:You know, Van, he has a point: 

:'Fandes!: 

....She is, unfortunately, probably right. 

:I'll consider it: he says again. :I - it turned out that this past year, the Karsite priesthood was able to trace my location - they planted some kind of mage-artifact on me, subtle enough that I didn't notice it for many months. If we can avoid that happening again, it may be safer for me to stay at larger camps, or at least move more slowly:

:And if you can, non-Herald bodyguards would do: He nods. :Do you know what happened to the artifact or if it still works?: He has SO MANY USES for a thing the Karsite priests can trace, starting with convincing them Vanyel is invading from across the Rethwellani border and going on from there.

:...Er, I think Savil has it? We figured out how to keep it behind shields so they can't locate it, but I don't think it's disabled. Savil was hoping I would have a chance to study it more closely at some point, in case we could learn something: 

Oh good. :Excellent. How valuable:

... Right, then, more questions.

:I think my next question are - bloodpath mages wandering onto your borders a major problem?: He would think that most mages would have BETTER THINGS TO DO, actually. Like make money. Most people who don't want to rule the world want money. :And... how exactly does the Truth Spell work?:

:I mean, there are much fewer of them than un-Gifted bandits, but they can cause much bigger problems? We get, I don't know, a couple of incidents a year. Most of them aren't Valdemaran. I don't know why they end up doing that instead of other things, but - I guess there aren't many opportunities for mages, in the north, or in the western areas that are still half Pelagirs: 

He sighs. 

:The Truth Spell makes use of vrondi, which are minor air elementals that have an affinity for minds and a particular ability to detect deception. It's based on a degenerate version of a summoning spell - one of our Herald-Mages figured out a version that could be done by any Herald with a strong enough Gift: 

There are a lot more things Vanyel could say about the Truth Spell, but he's not sure he wants to. 

:... I feel that there is something - wrong, in the world, when someone becomes a bandit. The greater the talents they have, the worse it is; the more potential wasted. One of the things the Empire tries to do, very hard, is make it so that it is always in a mage's interests to work within the Imperial system rather than against it. I understand that that may not be practical, but - still:

He also sighs.

:I know what the vrondi are, at least. And that does follow; I just find the question of - how - fascinating:

He pauses.

:And I do realize that if I was hostile to Valdemar, or even just a criminal inside Valdemar, learning how to fool or disrupt a Truth Spell would be one of my first priorities. I recognize that you still think I might be and that this is why you refrain from telling me; this is reasonable, but I think it is worth noting that overreliance on anything can be dangerous. The reason I asked about the talisman is because if Karse thinks they know where you are and is wrong, that is tremendously more dangerous to them than them correctly believing they have no idea where you are:

Vanyel looks thoughtful. :Yes, that's what I said to Savil - she'd wanted to just destroy it:

He doesn't address any of Janos' other comments.

Well, he's warned Vanyel about the truth spell possibly being hijackable by the evil god puppeting his country as loudly as he can! He doesn't think he has any other immediate moral questions; he's already pitched blood magic and compulsions at least as heavily as he wants to, and he doesn't see a great opportunity to pitch Vanyel on the entire idea of the laws and customs of war being fundamentally a compact between countries not to take advantage-gaining-but-commons-burning actions even in desperate circumstances, and therefore punished by only extending the aforementioned laws to people who follow them. Anything else Vanyel wants to talk about?

Vanyel isn't sure! He definitely still feels confused, and curious, but in a way that's hard to pin down. And he's not sure he trusts Janos - not yet, not entirely. 

:There's a Temple of Vkandis in Haven: he offers after a few beats of silence. :Obviously not affiliated with the government of Karse, but they practice the same Writ, in theory. And I think the priest speaks Hardornen. You might find it informative to visit?: 

... You know what, Janos is not going to flip out about the fact that they have a temple worshipping a hostile god in the middle of their country. He's been flipping out about too many things recently, and has started to reach a sort of equilibrium where, yes, Valdemar is going to do bizarre things, and, no, he doesn't have the political capital to stop them. :I see. That might well be very informative to visit. I might worry a little about information slipping, since it would be a sensible place for Karsite spies to visit; I presume you're trying to keep at least some of the facts about me quiet:

Actually, that's relevant. :Is there anything in particular you need me staying quiet about? Information you want to make sure I don't leak? I presume you're mostly refraining from telling me, but if there's anything I should be keeping secret that I might not know I should be keeping secret...:

:- Oh, I've been assuming you're not intending to reveal your name or identity just because you don't want the Eastern Empire to find out. If you go to the Temple and ask the priest about Karse's history and what he thinks of the war, well, you won't be the first. He doesn't approve of it, and he's not talking to any spies - one of the Heralds approached him and he volunteered to say so under Truth Spell. You'll want to avoid standing out to any of the acolytes or visitors to the Temple, but it's not as though they'll know your face: 

The other question is...less obvious, and one he should try to think about before he answers it. 

:...I'm not sure. I don't think I've told you anything that isn't public knowledge or close to it - er, up until this year my Gifts would have been a secret, but the Karsites have seen them close-up in action, by now. I'll think about it, though, and - obviously try to have some discretion, I guess?: 

:Understood and appreciated. I would prefer to avoid my name and identity coming out outside the Senior Circle, yes, and I should select a Valdemaran usename. Should have selected one much sooner, in fact:

Much sooner; he botched this. He'd like to credit being stabbed in the chest, hitting backlash and then interrogated under Truth Spell, but in fact he'd just somehow managed to conduct his life without seriously considering that he'd need to flee halfway across the continent and take up a foreign name. A careless mistake and one utterly inexcusable. 

Nod. :Want help coming up with one? I can get you a register of Valdemaran names or something - it won't be in Hardornen but we use the same alphabet so it shouldn't matter: