:That all sounds very organized. And. Um. I hope you won't be terribly offended if I go with 'not invading your neighbors': 

Okay, there's 'not giving away precious information', and then there's the fact that he really wants to know.

Okay, sure, maybe that'll reduce regionalism, but - :That doesn't do a thing about succession struggles, we get those every other time the Emperor dies. Or nobles or generals rebelling when they get arrested, or think they're going to get arrested. Or army mutinies: Or their neighbors wanting their land but from how Vanyel phrased that he's pretty sure they're learning that now for themselves. :How long can you keep your monarchs alive?:

Oh no. 

It's so in line with everything he's heard about the Eastern Empire and it's so sad and Vanyel very badly wants to tell Janos everything, right now, and reassure him that it's all right, that he's safe now, that things are different here and it doesn't have to be that way... 

And he can't. Because he has no idea what compulsion might get tripped by the wrong revelation. 

:We approximately don't have succession struggles: he says quietly. :The monarch has to be a Herald, that's enshrined in our Laws, and - the Heralds trust each other. We all trained together as children, we had the same ethics instruction...: Shrug. :We have local rebellions, once in a while. I don't think we've ever had the Guard mutiny in Haven but we've had problems in border regions. We've lost one monarch to an assassin in Rethwellan, but that was six hundred years ago, we've been solidly allied with them for most of the time since. Usually, our monarchs die in their beds: 

Even if most other Heralds have to be very lucky to make it that far. 

BULLSHIT!

Look. We trained together as children, we had the same ethics instruction and damn good ethics instruction too, and we spent the last ten years all trying to murder each other!

And you don't have local rebellions 'once in a while!' You have local rebellions every time some lord gets too annoyed and breaks the law and then oh shit panics and commits another crime to cover it up and before long he's raising the banners and all his cousins are deciding which side of the line they want to be on! And all the lords are all the other lords' cousins! And this is still true even if the Imperial Capital always wins and everyone knows the Imperial Capital always wins because they have ten times as many mages and better ones at that! YOU DO NOT AVOID CIVIL WARS BY EDUCATION! At BEST you avoid them via compulsions, concentration of military force, careful selection of leaders and extensive paranoia!

He does not say any of this, of course. Vanyel might be able to read his emotions, but he keeps his mask as far up as he can, and let's the frenzied ranting stay silent. :That's very impressive: His vrondi-halo flickers out. His intuition doesn't tell him Vanyel is lying to him, which either means that Vanyel is a really, really good liar who happened to pick a really, really bad lie, or - much more likely - that Vanyel got fed the same story as everyone else about how Heralds are incorruptible, this story being manufactured, obviously enough, in the hopes of making it true, and that the past generation genuinely did happen to have enough peace in it for the story to only be absurd if you know how things ought to work. 

He doesn't even want to shatter their illusions! Yes, sure, people ought to know the truth, but that's a noble lie if he's ever heard one. He's just unhappy it means he can't find reliable sources for Valdemarian history, given that whatever he can find will be edited to death to maintain the lie.

On the plus side, they're really going to need some good generals.

:Is there anything you can tell me about the Karsite war, how it began and the century of peace ended?:

Vanyel does not comment on the lie. For one, that would reveal that he has a way of sensing deception even when Janos' mind is shielded, and two, he cannot blame the man at all for using a polite lie to change the topic. He must be so uncomfortable about this.

(It's making Vanyel even angrier than he already was about the Empire's existence.) 

:Yes, of course. It started almost immediately after Queen Elspeth's death: He chuckles without humor. :They call her Elspeth the Peacemaker, so. Anyway, her son died in - as far as I can tell - a genuine random accident, and her grandson inherited at twenty-two. We've had...uneasier relations with Karse than our other neighbors for most of our history, and this isn't our first border war. I think it's mostly about religion - they worship Vkandis Sunlord, and want to bring more followers to Him. Anyway, I suppose they saw a young untried King as another opportunity: 

Ah, this makes sense! It sounds like exactly the kind of situation that ought to provoke a war. Gods are bad, religions are bad, everyone knows that, that's why the empire bans them. :All that sounds fairly normal: For countries other than the world's most functional, at least. :How long has the war lasted? And what has the conflict look like, I don't know how wars are fought in your part of the world.:

(He's refraining from commenting on the 'genuine random accident' bit. Sometimes people do.)

:A little under a year ago. I'm not sure how border wars tend to look for you - I'd guess it's usually less evenly matched?: It seems unlikely that any of the vast, ruthless Empire's neighbors stand much of a chance. :Fewer Gates, I think, especially for major troop redeployments - it's not usually efficient for us. We've got all the major towns and rivers on the whole Border garrisoned, and Heralds at all the posts to provide Mindspeech and Farsight and mage-support. I - am unusually powerful, and also more familiar with the wards that cover the entire Kingdom; they were set up by King Valdemar, originally, but I believe I'm the first person since then to modify them. It allows me to cast at a distance from anywhere on the Border, so I personally spent most of the war so far riding around by myself to avoid making any of our camps too tempting a target, and responding to alarms all up and down: 

He's not going to go into too much more detail just yet, not while Janos is still forcibly loyal to his Emperor - it's possible that if he knew Vanyel's full power, he would be compelled to, what, try to kidnap him and drag him back there as a prize? Maybe not. It's not as though he has a chance of success. And it does feel like it's worth something, to impress him now. 

Cast at a distance from WHAT. Does he mean Gate-and-then-fire-through-the-Gate? Janos can do that. But he sure doesn't sound like he means that, because in that case why would he be moving around. :That sounds fascinating. What kind of distance? How do you overcome the projection difficulties? The difficulty of casting a spell at a distance rises with the cube of the distance -: explain please?

(He's also feeling very tired, at this point; exhaustion has added its weight to the backlash-headache and the dagger, he just really, really wants to learn more before he passes out and these people get a chance to read his dreams.)

Vanyel looks pleased, and a little flattered. :It is hard. Very few of our mages can do it much at all, and no one but me can cover the whole Border that way. It's - related to our ward system. I can link into it from anywhere, and then cheat - and also I'm quite unusually powerful even for an Adept, so some inefficiency is tolerable:

He frowns. :I would be very curious to hear your thoughts on some of the more technical details, but explaining the Web will get very technical, and you look exhausted. I should probably let you get some rest before the Healers chase me out of here with a broom: 

Got it! So now they get the night to do whatever they want while he's unconscious, and they bribe him with learning later. :It sounds fascinating, and I'd love to learn more, but yes, perhaps once I've rested: Theory Three of Vanyel is presently dominant, though 'believing his self-description' is honestly ahead of it. Hopefully they know enough not to screw with his mind in any way that will damage his utility as a general. :We would not want you to be broomstruck:

Vanyel moves as though to stand up, before remembering why this is definitely not something he should do. (It hurts quite a lot, but he manages to only make a bit of a face.) 

He catches the helpful Healer's eye. :Janos, it's been a pleasure meeting you, and I'm very grateful you survived - and Valdemar is honestly incredibly lucky that you happened to collapse somewhere that ended up with you being just down the hall from me inside of half a candlemark!: 

He seems to be considering whether to add something else, but he doesn't. They leave.

Gemma the Healer comes back, examines him again, firmly walks him through some sort of deep-breathing exercise which the Hardornen-speaking trainee explains is to 'help his lungs' and which hurts an impressive amount. She leaves a measured dose of poppy-syrup within arms' reach beside the cup of water and jug on his side table but doesn't otherwise nag him to take painkillers even though he REALLY SHOULD. 

He is then left alone with a different Healing-trainee for the night shift, a boy who speaks about fifteen words of Hardornen and will do his best to make sure Janos has everything he needs but is clearly mostly trying to cram for a test. 

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the House of Healing, a red-haired woman, solidly built but not quite plump (and less so than when the war began) is hurried into a different room in the House of Healing. 

An argument ensues. 

"You want me to do what." 

Vanyel is exhausted and desperately wants today to be over and not to be having to deal with this. 

"I know it's kind of bad that we can't ask his permission, but we really can't. Melody, look. He ran away, of his own free will - somehow, I'm not sure how he managed to get that around the compulsions - but I think it's pretty obvious he wanted freedom?" Or not being murdered by his political enemies, at least. "And he genuinely wants to pay us back for saving his life, and we could really badly use another Adept, but we can't trust him with anything important while his mind isn't his own. And no, sorry, I don't know much about what the compulsions are for. I didn't dare ask, in case it tripped some kind of defense on them. He's a mage - he'd have to countermeasures in there against modifying them, or else he could just do it himself." 

"- You're a mage," Melody points out, flatly. "Why do you need me for this?" 

Sigh. "Because it's really thoroughly done, they're all tied into each other - I think it's meant to be impossible to just undo without causing a lot of damage in the process. I need your help to walk me through what order to undo things in to avoid that." 

There is some further argument. 

Eventually, an agreement is reached. Melody isn't exactly delighted with the plan, but she Mindspeaks Gemma to check if the patient in question is asleep. 

Janos is asleep! He even drank the poppy juice, on the ancient and traditional grounds of "I'm helpless anyway and I don't need to negotiate anything else tonight." He spent some time before going to sleep thinking about all the mistakes he made (and Vanyel's curious last remark), but he's mostly just focusing on recovery, rather than anything more complex.

The Healing trainee has been watching him, not intervening at all but ready to nudge him back to sleep if he starts to wake. It seems unlikely. He's clearly utterly exhausted. 

Gemma and Melody put their heads together by his bedside. 

:Melody, are you sure this can't wait? He's worn out. I can't imagine doing a lot of Mindhealing will be great for him, right now: 

:Plan isn't for me to do much, just look. And - listen, I don't disagree, but Vanyel's the one you'd have to convince, not me: