This makes it an excellent time to think about the future of the empire!

As an Imperial Kinsman, Janos is only under seventeen compulsions, carefully ranked in priority in case of conflicts. The first five of those are irrelevant, since he’s not being issued direct imperial orders prefixed with ‘obligatory’, learning that the Emperor is dead, attempting to or planning to attempt to alter his compulsions or orders, or receiving communications attributed to the Emperor. This meant that the sixth, ‘Serve the interests of the Emperor,’ and the seventh, ‘Serve the interests of the Eastern Empire’, are the highest priorities.

(His apartments are luxurious, apart from the blood on his carpet, the blood on his hands, the blood on his robes, the fire, and both dead assassins.)

If he goes to the palace healers, they are all part of Sorim’s faction, so they’ll stop his heart. That would be suicide, which would serve neither Emperor nor Empire. If he reports to the commercial healers, Majon will know and he can outbid Janos. Suicide again. If he goes to the illegal healers, Daron can also outbid Janos. More suicide. If he leaves scrying range for healing, by the time he returns, either the Emperor will be dead (and Compulsion Two will come into effect) or whoever is dominant in politics will have him assassinated.

Dying is not an efficient way to serve the Empire.

On the other hand, there are a *lot* of ways of contributing to the good of the empire from outside assassination range.

So, bound to loyally serve Emperor (long may he reign!) and Empire (may it be eternal!), Janos throws his farsight as far west as possible - raises a Gate on the threshold of his room - steps through, brings it down, taps the node - farsight - gate - steps back through - down - tap - farsight - gate - down - tap - farsight - gate - down (staggering, now) - farsight, gatedown, farsight, gatedown (blood, falling, when it touches the ground he is gone) - farsightgatedownfarsightgatedownfarsightgatedown - 

It's shockingly impressive, really, that given his condition, he nonetheless makes it almost 1400 miles. 

Gating mostly between different random remote patches of forest or field, he doesn't notice when he leaves behind the borders of the Empire, and by the time he's crossing Hardorn, he's barely able to track his surroundings at all. 

Somehow, almost miraculously, he traverses all of Hardorn, and crosses the border of Valdemar. 

(Elsewhere, unknown to him, an alarm is triggered. But Herald Vanyel has yet to carry out his plan of adding the vrondi as watchers, and so he has no way of knowing his presence has been observed.) 

Eventually, at some point, he won't be able to go further, and if he keeps pushing it then he won't be conscious for much longer, either. 

As he prepares for his final Gate, his eyes are blurring, his feet are shuffling, his chest feels like there's a knife in it, he's only standing up because he's compulsioned to do so (serve the empire), and he needs to keep going. He's in the middle of a forest, he can't stop here - 

One final Farsight, can he find a person - yes - gate - step through the arch of branches - down (and at that point his legs stop working).

He manages to say, "reward," before his eyes close. He says it in the language of the Eastern Empire, unfortunately, but it's still impressive he manages to say it.

It's incredibly lucky that the person he's just collapsed in front of is a Healer. It's even luckier that she's experienced, including with mages; in fact, she was recently at the Border, assisting in treating casualties from the war with Karse. The last battle was brutal, though, and she requested leave, which was granted immediately; it's the first time that she's asked. She's currently visiting her daughter, who several years ago fell in love with a merchant visiting their hometown up north, and ended up traveling with him for a year – accompanied by her young daughter, from a first marriage that ended in tragedy. When her daughter was pregnant again, though, they settled down in a village near Haven, shortly before the war began. 

She's in the garden, picking herbs for their supper, when out of nowhere there's a Gate, and then a man, and he gasps out a word she doesn't understand and then collapses in a heap at her feet. 

Roa knows what a Gate looks like, though she's never seen a Gate like this one before, shaped on midair rather than using a doorway. She's seen enough Gates to note, in the few seconds it's up, that this one looks....sloppy? 

Which is probably explained by the fact that the mage - Adept, he must be, and dressed in foreign, strange clothing - was unconscious within seconds of taking it down. Also there's a lot of blood. A pretty concerning quantity of blood, actually! Which is explained by the knife still buried in his chest! 

(She spends about three seconds worrying that he might be a Karsite Adept, maybe even the Adept who's given them so much trouble, but he doesn't look Karsite any more than he looks Valdemaran, he's not wearing a priest-mage's robes, and besides, would it matter? She's a Healer. She's not going to let a man die just because she hasn't yet confirmed that he isn't their enemy.) 

Roa hollers for help; her daughter should be just inside and, having grown up with a Healer for a mother, she knows what that tone of voice means. And then she drops to the ground at the man's side, and reaches in with her Gift even as she checks for a pulse. It's weak and rapid, and his life-force is dim, he's in shock and it's not just the blood loss, though that would be bad enough - she recognizes the signs of backlash, which is easily explained by the fact that he just GATED FROM MIDAIR AFTER HAVING BEEN STABBED. 

She leaves the knife where it is; best to wait for backup, so she can be in a full Healing-meld before she has to try to stop the bleeding that will inevitably result from removing it. For now, she gets a link to him and pushes energy across until his heart beats a little more steadily. He's breathing - mostly fine? The knife didn't pierce a lung. Lucky for him. Luckier for him that whatever he was running from, because it's clear he was fleeing something, he somehow managed to make it as far as her. 

Once he's a little more stable, and she's commandeered her son-in-law's strong arms to carry him inside and get him under blankets, she stretches her Mindspeech to its very limits, to reach the twenty miles between here and Haven. 

:Herald Tantras?: 

:Roa?: He pushes with his own much stronger Mindspeech, and Taver's support at his back, stabilizing the link from his end. :Is it urgent?: It must be, or why would she be Mindspeaking him directly, he didn't even know she was nearby - 

:Tran! Did you find a Farseer yet to–: 

:A moment, please: This is yet another incredibly inconvenient downside of having Vanyel unavailable; Van could Farsee the site of the Web-alarm himself. It's even more frustrating because he's right here, just out of commission and only the gods know how long his recovery will take this time. 

(Guilt. Grief. It feels as though the war never stops destroying everything that matters and all he can do is hurt the people he loves by demanding the impossible of them, and it's harder to believe, each passing month, that it will ever end or that if it does it can possibly have been worth it...) 

:Roa, what?: 

Her mindvoice is very flat. :An Adept mage just Gated on top of me and collapsed. Looks foreign. Not Karsite, I don't think, but can't be sure. Also he's been stabbed in the chest: 

:Figured the Senior Circle needs to know. ...Wasn't a normal Gate either. Didn't use a doorway, just - right in midair:

:- Herald Tantras. Listen to me. He's in bad shape and I'm the only Healer in town. Have to get him to the House of Healing: She gives the name of the village. 

Herald Tantras is having what is possibly the worst week of his life so far and this is TOO MANY THINGS. 

Roa presses ahead. :Reckon we've got to keep him alive, so you folks can ask him what in all hells he's doing here. Savil must've ridden through here. Can she Gate?: 

This finally snaps him out of the baffled surprise. 

:I'll ask. That must be the Web-alarm. - You're sure it's safe? I was going to have someone Farsee the site, first...: 

:Herald Tantras, he's unconscious from backlash and completely out of reserves and he's losing blood. He is not going to be a danger to you right now. Haven may be in a lot more danger if he dies before we can get an explanation: 

Which is why, after a frantic and incredibly confused emergency meeting with the Senior Circle, ten minutes later Herald-Mage Savil is raising a Gate to the town hall - the only building she remembers clearly enough from riding past on her way to other circuits - and another fifteen minutes after that, the mysterious unconscious foreign Adept is in a bed in the House of Healing, with trainees flocking to the room to join the Healing-meld.

(They see a lot of war casualties later in their recovery but they almost never get fresh stabbings, the front is too far away and injured combatants are stabilized down south before being evacuated. It's very exciting.) 

Janos will wake up in a comfortable bed, still in considerable pain from the half-healed wound and also the backlash headache, and a bit fuzzy-headed from having been dosed with pain drugs. 

There's a woman in Herald's Whites sitting at his bedside, waiting, her shoulders tense and her face a wary mask. Also, for some reason, his wrists are bound and restrained to the bed-railings, which would not normally be especially effective on a mage but his Gifts have been badly overused and aren't really cooperating right now. 

:He's awake, I think: Savil informs Tantras, reaching through the hasty mage-shielding on the room; they can't put him in the proper shielded room, Vanyel's there, and they still have no idea what he's doing here and whether he's a threat. Then she casts a first-stage Truth Spell, which won't feel like anything to the recipient, and turns to the man. 

"Do you understand me?" she asks him curtly, in Valdemaran and then repeating herself in Karsite, and Rethwellani too because why not. 

(Vanyel has been Mindspeaking her every two minutes for the past candlemark, while they waited for the mage to wake up, and Savil thinks it's a good thing he's still too weak from blood loss to get out of bed unaided, because otherwise there would be absolutely no keeping him out of this room.) 

Janos is awake! This is better than he was expecting! Even with the chains and his focus being missing, this is still better than he was expecting!

He's also missing some layers; not surprising, given that the knife's been removed. (It was an excellent knife; the hilt of an eating knife and a stiletto blade. He wished he'd been the one to come up with that idea.) His coat, waistcoat, shirt and baldric are all missing; at least he still has his breeches.

(Janos does not, on court-trained mindspeaker-defense reflex, think that the clothes he's carrying matter because his concealed purses were in his coat, waistcoat, and left sock, his enchanted daggers were up one shirt, in a coat lining, and in his right boot, and the extremely subtle ward-spell was attached to an opal on his shirt-collar. At least the forged imperial writ entitling the bearer to whatever assistance he requires and the true imperial writ permitting him to use the Canals were both concealed in his breeches.)

He does not understand the woman! (He might recognize Rethwellani if he was in better shape, but not well enough to speak it.)

Quick scan of the woman. She's old but healthy, wearing white, so she can't be poor - the white would be muddy and she'd be bent - but the whites are plain, not court clothes or even servants' clothes-at-court. Not surprising, most places are poorer than the Eastern Empire. A uniform? The cut suggests it, but he has no idea what it's the uniform of. Someone who has the power to imprison him, which means he has the power to help them.

"I don't speak your language," in the language of the Eastern Empire. Then - "Do you understand me?" in the same. Then he goes through the others he speaks - a few eastern dialects, some Treterine, a few of the northern languages he learned a little of on campaign, his heavily accented Hardornen - 

He shows no sign of recognition or understanding when she asks in Karsite. So - either he's an implausibly good actor, with a story planned in advance because there's no way he had time to think it through in the last fifteen seconds after he woke up, or he's not from Karse. 

She relaxes fractionally. 

- Hardornen! Interesting. What is that accent? 

"I understand you," she answers in Hardornen. "Where are you from, and why are you here now?" 

Okay, Hardonen works! In retrospect he should have started with it, since his plan was to go west past Hardorn and keep going, but - 

"The Empire." And - "Because I lost at the Fourth Game."

There are two possible tracks he could follow for trying to clarify that in a non-blood-loss way. Usually he'd decide which by go by his extensive personal knowledge of whoever he was speaking to, gotten from the fact that everyone worth knowing studied at the Hall of Learning, but that option isn't on the table, so the question is -

"Where am I?"

... How much can he learn before he needs to commit to anything.

This would be much more informative if he had included a mention of which Empire! 

She doesn't answer his question. "You Gated here. How far, approximately?" 

Ah, basic competence. How utterly unsurprising.

"I don't know. A thousand miles, if I had to guess?"

"From east of Hardorn?" It's a guess, but an informed one. He speaks Hardornen, badly; he doesn't seem to recognize any of the other languages she used at all. "And - what exactly is the 'Fourth Game'?" 

"East of Hardorn, yes." Does she not know what the Empire is? If he's made it that far, he may be safe... though he admits he has some trouble believing there's anywhere on the planet that doesn't know what the Empire is.

"Politics. It's not my specialty."

"I...see. Are you likely to be pursued." 

While she waits for his answer, she Mindtouches Vanyel, with a very brief summary of the man's answers so far. :Passes a Truth Spell. Doubt he's being fully open with us but he's not lying: 

:- Eastern Empire. It's got to be. And, er, murderous politics doesn't not fit with what I've read about them: 

:Goddamnit: 

THIS WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE CONVENIENT IF THESE PEOPLE WEREN'T COMPETENT. Then they could tell him things and he could build an internally consistent structure of lies and so he'll have to answer their questions obviously.

"Unlikely but possible. I have a ward against scrying -" which could *not* be removed, thanks to a Healer, a Fetcher, and a very good book on anatomy "- and I'm good at Gating." With any luck they'll think he's dead. Without... well, he can be a very useful ally.

He pauses.

"Also, I don't know if you have any reason to believe me, but I mean you no harm."

Hopefully they're reading his mind, in which case they do have a reason to believe him. If not, well... this may be trickier. What do his instincts say about that?

"We gathered. You have some nice magic items. And - it's an unusual skill, Gating without a doorway like you did." A pause. "You must have been here before, to Gate here?" 

:Savil: An urgent tap at her shields. :Have you checked him for compulsions: 

:What: 

:It's one of the things I read. They use compulsions a lot, to ensure loyalty: Actually, he mostly knows this because Leareth told him. 

To Janos' people-reading instincts, the woman...seems to believe him? She's wary, and not taking what he's saying at exactly face value, but she doesn't seem to be worried that he's being dishonest. 

Also her eyes have now gone very slightly out of focus. It's the way a Gifted person looks while using their Othersenses. 

"I'm very good at gating."

Ah, good, *now* she's reading his mind. In that case, he's going to lower his shields and focus on the central thing - that he does well by people who does well by him. They can look into his mind, and it will be there, clear and bright; he rewards his servants well, purchases information on campaign instead of torturing it out, pays an agreeable price for goods he wants, doesn't break alliances unless double-crossed - anyone who works with him will not regret it.

(To her Othersenses, Janos's mind is *full* of Compulsions; more than a dozen, perfectly executed and all carefully woven together to be mutually-supporting and mutually-reinforcing, mage-work strong and sure and not in the least subtle. If Janos isn't the most Compulsioned person she's ever seen, Savil's led a very interesting life.)

Savil wasn't initially planning to use Thoughtsensing! She was assuming he would be shielded, at least well enough to notice if not to block her out, and also it's not a standard part of the ethical use of Gifts, for Heralds. 

Exceptions can be made, though, and that's a really concerning number of compulsions! Also he...seems to actually be trying to let her look? She has her Thoughtsensing partially open already, to hold the link with Vanyel, and suddenly his shields are down enough that she's catching surface thoughts without meaning to. His thoughts seem to indicate that he's expecting and even wants her to read his mind. 

Those are the tidiest compulsions she's ever seen. :Van, that was a good idea - I wouldn't've seen this unless I looked up close, but -: and she passes the impression from her Othersenses across to him. :I can't tell what they do, can you?: 

:Not without looking up-close myself and studying them for a while! You can just ask him?: 

That would not have occurred to Savil at all. :Why would he tell us?: 

:I don't know, because he's fleeing some sort of political assassination and we just saved his life? Seems like he's trying to be cooperative. And - he may still be a threat, especially if I'm right and those are loyalty compulsions, but I can't blame him for running, the Empire is awful: 

:Hmm: 

Savil focuses her attention back to the bedridden mage in front of her. "Since you seem to be allowing me, I'm going to read your mind." Peek. 

:Huh: she adds to Vanyel. :I...think you're right: 

She's still tense, but also suddenly feeling a lot of sympathy for the man. 

"You're under an awful lot of compulsions," she says. "Why? And are any of them going to, er, force you to inform someone where you are, or something?" 

Well, yes, of *course* she's going to read his mind. He's surprised she couldn't get under his shields earlier - he's not exactly at his best, with his mind this fuzzy, and he knows that the Empire doesn't have the lead in mental Gifts the way it does in magic. He'd assumed she was anyway; how else would she know she could trust him?

Right now, his obvious thoughts are the ones he's trying to shove at her - that he genuinely does intend to cooperate; that even if she doesn't want to cooperate, he owes her organization one for healing him and that he pays his debts, that he has multiple useful skills he'd be happy to put at her faction's service at least until the debt is cleared, or, better, until a long-term relationship of mutual benefit concludes amicably - but below that, there's a lot of worries.

As he thinks and acts, she can see the strings of compulsions thrumming in his mind, each coming up as he speaks to shape his choice of thoughts and his choice of words.

"The Empire uses compulsions to prevent betrayal. We have a saying - why trust when you can verify? As -" Colonel Count Janos, Imperial Kinsman of the third degree "- a mage, I'm under compulsions intended to keep me from working against the Empire." He'll toss new thoughts up at her - to the best of his knowledge, none of his compulsions will cause him to harm her or her interests unless she plans to invade the Eastern Empire or assassinate the Emperor or break his compulsions (Priority Nine). "None of them will force me to inform anyone of where I am," (a quick scan in his mind: Yes, this is true and honest; if the Emperor could issue him long-distance orders, that wouldn't be true, but there's a reason he Gated more than a thousand miles,) "but I might need to return to the Empire in twenty years if the political situation has changed." Priority Three activates, and he doesn't think about what could cause him to do that; instead he's focusing on the more important issue, which is his curiosity about where he is, who these people are, and whether he can get unchained from the bed.

"Thank you," Savil says on automatic, buying herself time to think. And to converse with Vanyel. 

:What should we do?: 

:Um: Why is he apparently the authority on this? :One, absolutely do not mention to him that you want to get those compulsions off. I know - I do too - but they'll be self-defending. Right now it seems like he wants to be cooperative, but if we trigger that then he might have to fight us. Which wouldn't be fair to him: 

:....Is he our enemy or not?: 

:I don't know! Maybe he doesn't know either! I...think we have to get his mind free, to be able to tell, but we're going to need to approach it really carefully. Probably do it while he's asleep, and maybe even have one of the Healers keep him unconscious. - Er, and actually I'm worried if I try I'll just make it worse, somehow, there's so many and they're all tied together. I don't want to accidentally damage his mind: 

:Damn it. Should we get a Mindhealer in for it?: 

:Huh. Worth considering. Melody's still at the front but I guess 'Adept mage who fled a horrible Empire and maybe wants to help us' is pretty high priority. Randi knows?: 

:Only the things I knew before he woke up. I'll call a meeting after this and brief everyone properly. Anyway, let me focus: 

She frowns at the mage. "If we do untie you, do you give us your word not to harm anyone here or try to leave? - I wouldn't recommend getting up, anyway, you were injured and you're suffering from backlash." Which she doubts she has to tell him. It would be hard for him not to notice. 

"Yes," he says. Since she's reading his mind, he can just think the clarifying details - there are unlikely circumstances (left here without food or water for days) where he would try to leave, and if any assassins try to stab him he'll harm them in self-defense to get them to stop - but he absolutely means the spirit of it: Under any reasonable circumstances, he'll stay here without harming anyone. "And I understand. If you know what happened to the rest of my clothes, there was a spare focus-stone on my shirt collar" (next to the ward-stone, actually) "and I'd feel more comfortable if I had it." His thoughts also contain the fact that the clothes have miscellaneous other assorted useful features, but not what they are.

Savil nods, carefully. The Truth Spell reads intent, not technicalities, and the blue halo stayed bright and clear. 

"We're not going to hold your basic Healing treatment hostage to your cooperation with us," she says quietly. "Though, of course, if you try to harm or threaten any of our Healers or support personnel, we do have to put their safety first. I don't get the sense you're likely to - at least not by your own choice. Can you tell us what the other artifacts are that were with your clothing, and what they do? In particular, are any of them communication-spell talismans or other items that might allow your Empire to give you new orders here?"  

... He's appreciative of the fact that they're giving out the basic healing free; either they value him a great deal or they're extremely rich. And he nods (somewhat impatiently) at "put their safety first." Of course they're going to do that; he's got no intention of double-crossing them, he just wanted to be clear he wasn't binding himself not to defend himself if double-crossed. And -

"Defenses of one sort or another, mostly. A subtle always-on general-purpose ward, several less subtle, more specialized wards I can activate, a few spare focus stones..." He isn't bringing up everything (because, honestly, he's still pretty fuzzy with the backlash), but - "Nothing harmful to your known interests -" though that would be more useful if she'd tell him anything about who or what her organization was - "and nothing that would let the Empire communicate with me. If you have any kind of imperial representative here, that would be much more dangerous for these purposes." Specifically, imperial orders that might have been forged or misinterpreted are covered by Priority Five, and he needs to obey them to the extent they are legitimate. And Priority Two might come up any time but he's not thinking about that.

Savil can sense that he's avoiding thinking about something, if not what, and it's making her uneasy. Not that she wasn't already uneasy at the entire situation. 

"All right. We're well defended here and a very long way from the war, so I shouldn't think you would be in any danger, but - I suppose I can't promise that, and if you'd feel safer with your defenses, I don't blame you. We're not going to leave you unsupervised for now, because - well, honestly, we were not expecting this and we can't be entirely sure, yet, that you're not being followed. I think we can un-chain your hands, though." Her lips twitch. "The Healers said you ought to eat something, once you were awake, and I'm not in the mood to spoon-feed you." 

:Van, we're going to have to tell him where he is sooner or later, do you–: 

:I don't see any reason not to tell him now. And - there's an upside to doing it while he's still letting you read his thoughts. It'll be informative, to find out if he's heard of Valdemar and if so what he thinks of us: 

:King Valdemar fled the Empire:

:Yes. There is that. I'm not sure if it'll make him hostile to us or more sympathetic, and I'm curious to find out: 

Savil acknowledges this wordlessly, and then smiles at the man. "I'm Herald-Mage Savil Ashkevron. Welcome to Valdemar." 

They're fighting a war. Bad news for them. Good news for him, since it means they need him. (That thought is not even marked as 'potentially false'; it's conceivable, though he is not currently conceiving it, that their military structure will be so dysfunctional they don't make use of him, but that would be their failing, not his.) If they want to watch him, that's fine; he's planning to do nothing but stay here and heal and think.

"Thank you."

Valdemar.

There was a duchy called Valdemar, once. It was famous for horses - supposedly half the Empire's breeds originated there - and otherwise of no interest to anyone. Occasionally a Duke of Valdemar is mentioned on a list of noblemen, if some history happens to be giving a list of noblemen. He's seen Valdemar's tax registers; it paid less than some baronies. Then there was Emperor Cestil III's cesspool of a reign (Old lightning-struck Cendas had used him as a regular example of how not to rule), and at some point in the civil war that ended it, Valdemar stopped being mentioned on the tax registers. Presumably, one more casualty of the war - between the quakes and the random invasions and the burning his own capital, it's a marvel the Empire survived. Janos isn't even sure which province Valdemar-that-was is in, now.

The Empire tries to get good maps; at some point, they noticed that Hardorn's maps had a western neighbor that called itself Valdemar. Occasionally scholars theorized that a few refugees from the Duchy had gotten out when the crisis was at its worst and the Old Capital could hardly rule itself; occasionally books written in Valdemaran would turn up at the end of a trade route, written in some bastard descendant of the Imperial language, and scholars argued over whether that meant that Valdemar had Imperial ancestry or if it was just that they "could recognize culture when they saw it, if not well." (He tosses in a mental apology to the woman reading his thoughts; he doesn't expect them to appreciate that but those were the scholar's words.)

If they are descended from the Empire, then the question is if they think well of it, as the center of culture and the origin of their people, the last, great piece of civilization from before the Mage Wars blasted the world nearly to rubble, or if they think of it as Cestil III. Whichever way they do (holding the conditional), he should assume they have much better magic than any of their neighbors and probably better philosophy. His dream may be easier than he'd thought it would be, when he left.

"I appreciate it, Herald-Mage Savil Ashkevron. I'm pleased to be here." The Kingdom of Valdemar. "Colonel Count Janos. Can I ask you who Valdemar is at war with and for a general overview of its political situation, or would you rather talk to your superiors -" presumably a Kingdom has a King, unless their mutual second language is getting to them "- before telling me anything more?"

She reads his thoughts. She tries not to give away any of her reaction, which mostly means her expression stays fixed and blank. 

“I’m going to consult with the other Heralds before telling you any details,” she says drily, “but the war is with our southern neighbor, Karse.” She has no idea what a man from the Eastern Empire might know of the kingdom. Apparently he barely knows anything about Valdemar; he seems not to have the faintest inkling of what a Herald is. 

She rises, abruptly, and pushes back her chair. “I’ll send in one of the Healers. Do you need anything.”

"Completely understandable." It is; for all they know, the Empire learned how to beat Thoughtsensing a hundred years ago. "A map, if you can trust me with it." He'd ask for a book, but he doubts they have any histories in Hardornen. And water would be good, but he expects the Healer would know more than he would. "I appreciate everything you're done."

(Karse... appears on the maps. He has probably heard something about it. He thinks they might have a religion, maybe? But that's distant memories of Cendas's distant descriptions of distant kingdoms, not anything actionable. Practically, he's going into this blind.)

"Of course." Savil thinks that there are probably some books in Hardornen, if not necessarily the most informative ones, but then again she's not sure it makes sense to try to be informative with this man, yet. She badly needs to talk to Vanyel. And the King, of course, but she's pretty sure Randi is just going to defer to her nephew too.

(Poor Van.) 

She stops at the door, sticking her head out into the hallway, and waits there until another woman arrives. "Er, this is Healer Gemma. She doesn't speak Hardornen, though she's got a bit of Mindspeech - are you a Mindspeaker as well as a mage?" 

"Not at all." So much for the idea he could think on his own after Savil left he appreciates everything Valdemar is doing to help him.

Janos smiles at the healer, trying to be as polite and nonthreatening as an Adept can be. Hopefully she'll put him back together; hopefully Karse-or-whoever hasn't suborned her (yet?) and he isn't about to just get assassinated.

Savil is about to leave, but she catches this thought, and makes some quick internal updates about just how disturbing and terrible the Eastern Empire probably is. (And is also slightly offended on the Heralds' behalf, that he thinks the Karsites would have any chance at all at slipping an assassin into the House of Healing, which also treats all the injured Heralds fighting in the war, but she's trying not to take it personally; he clearly has even less context on them than she has on his homeland.) 

:Savil, you know, it would probably be reassuring if we tell him we're not planning to read his mind as a matter of course. It's not like we need to. - And you don't have to tell him that the Truth Spell exists: 

:Are you sure? We could run it by Randi -: 

Randi, Vanyel thinks, is almost certainly just going to ask him for his opinion anyway and go with that.

:I think we want to be showing him that we're friendly: Building trust, even in the unlikeliest of places, and this is actually a much easier scenario than Leareth. 

:All right, ke'chara, I'll trust you on this. I guess: 

"We're not intending to keep reading your mind," she tells the man. "It's against the Healers' ethics, to do that to their patients unless it's somehow necessary in an emergency." And the same goes for the Heralds, but she'll leave that one alone for now. The mage hasn't seemed to even guess that the Truth Spell exists, so that's something. 

She leaves. 

Gemma is not really a strong enough Mindspeaker to reach someone un-Gifted. She shrugs, and mimes that she's going to remove his chains. 

So at least they won't be offended if he shields! Good. He'll raise his mental shields, smile at Gemma, and casually obey her medical instructions bar the usual assassination checks, while... thinking.

First: Valdemar appears to be competent. Savil said she was impressed by his magical items - and she's lighter-armored as a matter of course than he is - but she's clearly an Adept of reasonable strength herself; they have sufficient Healers to take care of any random Adept who stumbles into their lands, and sufficient mages and mindhealers to ensure he doesn't cause trouble, even while at war. Savil gave away very little information; it's possible she's the country's best mage, but it's more likely that it has one or ten percent as many Adepts as the Empire, and almost as well-trained.

Second: Valdemar is interesting, and a war is an excellent opportunity for an ambitious man to rise, but - to be frank - he has no idea if he wants Valdemar or Karse to win the war. He can't assist Karse, of course; that would make the Valdemarans wish they hadn't saved him, and you don't want to be someone who people wish they hadn't saved, but he knows perfectly well it's random chance he landed in Valdemar instead of Karse, and for all he knows a Karsite victory would produce a world that matched his preferences much more than a Valdemaran victory would. He needs more information before he can commit to any actions in the war more complicated than paying off his debt.

(There's always an argument somewhere in the Hall of Learning over whether you want to support the winning side, which will result in a swifter end to the war, or a losing side, which needs you more. Savil didn't act like she was losing a war, but she didn't sound like she was winning it, either.)

Third: He's not pitching the Eastern Empire very well. Partly, that's because he doesn't know what story to tell - he can think of three different honest and truthful narratives of his motives with respect to it, all of which would appeal to different factions - but it's also a pure failure. He's been outside the Empire, before, or as outside the Empire as you can get riding with a full imperial legion, but he's never been somewhere the Empire wasn't the center of the world, never been somewhere it wasn't known, respected, feared, the center of civilization and the source of the legions. That... will give him a lot more power and a lot more opportunities to screw up.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he's smiling.

Good.

He never liked playing for low stakes.

He'll smile on the outside, too, and obediently listen to his Healer's instructions, while he tries to decide what the best strategy is for making himself the next Emperor loyally serving the Empire.

He's cooperative and friendly and honestly a very good patient! He's also young and clearly very fit and should make a good recovery, though he really didn't do himself any favors by Gating a thousand miles apparently while seriously injured. 

She can't communicate anything to him about his current condition, but she has a look, peeking under his bandages as well as checking with her Sight, and smiles reassuringly. His body isn't going to tolerate any more Healing right now; they threw a lot at him during the meld, just to get him stabilized, it'll be safer to let him heal the natural way until at least tomorrow. It was a pretty clean injury, though; he lost a lot of blood, but the knife missed his heart, lungs, and the biggest vessels, and it's knitted enough now that as long as he stays in bed, it shouldn't reopen. 

She gets him a cup of water, and pulls in a trainee to help him sit up and get him propped against more pillows so he can drink. Notices his wince of pain, and attempts to ask via gestures if he wants more poppy-syrup. 

He's happy to sip the water, and appreciates all the healing!

He absolutely does not want more poppy syrup; he wants his head as clear as possible for this, and there's exercises he learned that can help control pain. Not perfectly, but if you can't function in pain, you really can't function.

Well, if he's sure. It'll be right over here on the side table if he changes his mind.

Gemma leaves the trainee to sit with him, though the girl is mostly reading a book and just glancing at him ever couple of minutes to make sure he's not getting worse and doesn't need anything from her. 

She's intensely curious about their mysterious patient, but answers can wait. It's not like she doesn't have a dozen other urgent priorities. 

Elsewhere - five rooms down the hall, in fact - the Senior Circle is having an urgent meeting. 

"Savil, you've got the extra privacy-wards up?" The King of Valdemar waits for her nod, and only then, with the door firmly shut, lets himself lean forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, and massage his forehead. 

"Van. You're still pretty sure he's from the Eastern Empire?" 

Vanyel is thoroughly ensconced in pillows and cushions, with an extra wool blanket; he's very easily chilled, right now, which is apparently to be expected after losing almost half the blood in his body. He's not moving any more than necessary, and his complexion, always pale, still looks almost translucent. He's alert, though. 

"Not utterly certain, but - everything he's said or thought fits. He came from east of Hardorn, and I think that's all the Eastern Empire, it's huge. He's under compulsions. He ran because some cutthroat political scheming nearly got him killed. - Oh, and he's incredible with magic. We know they have more mages and probably much better education than we do." 

"How do you know that?" 

Shrug. "You know I read a lot of books." 

"Right. Well. What do you think we should do?" 

Vanyel hasn't had a lot of time to think, but it's not like it's an especially hard decision. 

"I think we want him as an ally. Which means we have to get the compulsions off, first, because right now he's - not entirely his own person, and he may literally not be allowed to tell us what all of them do, or what kinds of scenarios could force him to act against us. ...Unfortunately, I don't think it's safe to ask for his permission. So I really hope my guess is right and he'll be mostly grateful for it." 

"How are we supposed to slip that by him without him even noticing?" 

He's thought this through too. "I think Savil needs to Gate Melody over from Horn as soon as possible. Or Kilchas from that end, if he can manage it - he's still stationed there, right? We'll need to warn Healers' over the relay, we can't have them holding the Gate for ten minutes while she packs her things, but I think we shouldn't tell them anything about why, aside from 'it's an emergency'." A crooked smile. "Let her assume it's about me." 

Savil can't quite hide her own smile. It's - a good sign, she thinks, that Vanyel can speak about that sort of thing so lightly; he's normally so defensive and embarrassed about it. 

"I did the Gate to collect him, but it was short range. Should be able to handle another, though don't expect much of me for the rest of the evening." 

Randi nods, his eyes distant. "Keiran, Katha - any other considerations for that move?" 

"The Karsites will detect the Gate. Not that I know what they'll make of it - and it's not as though we're moving any combatants off the Border." 

"They might be Farseeing the area. Command building is shielded against Farsight and scrying but we don't have the resources to cover everywhere. Not that I know what they could possibly infer from us apparently evacuating one Healer, but - maybe we should move some other people at the same time, just to muddy the waters a bit?" 

"Sure. I can send Herald Nita, she's been on leave up here for a few weeks but she's ready to head back. And I think the Healers are due for some personnel rotation, I'll work it out with Aber. Savil, when can you be ready for the Gate?" 

"I don't think it needs to happen in the next twenty minutes or anything," Vanyel interrupts. "I'm thinking we'll wait until he's definitely asleep, get some help from the Healers to keep him that way, and then Melody can advise us on how to do this carefully while we keep him under. Hopefully he'll fall asleep soonish; he had a lot of Healing thrown at him, he'll be tired, but I get the sense he's also going to be trying his best to plan." 

"Are we, er, worried about letting him do that." 

Shrug. "I'm not that worried? Savil and I were in touch while she was questioning him, and - he knows he's in our power, right now, he's not going to antagonize us while he's still recovering and Gemma thinks that'll take days if not weeks." 

Pause. 

"Randi, I did want to ask your permission to talk to him face to face. I think I can get a better sense of him, that way. Savil thought from reading his surface thoughts that he's - honorable, in a certain way? He's - not loyal to Valdemar, why would he be, he doesn't know anything about us. But - he tries to repay his debts - to make it worth someone's while to help him. I'm not very worried he'll betray us to Karse, since if he did, we'd regret saving him." It's an oddly familiar sort of reasoning. He knows exactly who it reminds him of. "But I think I can get a better sense of him in person. And find out more about his magical and other expertise. Honestly, if half of what I've heard about the Eastern Empire is true, this...might be the best piece of luck we've had this year." 

Randi looks so dubious right now. 

"Van, ke'chara, are you...sure that's a wise idea? You're not exactly well, right now." 

Vanyel scowls at her. "I'm not an idiot. Gemma can have someone carry me there, and you're welcome to hover and watch my back. But he's probably in worse shape than me, I'm not dealing with backlash on top of being stabbed, and I'm almost certainly a lot stronger than him. I don't think I'll be in any danger." 

"Van, you're going to have to do a lot of convincing here if you expect us to trust him." 

"Oh." Vanyel almost chuckles out loud. "I don't. But I don't think we need to trust him, in order to use his skills. He's - in a pretty desperate position, right now. I think we could work out a deal that benefits him as well." 

Janos is left alone with the trainee for about the next forty-five minutes. 

Eventually, Gemma comes in, accompanied by another trainee who speaks some Hardornen and can translate for her. 

"Hey. How are you feeling? Think you could manage some broth?" 

Janos spends those forty-five minutes suppressing pain as best he can and trying to calculate what he can learn about Valdemar from details of dress, wall hangings, the characters he can see upside-down in the book when the novice tilts it forwards, and anything he can see from the window outside. He has thus far deduced that it is snowing, that Valdemar is resource-poor and either magic-rich or has good preexisting reason to believe he is extremely valuable to them, and also that his tricks for suppressing pain work much better when he hasn't just teleported a thousand miles after being stabbed in the chest.

He appreciates the translation! He wishes Gemma to know that he is grateful for her care. He will try some broth. 

(Hopefully it isn't drugged.)

It's pretty good broth. (It's not, in fact, drugged, though she considered it, less for anything to do with the Kingdom's strategic priorities and more because this guy clearly needs painkillers and is being stubborn about it, he's as bad as Vanyel.) 

Gemma gives him a quick update on his condition, through her translator. His wound is at best half-Healed and he should expect it to hurt a lot, and also pay attention to his body's limits to avoid worsening the damage. He should absolutely not be getting out of bed yet; if he needs to relieve himself, the trainee will get him a bedpan. His body wasn't able to tolerate as much magical Healing as it would have if he hadn't also thrown around a massive amount of magic (she says, with definite disapproval), so he's going to be recovering the slow way for the next day or two. He lost a lot of blood and needs to drink as much as he can manage, tonight, he can have real food in the morning. 

Also one of the King's advisors wants to speak with him now, if he's ready for that? 

(That was a massive amount of magic, wasn't it?)

He does not say that. (He does update downwards his estimation of their average Mage-strength and up his estimation of their average Healing competence, though.)

He also nods very politely, explain through the translator that he understands, wholly intends to follow her advice, that he doesn't think he needs to relieve himself yet, and that he will be pleased to speak with one of the King's advisors.

(What's he going to do, say no?)

Gemma leaves him alone for a few minutes, long enough to get through most of his broth, and then the older woman in the white uniform is back. 

And, behind her, a slender young man, being carried by a tall, muscular man wearing the same green robes as Gemma, so presumably another Healer. The young man is wearing a sleeping-robe and a blanket wrapped around himself, not a uniform. He looks pale and haggard, with pain-lines around his mouth, but other than that he's strikingly handsome, with piercing silver-grey eyes. His jet-black hair is revealingly streaked through with white. He looks about twenty-five. 

The Healer gently deposits him in a chair with an extra cushion, and he thanks him in the local tongue, and then looks at Janos. 

"My name is Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron," he says, in really quite good Hardornen. "- How well do you speak this language, by the way? I'm a strong enough Mindspeaker to use that with you, if that would be easier." 

Injured, almost certainly. (If it was a long-term condition, he'd be dressed.). Around Janos's age, maybe a little older. A Royal Advisor, she said, and an Adept - more of his hair is silver than Janos's is.

(Why would one of the king's advisors be injured? Obvious guesses: They're lying to him, he's a top general advising on army matters while he recovers, he's their head advisor on magic and the war is desperate enough they need every Adept, it's a total coincidence and he just fell down the stairs recently, and they have a *lot* of advisors.)

"Well enough to understand," he says, his accent still thick, "but for clarity's sake, Mindspeech is likely to be best." Also harder to spy on, though whether that would matter depends on their medical security.

:All right: Vanyel is also a little worried about security. The House of Healing is nearly as thoroughly shielded as the core Palace meeting rooms, but they really don't know how important this man was, or who might be looking for him now, or what unknown capabilities his hypothetical pursuers might have. 

Savil, unasked, casts a first-stage Truth Spell, which should again be unnoticeable to Janos. 

:First of all, I'm sorry, this might've been covered but if so I missed it - what's your name and title?: 

:My name is Janos, and I am Count of Avannar and a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Thirteenth Horse, presently without duties, and an Imperial Kinsman in the third degree.: If they're reading his mind, they can tell he's mildly annoyed about the presently without duties, though he's trying to make his face seem polite and attentive without giving anything today. :May I ask - both you and your -: relative? :- fellow mage claim the rank of Herald-Mage? May I ask what this title means, in Valdemar?:

So Savil's sense was accurate, and the man has never heard of Heralds. 

:For a quick summary: Heralds are Chosen to safeguard Valdemar. We're involved in border defense, internal peacekeeping, the Court system, and quite a lot of day to day governance. Most Heralds are Gifted, but not all are mages. For the most part, we treat any Herald as equal in rank to the rest, though there are a few specifically appointed roles in the Senior Circle. ...The full background takes longer to explain, and I think I'll come back to it:

He tilts his head to the side a little, looking thoughtfully at Janos. :I am curious what you know about Valdemar's history and founding. It's pretty relevant to what Heralds are: 

The - royal faction, then, the trained elite whose power balances the hereditary nobles, that's the obvious guess. (Don't leap too far ahead, Janos, don't leap too far ahead; just because that's the obvious theory doesn't mean it's true.) Most are Gifted - well, yes, those are the people you'd want to recruit for that; the nobles have had centuries to breed for magic, you'll need something to balance them, there.

:I know there used to be a Duchy of Valdemar in the Empire, that during one of the empire's worst internal crises it dropped off the map, and that Hardorn's western neighbor shares a name with it. That's all I know.:

Well, also and that he's in the western neighbor, apparently.

He smiles, a little. :That would explain how King Valdemar got away with it. Though he would've been Baron Valdemar at the time: Interesting, that Janos is saying Valdemar was a duchy, but the oldest records definitely have their founding father down as a Baron. :Our histories say that he feared for the safety of his people, and managed to flee with approximately the entire population of his holding. We think it must have been over ten thousand people. There were more by the time they settled, but I think they travelled further west, for a while, and probably collected more locals along the way:  

All right, that's got to be bullshit. He's a Gate-mage, well-trained, he supposes you could raise a Gate-arch on one of the canals to the wrong river then feed ten thousand people through that way, but you couldn't pass eastern Hardorn that way, you'd pass out if you tried to hold it that long. Maybe if he had a few dozen trained Gate-mages, they could do it in shifts? But Janos only made it this far by Farsight; absent that, the Valdemarans would need to have need to have scouted ahead in advance, through hostile territory, with the emperor out for their blood -

Well. Founding myths. :That's compatible with our records: (If the Vrondi-halo disappears for tactful evasions, he's now de-haloed.) Cestil III was... not a normal emperor. He was a walking disaster, in fact. In recent centuries - a lord might fear imperial disfavor, but he'd have little reason to expect it to actually endanger his subjects. He supposed the Emperor might be more annoyed than usual if someone he was offended at bribed the census-takers, and that this would lead to slightly higher taxation for subjects of lords the Emperor was disappointed in? But - you don't set taxes to annoy people, you set taxes to maximize your preferred point on the revenue/economic growth tradeoff curve. If you were taking your anger out on taxpayers instead of your enemies, you were doing a bad job, and His Imperial Majesty does not do bad jobs.

These comments aside, he'll wait for Vanyel to finish his story.

The Truth Spell lets tactful evasions past, but despite Janos having a very good poker face, Vanyel is pretty sure that something about that surprised him. He's used to Leareth, and spending every moment trying to read as much as he can from the tiniest expressions. Oh, and he's also a receptive Empath, and definitely making use of that. 

:I'll tell the rest later, it's complicated: More to the point, knowing what he does about the Eastern Empire, he suspects Janos will react...strongly. And in what direction, he's not sure yet. He feels a lot better about having that conversation LATER, once the damned compulsions are dealt with.

:The gist is that King Valdemar figured out a system of governance that would be stable for a long time, and it worked. For now, I'd like to hear more about exactly what kind of politics trouble you got yourself into? Bad enough to get yourself stabbed, I can see. An assassin?: He tugs down his blanket and pulls open the neck of his gown to show his own bandages. :You're in good company, though mine was more war than politics, I was down at the Border until yesterday: 

(It's a bit of a gamble, saying that much, but it's a calculated one. Vanyel wants to establish some kind of friendly rapport with this man, a fellow Adept, maybe also a fellow military leader.) 

Okay, that, again, has got to be provincials with no idea what they're doing overstating their accomplishments. If they had a system of government that worked better than the Empire's, they would have gotten economically ahead of it these past eight hundred years and probably also conquered Hardorn. He's not some kind of sage, but if Valdemar had solved the government problem, it would be rich enough to have better curtains.

Yeah, probably they're just using some kind of tweaked feudal monarchy that only has three times as many civil wars as the empire, instead of four times as many.

:I'd like to know more about where I've landed, when you can:

He's not going to push it. :Two new servants went through the usual vetting procedures, then tried to stab me. Don't know who sent them, but it was probably the same one who had my personal healer reassigned a week ago. This is the Karsite border?:

:I'm sorry to hear that. Glad you made it out alive, and - congratulations, that was some impressive Gating to pull off after you were nearly assassinated: He ducks his head. :The Karsite border, yes. That's our only war zone - and the first war we've had at all in nearly a century: Sigh. :I don't mind the excuse to spend some time back here, honestly. I'd much rather teach students and do magical research and advise the King on our education policy than set lots of people on fire. Have you fought in any wars before? You might understand: 

(He thinks it's plausible. From what he's read, and heard from Leareth, the Empire is very expansionist, and constantly invading and trying to gobble up neighboring small kingdoms - or fending off invasions from disgruntled neighbors.) 

:Thank you:

:And thank you:

(Also, first war in a century, was this some kind of once-in-our-history-golden age, or - whatever these people are doing, he needs to know what's up with their system of government, and he needs to know it now.)

(And, half-on-automatic...)  :I understand: He understands the difference, at least - though he prefers campaign to court. Better friends, less danger, much more rational... :I was a staff officer for General Kordas during his northern campaigns:, and there's pride in that, :though there wasn't much throwing fireballs - we had a year and a half of raising Gates and building roads in a frozen wasteland before the Helpershi yielded, and another three months of making sure they didn't starve or rebel before the Emperor summoned us home: And Ceyvan had won the only field battle they'd fought, too, outmaneuvered them thoroughly enough the main army hadn't had much to do but manage the pursuit, and all the rest of the fighting had been - skirmishes, ambushes, nighttime raids... not much practice, for a man on the command track. Then, half-lightly - :So, what's the secret to a century of peace?:

: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: 

Sigh. 

Melody sits down at the man's bedside, while one of the other strong male Healers carries Vanyel over, Savil on their heels. It's starting to feel quite crowded. 

:Gemma, take over on keeping him out? I can do it with Mindhealing if I have to but it's more invasive and I want to focus: 

And she turns her Sight on the man's mind. What does the tapestry look like? She won't be able to directly see the compulsions, but she should be able to see ripples where they affect what she can see; according to Savil, they're not subtle. 

The tapestry is - organized, elegant, neatly arranged; clear paths, splitting and joining again, all woven together with great precision, but - it is woven around something, something she can't quite see, no matter how hard she tries. The core threads are - curled, twisted, moving in ways that seem almost three-dimensional, in spite of the pressures that would normally keep it flat, as if there's some other force holding it that way; stable, but it's stable because of ripples she can't see the cause of; secure, because tensions that would otherwise strain it are balanced and held in play by those whose source she cannot see. One ripple is clearly central - almost all the main strands curl around it - but others are more distant, further apart from the main body of the tapestry even when it needs to steer in bizarre directions to avoid touching them.

(Janos continues to be asleep. Gemma does not have much work to do.)

Melody spends a while looking. 

:Van, I...have some concerns about undoing this. He's got a lot of himself built up around the compulsions, I think. I - would prefer to leave the one that's really centered for last, but I don't know what it does - if it's some sort of suicide compulsion then I don't think that it could react to what we're doing while he's asleep but I'm less sure of that than I like: 

:Can we have you or Gemma keep him more deeply under just when I'm ready to snip each one? And then you could back off and let things settle a bit in the meantime:

Vanyel opens his own mage-sight and dives in closer. He's not experienced enough with compulsions to read what they're for just from the magical structure, but he can try to at least get a sense of which ones are being 'supported' by others, in what order, and how best to nibble out pieces one at a time without sending the rest tumbling down and backlashing on the poor man's mind. 

...With a lot of back and forth between all of them, he can eventually pin down which little knot of magic seems to correspond to the central ripple. It...doesn't look larger or more powerful than the others, or like it's particularly a linchpin of the overall structure? 

:Hmm. There's - some sort of cascading effect, here? Or, no, that's not the right word - can I just show you, here...? They're - it's like they're ordered between them, there's a direction-of-flow here. I don't know what that means, I've never seen someone with so many: 

Pause.

:If I had to guess, I think the one you're extra worried about is, uh, seventh, in whatever that ordering means. And this one is first -: 

He pokes it with a tiny tendril of magic, so that Melody can try to pinpoint any ripples in the tapestry and figure out what area it's affecting. 

It looks almost completely unused, actually! If it was used, it would feed directly into the systems of his brain used for setting priorities and planning actions to achieve those priorities.

(Janos actually stirs at that poke, though he does not wake; Priority One has a lot of weight behind it, and even the smallest touch on it affects him, even in his sleep.)

Melody makes a worried sound. :Easy - back off, Vanyel. Gemma, can you settle him again? I want him as deeply unconscious as you can manage: 

:That's not really good for people, you know: Gemma mutters, but does it. The tapestry goes still. 

:Hmm. I'm thinking maybe I could do a Mindhealing trick to - make it less risky that in the process of snipping these, you'll start to trigger them? If I do a really localized block, right here - or, no, hmm, if I do a closed-redirect-loop with some sort of dampening on it so it dies out after a couple of iterations - then I think no matter how hard it pokes him, it shouldn't be able to get anywhere in his mind. And it'll be easy to undo afterward. I do want to get more oriented to this first, though. Do the same thing for number two in the order? Carefully, please, and stop right away if I tell you to: 

Sure. He can find the knot of magic that seems to be just downstream-of the one he poked, and very very gently nudge it. 

(This is nervewracking and Vanyel feels very out of his depth and terrified that he's going to break something, but - it's all right, Melody is here, she can help set it right afterward if anyone can.) 

This one is much, much worse. The pressure isn't as strong, but what's tied to this one is FEAR and DEATH and extremely constrained action planning - though it's as isolated as it can be, connected as it is to somewhere so important.

(He does not stir, though Melody can see perfectly clearly that if it wasn't for Gemma he might sit bolt-upright and scream.)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

:All right. Van, I want this one off first. Maybe right now, if you think you can pull it out from the middle like that. Er, but let me try this loop-redirect thing first -: 

There's a lot flowing from this particular compulsion; the action-planning seems the most dangerous, she'll focus on defanging that, and leave the ripples toward his emotions alone. He's not going to panic and wake up, with Gemma here, and she needs to minimize how much Mindhealing work she does for each compulsion, since there are over a dozen still to go. 

:All right. I think it should be safe. As safe as we can expect, at least: 

Vanyel...is getting the sense that there's a correct way to interact with this whole complicated interwoven system, that there's a way he could pluck out something in the middle without damaging the rest, but does he have the skill or knowledge to do this himself: no, no he does not. 

:Melody, can you block the two on either side as well? Just in case they get destabilized by cutting this one: 

:Sure, I'll block number one, but I don't know what corresponds to the third one: 

Poke? 

The third command does not, when poked, do much! It seems - almost more like a wall than like anything else? An unfortunate place that the fabric couldn't be sewn together over, such that the tapestry needs to flow around and then rejoin on the far side? Melody can see that it interfaces with the brain's conscious thinking and planning procedures, but not what precisely it does with them.

:Hmm. This one seems less concerning, although I'm not sure what it's for. I'm...going to leave it un-pinned for now, I think, just so I can get a sense of how it reacts to number two being taken out:

She readies her Gift to pounce on the man's mind if anything untoward happens. 

:On your go, Van: 

Vanyel takes a deep breath. 

:Now:

And he snips through the little knot of magic that represents the second compulsion in whatever ordering this is. It's not a lot of magic; compulsions are very low-powered, even if he 'drops' it all it shouldn't do too much in the way of direct backlash to either himself or Janos. He's watching very closely for how it affects the rest of the compulsions, though; he doesn't think it'll send the whole structure toppling down, it seems much too well-stabilized for that, but he's not totally sure. 

The backlash is minimal; the compulsion was laid with much more skill than power. And, oddly enough, it seems to... reduce the pressure on the others? Janos's mind relaxes more; Vanyel's sight can see that the tension between the compulsions has reduced, and they're supporting each other even more than they were.

:Huh: Melody's mindvoice is thoughtful. :That....went better than expected. Does it look easier from your point of view to get the first one next or the third one?: 

Vanyel considers this. 

:Third one, I think? There's just a bit less power in it: 

Nod. :I'm actually not sure how to block it downstream - this one already interacts with his mind in a way that looks more like a block than anything else! So I think probably I should just be ready to respond if it does anything weird. But you can go ahead: 

Snip? 

Snip. Nothing weird happens; the odd not-quite-block is down. What his mind might develop into in the future, with it missing, is unknown, but nothing terrible is happening yet.

Nothing is likely to happen yet with him unconscious. Melody is definitely going to be watching that area closely once they wake him, though.

(Which she's now inclined to do immediately when they finish, no matter how much Gemma complains that he needs his rest; if she leaves him to sleep the rest of the night, even dreams will interact with the changes, and she would rather it happen in a way more controllable than that and with her right there.) 

:All right. Get number one next, I think: 

:Sure. This - might be more destabilizing to the compulsion structure? It's the one with the most power behind it and I'm not sure how much it's - holding the rest up: 

:Well, it's not one of the ones more tied into his mind. It's pretty contained, actually: 

:Right: 

Snip. 

Snip. Pressures in the tapestry shift, but only slightly; as deeply asleep as he is, nothing is changing very fast yet.

Number four and five look pretty similar to each other, and - not entirely dissimilar from number one? Though with a lot less force, and also (from Melody's side of things) a hint of the block-like nature of number three. 

Snip and snip? 

Snip and snip. Both of them are down, and the tapestry is only shifting slowly while Janos is asleep.

Melody frowns. 

:Van, I'm starting to get worried about how much this is going to destabilize him all at once when we wake him up. It's getting pretty hard to track what all the interacting effects are. Think there's any way we could leave some of these in place and I can just do a loop-redirect from that side, so that they can't force him to do anything but the supporting structures will still be there. Um, especially for the seventh one. It's really central and I think the disruptions from that alone might make it a lot harder for him to figure out the rest?: 

Vanyel nods, deep in thought. 

:...Six and seven look really similar to mage-sight. You don't think they're the same in terms of effects on him?: 

:I don't know! I think there's just one point-of-contact from one of them that represents the - thing that looks load-bearing to my Sight? But I can't see myself what the sixth one is or where it touches his mind: 

Gentle poke? 

The sixth one looks remarkably like the seventh in form; aside from one of them being higher priority than the other, the designs are almost identical; both are tied into - motivation, action, planning, prioritization - but the tapestry has moved around them in different ways. There are still several places where the sixth is load-bearing, several places where the tapestry would shift without it, some where it might greatly strain, possibly even tear. But, by and large, it is something that the tapestry is - shaped around, but not indelibly, where it has affected the form but not the nature.

The seventh is... different. The tapestry is almost wrapped around it. Almost every thought process feeds into it, almost every pattern of mind connects to it; it is balancing half-a-dozen weights at once, and it's very difficult to tell what would happen to the tapestry if it was removed. It is central, and the sixth is not - quite.

Melody makes a face. 

:Van, I don't really feel comfortable removing this one either, not without his actual consent. ...I'm a bit worried about what blocking it will do, even, though the seventh is definitely going to be worse. ...Any way you could start from the other end now?: 

Vanyel makes a face. :Er, I don't want to hurt him either, but I'm pretty uncomfortable not knowing what they do! Maybe if we wake him up he'll be able to tell us? And if he starts trying to escape or trying to kill himself then we've got you and Gemma and me all right here and probably we can knock him out again fast enough?: 

He tries snipping what used to be #17. 

If removing #17 has *any* effect on the tapestry of his thoughts, it's very difficult to tell! It looks as though any pressure it caused was vastly less than that produced by minor ripples in #6.

:All good. Nothing much happened: 

In which case Vanyel is going to proceed through the remainder up until #7 in reverse-order, slowly and carefully and waiting for Melody to confirm the effects if any, but only actually stopping if she's worried. 

None of #10 through #16 do anything in particular when cut, but #9 causes him to relax slightly, and #8 looks - well, nowhere near as extreme as #6, let alone #7, but as though there's some underlying pressure from it, helping shape his mind's patterns. Does Melody want to cut it, too?

Melody isn't sure! 

:Van, I - kind of want to let him partially wake up for a little bit? Not fully, but have Gemma lighten up enough that he's in something more like natural sleep. You're a stronger Projective Empath than I am, maybe we can have all three of us pushing to keep him calm enough that he doesn't wake, but it'll still let some of this settle out a bit, and then I can make a call on number eight. Though I'm leaning toward blocking and leaving it and asking him. I - don't think any of these are the anti-tampering ones: 

Savil, who's been listening in on their Mindspeech discussion but mostly guarding the room, looks unhappy. She doesn't object, though. 

It's getting kind of late and Vanyel is very tired and really wants this to be done, but - not badly enough to rush things and risk harming their prisoner more than necessary. 

:Sure, if you think it's safe and will help him then I'll trust your judgement: 

He pushes calmcalmcalm as hard as he can with his Empathy. It's definitely a challenge, since 'calm' is not most of what he himself is feeling, right now. 

Gemma, who's also a slightly stronger Projective Empath than Melody, adds her own push, and then very, very slowly lightens up on the Healing-pressure keeping him in a sleep so deep it's closer to unconsciousness. 

....Melody is not actually going to try to project at him, she's way too tense herself for it to be helpful on net. 

She watches his mind like a hawk. 

... Honestly, Janos wants to be asleep. He really, really wants to be asleep. He has a headache from abusing his magical powers, he's been stabbed, he drank poppy juice, and while people may have hacked his compulsion network to pieces, that does not overcome the vitally important fact that he has, like, six reasons for not waking up. Even without the horrifying abuse of terrifying magical powers, he's staying asleep.

His mind... does not seem to be collapsing, not with Six through Eight still in place? In some respects, it almost seems less strained.

(Or at least, not collapsing while he's still asleep.)

Everyone watches him sleep in awkward silence for almost five minutes. 

:- Are we planning to wake him up?: Savil interjects finally, after stifling a jaw-cracking yawn. 

Gemma scowls at her. :Please don't. He's had a pretty rough day and he badly needs some rest, and I doubt explaining what you did to his mind is going to be a short conversation: 

She glances over her shoulder. :Also, Van should be in bed: 

:But I–: 

:No buts. You did your part, there's absolutely no reason to have four of us here all night: 

Melody sighs. 

:I don't feel comfortable leaving until I know how he's going to react. I...guess we can keep each other company in here: 

This gets a tired smile. :Just like old times, huh: 

Except for the part where Melody is pretty sure what she just did was a horrifyingly unethical abuse of her Mindhealing Gift. 

She's going to dwell on that later, though, once she knows what the actual impact was. 

:Van, go to bed. We've got this covered: 

And she settles herself more comfortably in the chair, and lets her Sight play over Janos' mind. 

He really doesn't look inclined to wake up! And relentless Healing-pressure to keep someone under is, indeed, not very good for them in the long run. Gemma lets up on it all the way, and just keeps up a steady current of projected calm. 

:Savil, if you could send in a trainee to bring us some tea?: 

And they wait. 

It's well into the night - and possibly after the point where someone would, in fact, consider it to be 'morning' - when Janos awakes with a pain in his chest, a strong desire for a bedpan, and a total - inability - to?

To -

He wants a bedpan because - (he knows he's thinking unclearly, he knows it, he leans on his strongest reinforcements) -

Because -

The expression on his face is rapidly turning from confusion to absolute anguish.

It's a few candlemarks after midnight, and Melody is starting to feel very very cranky about this assignment, but she's a professional, and there's no sign of irritation in her face or manner as she scoots her chair closer, putting herself in his line of sight, and takes his hand. 

:Hey, hey, it's all right, just try to stay calm. Can you tell me what you need right now? ...Or lower your shields a bit and let me read you, if that's easier: 

She can tell at a glance that his mind is - mostly not working at all, actually, nearly every pathway that lights up very quickly ends up touching on #7 and then looping on itself until the dampening causes it to die out. It's actually hard to tell what the effects will be from the compulsions Vanyel removed, because the effects of that block are so overwhelmingly dominant. 

:Bedpan:

And he should lower his shields because -

Because -

He should -

"I CAN'T THINK!"

(Unfortunately, he says that in the language of the Eastern Empire, which Melody does not speak.)

Fortunately Melody doesn't need to understand him or read his surface thoughts in order to figure out what problem he's having! It's really obvious! 

:I know. I'm sorry. Please just try to relax and - don't try too hard to have thoughts, it's going to be hard right now, but we can fix it soon, I just need you calm enough to listen to me and try to answer some questions: Pause. :We'll get you a bedpan first. And something for pain?: 

But he needs to try to have -

He needs -

Calm. He needs to be calm to -

Pain. (Focus on the object level.) :Less pain:

He can manage one more word, before his thoughts blur again:

:Treachery:

It's not even an angry tone, almost; just... despairing.

Melody isn't sure whether he's accusing her of treachery or...himself? 

It's really upsetting! Which she was expecting but still! 

"Gemma, he needs a bedpan and more poppy-syrup," she says out loud, and then turns back to Janos and squeezes his hand. 

:My name is Melody. I'm a Mindhealer. Last night, after you were asleep, I helped Herald Vanyel remove as many of the compulsions on you as we could manage safely. I'm really sorry, it would have been much better for you if we could have gotten your consent first, but Vanyel was afraid that some of the compulsions were protective against tampering with the rest, and also that you might have a suicide compulsion in there somewhere, and we couldn't risk stepping on one of those by accident, so we had to keep you asleep for it. Three of them - number six, seven, and eight in some kind of order, we're not sure what the ordering means - looked more load-bearing to your mind than the rest, so we left them in place and I've used Mindhealing to temporarily block them. I was intending to let you rest and wake up, and then have a conversation with you about whether to unblock them or remove them entirely. Unfortunately it's seeming like that might be hard: 

Pause. 

:Did that make sense?: 

He has some trouble following her speech without tripping over his own thoughts, but he can get the really important bit:

:UNBLOCK:

Everything else he can -

when -

he -

else -

:All right. I thought that would be best, but - I'm sorry, I really need you to try to tell me what the seventh one in particular is for. Or confirm what it's not for, at least. If I unblock it, are you going to be compelled to leave or try to harm yourself or us?: 

:No:

(He has no idea, actually, but - although he cannot think clearly enough to put this thought into words - this is not an environment in which he is guided by a desire to demonstrate his fidelity and reliability, it is an environment where he is guided by a desire to stop being mind controlled.)

:This will be quick: 

Melody reaches out separately to Gemma. :I could really really use your Projective Empathy right now, he's - kind of panicking: 

And she undoes the redirect-loop. It's indeed very quick; it's not a big piece of Mindhealing, it doesn't need to be, the point of contact is so specific.

She only unblocks #7, for now. Hopefully, that will be enough to get him lucid, so that they can actually have a conversation here, though honestly she's already expecting to also unblock and keep the other two. 

(Once he's able to pay any attention at all to finer details than 'can't think', Janos is likely to notice that the rest of his mind feels - gluey, a kind of mental exhaustion entirely distinct from the physical fatigue, and also just different and slightly unstable.) 

(Compulsion #2 is indeed gone, as are all of the ones related to not tampering with existing compulsions.) 

... All right. All right. Being angry does not serve the empire, being angry does not serve the em-

Getting trapped in redirect loops does not serve the empire. Being angry does not serve the empire. Getting out of control does not serve the empire. Seeking vengeance does not serve the empire. He is the sole representative of Imperial culture, dignity, and beliefs in this forsaken wasteland. (All of these are - easy habits, for his mind to fall into, when stressed; they're slower, muddier, harder to think through, but they can still be used to calm down.) His mind is exhausted, his head is tired, his chest has - had - a knife in it... all right. He can function.

He gingerly prods the compulsions in his mind, expecting the action to be forbidden, but #4 is missing. So's #3. So's #1. So's -

Oh yes #2 is missing he may need to forgive some of these people some of this. His future's looking much better.

(For instance, he might have one.)

He tries the minor compulsions, the one he can overrule if the Empire needs him to. #8 sends him into a spin - that's still present-and-blocked - but the rest are missing.

:I follow:

:Good. You're doing really well and I am so, so sorry about that. ...Are you able to tell me now what the ones still in place actually do? I'm comfortable unblocking the blocked ones if you don't anticipate that doing so will be unsafe for me or Gemma or the others in this building right now: 

She makes a soft irritable sound in the back of her throat. :If Herald Vanyel were here, he'd say 'if doing so won't harm Valdemar's interests', but honestly I would understand if you're not feeling very cooperative with the Heralds right now. I - agreed with Vanyel that we didn't have much of a choice, mages can do so much damage, but I am sorry: 

Discussing without invoking #6 feels like walking a tightrope, but at least he has a tightrope to walk.

:Serve the emperor. Serve the empire. Obey the law:

He fuzzes out partway through 'serve the emperor', but he manages to finish the word, before continuing.

:It won't be:

:Nothing unsafe:

He's going to consider just how they feel *later*, after his brain is starting to work again.

She unblocks the other two. 

:There you go. And we'll deal with the necessities before I ask you more questions: It'll give him a couple of minutes to gather his thoughts. Gemma is back now with a clean bedpan and more poppy-syrup; she pours out a dose and refills Janos' water cup, and the two of them help him sit up a little to drink, and then get him onto the bedpan. (Melody stays in the room, but politely turns her back while he uses it.) 

She doesn't need to be looking at him with her ordinary eyes in order to use her Mindhealing Sight, though, and she pays a lot of attention to the ripples downstream of the compulsions they removed, especially the first five. 

Janos takes care of the necessities, though he doesn't drink the poppy syrup; he's willing to do that once he's finished answering questions, but not until then, and he's going to spend the thought-time he has before Melody starts answering questions on his pain-suppression exercises, sternly telling his chest that it has no reason whatsoever to be reporting pain to his brain, and that, strange as it may seem, he has no pain at all.

The ripples are - present. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell what is stress from the blocks, what is a shift from the removal of the compulsions, and what is just the fact that he's in a good deal of discomfort and trying to do something about it. The distortions from the first and second compulsions are starting to be smoothed out, but he hasn't started thinking about anything related to #3 through #5 yet, and most of the changes in his mental tapestry have been both quiet and slow.

Either way, it's not urgently in need of intervention, probably? 

Melody waits until he's settled back in bed, gives him a minute to catch his breath - moving must be hurting him quite a lot - and then settles herself in the chair, at an angle where she can easily hold eye contact with him but is also giving him some personal space. 

:Can you tell me how you're feeling, er, mentally and emotionally? We tried very hard not to cause any damage along the way, but I'm aware that we're not nearly as skilled with this as whoever put those compulsions down in the first place. Is there anything that's going to cause you trouble?: 

:Exhausted. Strained. Nothing worse:

Both betrayed and oddly grateful, though he'd known this was a possibility. He wouldn't call this fair and honest cooperation, but if they've gotten his mind the way they want it, hopefully he can just try to function, now.

:I can't think of anything. I expect I should sleep:

(He's actually extremely certain he should sleep.)

:Yes, I agree: Melody glances at Gemma. :It's normal to feel pretty worn out, Mindhealing does that even when you're not going into it tired. I think it'll be better in the morning, and then Vanyel is hoping to meet with you again and, er, explain the answers to some questions he wanted to steer around while you were under potentially hostile mind control. Are you willing to take something for  pain now?: 

Oh, that makes sense.

(Wait, no, it doesn't. Vanyel wasn't lying to him - what could he possibly be leaving out? That's going to be eating at him all night... no, sleep.)

:I am:

And he will take it, and wonder about Vanyel's dark secret, and sleep.

At shift change, they locate another trainee who speaks Hardornen to sit with him. (He's stable enough medically at this point not to really merit one-on-one supervision, but Gemma has other reasons to insist on it.) 

The trainee doesn't wake him, though, just sits down at the bedside, with more poppy-syrup and water and a bedpan ready, and waits for him to wake on his own. 

He sleeps a surprisingly long amount of time, and when he wakes, he does drink the water and use the bedpan, but, again, refuses the poppy-syrup.

His main concern is what the hell Vanyel's secret is. If Vanyel was lying to him, he's - little though he likes it - in over his head; he got a read from the man, and he wasn't a criminal mastermind unless he was really, really good at it. But if Vanyel isn't, what secret could it possibly be? Gods aren't powerful enough to change things as fundamental to humanity as the cycles of civil war, and nothing but a god could live long enough to do it.

Well. His answer will be here soon enough.

(He'll also notice that he feels a good bit better, both physically and mentally. The gluey post-Mindhealing exhaustion is almost entirely gone, the last dose of poppy syrup has worn off, and his chest actually hurts a little less than it did when he last woke; at shift change Gemma declared that his body could probably tolerate some more Healing, and the trainee did some supervised work on the wound and has been holding a link and passing him Healing-energy ever since.) 

A different adult Healer, stocky and red-haired, comes in once he's done with the necessities. He's carrying a bowl of oat porridge. "Good morning," he says, in surprisingly fluent Hardornen. "I'm Andrel. Came to see if you were up for some breakfast, and - after that, if you can manage it, we'd like to bring you next door. You're at the point in your recovery when a bit of walking will do you good, if you're up for it, and Vanyel says it'll - be easier to explain if you go to him." 

He's glad he feels so much better! He's going to try to resist, with great difficulty, the instinctive urge to push this as far as possible and act as if he is perfectly well in all respects, which is what he would normally do.

"Good morning, Andrel." he says back. "Count Janos. Thank you."

He's happy to eat, he's even happy to try to walk (focusing on his pain-control meditations as he does), but most of his thoughts are on the question of Vanyel's - and Valdemar's - secret.

Andrel and the trainee help sit him up and ease him out of bed, so that he doesn't need to use any of his sore chest muscles, and then have him sit on the side with his legs dangling for a minute before attempting to stand, to make sure he's not about to faint or something. He does feel lightheaded after going from sitting to vertical, but it passes quickly, and Andrel is right there holding him steady. The walk, which is only about thirty yards, goes without incident. 

Vanyel's room is bigger, and if Janos is using his mage-sight at all, he'll be able to notice that the shielding on the walls is very thorough, and looks permanent. Vanyel himself is sitting up in bed; he pushes his breakfast tray aside when he sees them enter. 

In addition to being more spacious, the room also, inexplicably, contains a...stall? With a horse in it? The mare is snow-white with blue eyes, which rest on Janos, and - there's intelligence in that gaze.

:Good morning: Vanyel says, levelly. :Have a seat: There's an armchair prepped and ready for him, with pillows and a folded blanket. :I'm really sorry about last night, but - Melody says you thought you would be all right?: 

His apology seems genuine. 

A horse.

A horse.

If the answer to 'how did Valdemar function' is 'they used the magic power of HORSE BREEDING to solve all their problems', he's going to object to whoever is writing the universe.

Ahem. Yes. Right.

:Good morning. Thank you: He's pleased to sit. :Some difficulties in the awakening, but I think the overall effect was positive:

He actually expected to be much more grateful, really.

:And your own recovery, Herald Vanyel?:

:- Right, Melody mentioned there was some sort of bad interaction with the Mindhealing blocks. I apologize for how we had no idea what we were doing. Valdemar doesn't use compulsions:

He smiles. :- And, thank you, I'm feeling much better: This is even mostly true. :Anyway. I - wanted to explain some things about Valdemar, which I expect will be very surprising for you. - First of all, um, what in all hells was the second compulsion on you, in the ordering? It - looked like it would have been causing you a lot of distress, if you were awake, but I'm not experienced enough with this to tell what they do just by looking at the structure and placement: 

Bad interaction, yes, that's a good way to do it.

:It may be worth learning the basics of compulsions, if only to help you understand how others use them, but I agree that's a story for another time:

Right now, you should pitch the story, involving your - is that horse magic - that gray is totally magic. He wants a refund.

... And he really ought to stop distracting himself from the actual issues.

:The second compulsion was an - act of prioritization, by the emperor: Even in Mindspeech, his tone comes across; that of someone handling an ugly, disgusting thing with verbal tongs. :It is laid on every mage in the palace of Master or Adept strength to commit suicide on his death if the order is not first removed. To ensure none of the people who could kill him would gain from his death:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Vanyel keeps his face mostly under control, but will not actually manage to hide from Janos that his reaction is 'utter horror and internal screaming.' 

:That's unfortunate: he says, neutrally. :I'm very glad we removed it. Am I right that you were also under compulsions to prevent you from tampering with them or cooperating with others trying to remove them, and so we really couldn't have asked your permission first?: 

:I was, and you could not. I appreciate the removal of the second compulsion a great deal:

... Okay, seriously, Janos, you need to notice that Vanyel seems to be REALLY NAIVE about how government works. This entire place is weird, and I don't think it can possibly be that it's normal and you're weird, because you've read all the Hardornen ambassador's correspondence and Hardorn is not this kind of country.

:Are there any of the others that you would have preferred we leave intact, if it had been possible to talk about it first? Er, I'm asking more for debriefing purposes than because we're likely to be able to do anything about it now, I'm not good enough to put them back, and also I don't think we realistically could have gotten just the suicide one and the anti-tampering ones without talking to you to figure out which was which, and that wasn't safe: 

:If I say that you left only the ones you should have left, is that too absurd to believe?:

(Though he's avoiding thinking about #6 at all.)

:I mean, that's what we were aiming for, and we were trying pretty hard! So I'm - flattered, I guess. Melody was more comfortable leaning conservative on it. I don't know how much you're able to think about the remaining ones, but - do you want to be compelled to loyalty to the current Emperor? I - think it's pretty obvious you can't go back, at this point, and in your position I would kind of prefer not to be forcibly loyal to the person who suicide-compulsion'd me. But it's your head: 

And there's the question he's been trying not to think about.

When acting, he should try to serve the Emperor. Thoughts are not actions; compulsions that specify thoughts specify thoughts. He can honestly think about this question.

On the other hand, lowering his shields is an action, and so is speaking words. If he says that he doesn't want to be loyal to the Emperor - who, while not a disaster, since he came to power the empire's had excellent progress on urban repair and agricultural productivity, significant growth in the registered population, and military victory, is also not exactly loyal-to-the-Empire-above-himself the way Janos is - that would be an action opposed to the Emperor's wishes, and Janos would instead be compelled to take an action that is not that one, such as lying or counting primes in his head.

Technically speaking, he could extremely dramatically freeze, refraining from taking actions, and hope Vanyel gets the hint. On the other hand, loyalty to the person is not, actually, causing him any trouble; insofar as the person has any goals other than 'survive', which is totally out of Janos's ability to affect, his chief goal is to see the Empire succeed. This is also Janos's chief goal, admittedly not for quite the same definition of Empire or succeed, and so they're quite well matched up.

And, also, if he needs to deal with another Mindhealing block-disaster, he's going to scream.

:I think removing the compulsion would be a bad idea, at least at present:

And if Vanyel wants to remove the seventh compulsion, Vanyel is going to be really surprised to learn that Janos can make horizontal Gates under the chair he's sitting on.

Vanyel nods, looking unperturbed. :Of course. I understand not wanting to mess with things any more right now, and - needing to have some time to figure out what you want here. I don't like the Empire, but it's not your fault you were born there and I don't think it's our right to break anything that you're using and that doesn't present an immediate threat to either of us:

(He's pretty sure that Janos was genuinely considering the question, which seems like a good sign. He also suspects that Janos is more conflicted about it than he's letting on. That's fine, too.) 

:Right. I promised you some more history of Valdemar today, didn't I? I think it'll make more sense to you once I explain, but - before I do that, I'm actually really curious what you think so far. It's not often that we get the opportunity to hear a true outside perspective on our kingdom: 

:I appreciate it:

... He could lie, but he's honestly not sure how it serves his purposes.

:I think your story cannot be true unless there is a central piece missing. I have no good guesses as to what plausible piece could possibly fit: In approximate order of probability, his least bad guesses are "Vanyel's just being lied to," "magic lost in Cestil's crisis," "the gods are scarier than I thought," and "Vanyel's lying to me." "The power of horse breeding" is in fact somewhere below "the knife was poisoned and I am having very exciting hallucinations" on the list.

Vanyel nods. Smiles a little. :I can't blame you for not guessing. I think most Valdemarans forget exactly how odd we must seem, to an outside perspective, but - I wouldn't have guessed it, in your position:

He takes a deep breath, and braces himself for some kind of reaction, he's not sure yet what it will be. 

:King Valdemar was, as far as we can tell, a very competent and thoughtful monarch, who cared a lot about the wellbeing of his subjects, and the future of the Kingdom. And - had some concerns, because as you mentioned, the Emperor he lived under was - not an ideal ruler. So - he prayed. To every god whose name he knew. And, I suspect to everyone's shock, his prayer was answered. He got a miracle: 

Pause. 

:Yfandes?: 

:Heya: the horse says to Janos, in Mindspeech that feels almost exactly like a human's, with only the faintest background hint of - something else. Something bright and steely-blue and alien. :I'm Herald Vanyel's Companion. All Heralds are Chosen by one of us. We form a bond with them, and - help them stay on track, guide and support them in being good leaders. ...I don't normally talk directly to anyone but Vanyel or the other Companions, but this situation is already unusual:

Vanyel stretches his arm out, and Yfandes reaches with her neck over the stall door and nuzzles his fingers. 

:So. I hope that explains some of the missing pieces. I imagine you have a lot of questions: 

This is concerning, and Janos is going to take a moment, come up with a full list of questions, and decide what his priorities are and exactly how much of a crisis Duke Valdemar got his people into before taking any panic-inspired decisions of any form whatsoever.

(That his instincts tell him that Vanyel and his magic horse genuinely care about each other is not helping.)

Priority One: Learn more.

:Hello:, he sends to the Companion. Then, to both of them: :And, yes, a great many. You say the Heralds are chosen by the Companions, and that the Companions attempt to keep them on track, and that this - on track nature - helps prevent civil wars? Do you know to what tools it functions through? Careful selection of Heralds: - if they can just magically scan for competence they would be the envy of the nation, though he has no idea if they do that instead of scanning for 'serves the divine mastermind's plans' - :ordinary persuasion, or supernatural processes? Or something outside my categories?:

Vanyel is frowning. :I’m - not sure if it would be trivial to separate those. And I do genuinely think that the ethics training is a part of it: Glance at Yfandes. :Though - enforced by the fact that if a Herald ever does anything really bad for Valdemar, they’re risking repudiation by their Companion. Heralds…don’t generally survive that: 

:It almost never gets to that point!: Yfandes clarifies quickly. :A couple of times in our entire history. But, yes, that plus the selection is why Heralds can trust one another as much as they do. Which is a big piece of why the succession tends to go as smoothly as it does:

He's going to try to avoid jumping to any conclusions, especially not the obvious conclusion, which is that the entire official Valdemaran hierarchy is a puppet of a secretive clique of MAGIC HORSES.

:I see. This all makes sense. And this bond ensures the relationship is always close?: He pauses. :What... priorities do Companions usually have? What actions do they tend to support their Heralds in, and what - other than internal conflict - do they discourage them from?:

:It doesn't usually feel like they're steering that much, honestly? At least, not in a way that's in conflict with what I want anyway. Yfandes mostly - looks out for me, makes sure I'm taking care of myself: he rolls his eyes slightly, :and she's there to talk through things if I'm not sure what to do in a situation? And the Companions talk a lot with each other, which helps the Heralds stay organized without having to put as much of our attention into scheduling meetings and remembering to go: 

No response on the bond, but other than that, Vanyel's first statement opens two possibilities: Either the Companions are, in fact, mostly steering their Heralds via selection, or, much more likely, they're good at steering. People rarely enjoy feeling like they're being steered.

:She sounds extremely helpful: He smiles at Yfandes. (No reason to tick off the secret masterminds of Valdemar, let alone the Heralds' support staff.)

His second comment suggests, again, 'good at steering.' :I follow so far: The problem is that all of this is a minefield; he has no idea what (in his worst-case scenario) would tick off the secret rulers of Valdemar. The Empire mostly doesn't talk about gods, and Janos is only now wondering if this was a gigantic weakness in his otherwise excellent education. :Do you know anything more of how the Companions came to be, or the nature of the god that -: created them? empowered them? :blessed you with them, other than its visible benevolence?:

Oddly, Vanyel grimaces at the word 'blessed', before quickly controlling his face. 

His Companion gives him an opaque look. 

:We don't: Vanyel says slowly. :We don't even know which god. I...think the gods may not be very good at communication: 

Vanyel does not like gods, even though he very much likes his God-given magic horse. This is fascinating.

(Or he is a spectacularly good actor and Actor-Vanyel wants Janos to think Role-Vanyel does not like gods, but Janos is not taking this theory especially seriously, it's just that you always want an 'an extremely elaborate lie is being set up' subroutine running in the back of your mind, if you're from the Eastern Empire...)

More than that. Vanyel does not like gods and he expects most people in his society not to agree with this belief and this means that it is a valuable tie between him and Janos, not-liking-gods, and although drawing anti-god statements out of Janos would be a perfectly good thing for Actor-Vanyel to do, he has not gotten the impression that Valdemar was a nest of lies, let alone one good enough to beat his instincts, and sometimes you need to roll the dice.

(None of this takes very long to think; Janos was not completely deluding himself, when his life plan required playing the Fourth Game well enough to be emperor, even though he knew the odds were never in his favor.)

:In the Eastern Empire, we say that the gods serve divine interests, and humans serve human interests, and these are only rarely the same. But the Empire has seen very fewer benevolent miracles than you have, and so we might say differently if we had Companions:

There. Position established. And the next step is to change the topic - 

:How are Heralds selected? Is it purely on the basis of - mental compatibility - or is it also gifts, intelligence, diligence...:

:Hmm: Vanyel considers this in thoughtful silence for ten seconds or so. :I think 'mental compatibility' - a specific Companion getting a Call to Choose a child - is often because of things like intelligence and diligence? And - altruism, being the sort of person who wants to dedicate their life to serving Valdemar. It calls for a lot of sacrifices: 

(Again, a brief flicker of unhappiness in his expression, quickly smoothed away.) 

:And Gifts, yes. Not all Heralds are strongly Gifted - I'd say maybe half are? There are a lot of Heralds with weak Gifts that weren't active yet when they were Chosen; it seems plausible that something to do with the Companion-bond, or maybe just with having a Companion Mindspeaking you and in your head constantly, tends to awaken Gifts that might not have otherwise. Our King isn't strongly Gifted, for example; he's got a tiny bit of Mindspeech, enough to reach his Companion, it's stretching it just for strong Mindspeakers to talk to him in the same room. Maybe a quarter of Heralds are only able to Mindspeak with their Companions: 

He frowns. :Not all Heralds are Gifted, but - most strongly Gifted people are Heralds? Especially mages. Mages who aren't Chosen are very rare: 

He nods along to Vanyel's points as he understands them, thinking carefully. So it's trading off between 'the sort of person who will keep Heraldic culture appropriate' - altruism, internal loyalty - and 'the sort of person who will be a resource-asset to the Heralds', maintaining a careful balance between retaining enough unified culture to keep everyone sharing a purpose and ethic, and being able to recruit all the country's talented people into their ruling clique. Fascinating. (The Emperor would give his left hand to have a magical power to sense competence and loyalty; Janos would also toss in his right leg.) He's putting together a picture of how this all works, and it's a truly interesting system...

(For a moment he wishes he could talk to Cendas about this, see what the old man had to say, or even Sorim or Ceyvan. Valdemar's playing a different game, and understanding it might be the most important thing he can do here...)

... There's just one thing he doesn't understand, though he might want to ask a few more questions, first, to see if he can lure out the information he needs; he can think of possible explanations that don't mean the Companions have sold the country out.

:All of this makes sense: And seems potentially very good. :In that case, the remaining questions I can think of are - can you tell me more about the Call? Do you know who sends it? And can I ask what role the Valdemaran nobility have, in this government? Are they all Heralds? Is the King?:

(He could ask 'do they have nobles', he's seen places that don't, but mostly those places don't have towns or cities, either. Hereditary landholding aristocrats who believe they deserve to rule purely by right of birth seem to come with division of labor, like diseases and wild dogs.)

:We don't know that much about it. It's not something the Companions decide, themselves, it happens to them. Possibly something to do with the Web - er, I think I mentioned that yesterday? It's the ward system that covers all of Valdemar. King Valdemar built it, and it's possible that was part of the miracle he requested although it's not very well documented: 

Pause. 

:Yes, we have a Council of nobles as well as the Heraldic leadership. The monarchy is hereditary, but with the caveat that the monarch - King or Queen, we've had both - always has to be a Herald, so sometimes if no direct offspring are Chosen, it goes to a cousin or other relative. The Council votes on most new laws or policies; the monarch has a veto on the outcome of those votes, but rarely uses it: 

He makes a note to properly worry about the giant miracle-created country-wide ward system later - that seems like the sort of thing that could have very large effects either way - and pay more attention, instead, to the fact, that he critically misestimated Valdemar, back when he was optimistically assuming that it was secretly controlled by magic horses.

Because it is not secretly ruled by a clique of magic horses. It is ruled by, if you are optimistic, a god with no more reason to care about human flourishing than a farmer has to care about the flourishing of the mice in his barn, and, if you are pessimistic, a magic spell created by a god-with-no-more-reason-to-care-about-human-flourishing-than, which has since been running on automatic for the last eight hundred years. On the positive side, this means that the likely-opposition is less likely to be prepared for him; on the negative side, this means that he cannot just talk to and cooperate with the likely-potential-opposition, which will probably have its goals met better if the country it secretly controls is wealthier.

All right. Let's not get ahead of himself. For all he knows, the Heralds are just too altruistic to spend money on luxuries for themselves, and the country actually is at least four times as rich as the Eastern Empire, the way it ought to be.

:All right, I continue to follow this, and I think I'm getting something of a picture of your civilization. I'm sure a number of my guesses are wrong, but I can't think of any questions to ask to distinguish between possibilities at the moment. That are safe to ask. At some point, if you have time, I'd like to look at your yearly census records, and any other information you have about rates of child mortality, average lifespans, literacy rates and average farm yields per acre; I have some predictions based on what I've seen so far and I'm curious if they're borne out:

And then he pauses, not making that into a dismissal at all but simply a wait for a response, and waits to see why Royal Advisor Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron wanted to talk to him badly enough to do so while injured, because he has some trouble believing it was just to answer some of his questions.

That is the most Leareth-flavored request Vanyel has ever heard from a person who isn't Leareth! It's really impressive! And kind of scary! 

(He really needs to make sure that whatever happens, Janos ends up feeling cooperative toward Valdemar and inclined to work with their goals rather than against them. In hindsight, handling the compulsions the way they did was a huge risk. Leareth wouldn't have been angry about being treated that way, and Vanyel doesn't think that Janos will hold a grudge either, but that's a lot of weight to put on what was fundamentally a guess. And if Janos does end up inclined to scheme against them, he'll run circles around the Heralds with no effort at all.) 

:I suspect our census records are less detailed than yours: he admits. :I've been hoping to study some of that myself, but - then the war happened: Sigh. :Anyway. If that's all your questions for right now, then I want to ask a bit about your plans for the next while. Do your existing loyalties: compulsions, that is, :conflict with helping Valdemar in our war? - Also I would definitely understand if you need to know more about Karse in order to decide that: 

Okay, that's the most disturbing thing anyone in Valdemar has said. Magic horses, godly curses, sure, those shift the equilibrium, but is Vanyel saying that they have no idea about any of his statistics questions because the only way they could know those answers would be if a royal-advisor-who-is-also-an-Adept happened to want to study them, and that otherwise they would never know that? Even if they wanted to put him off, they could at least say 'I don't have the numbers at my fingertips but I can bring you someone who does', or something!

:I understand why your project was delayed; even your total population and yearly tax revenue would help, here: (not great proxies, but better than literally nothing) :but I don't think it's too urgent; it would just help keep my estimate of your kingdom accurate:

:My existing loyalties have no conflict with helping Valdemar. I came here because I thought -: (this is safe to say, Vanyel knows his compulsions, and he's going to need to give something and in this case it ought to be his heart) :- that the most effective way to help the Empire and the cause it was founded for would be to try to assist the development of other civilizations sharing its goals - the long-term flourishing of humanity - with which it could, long-term, cooperate and trade. However, while I do intend to repay you for saving me, I don't know if I ought to commit to hostile acts against Karse, yet; I'd like to know more about Karse and the nature of the war before I commit to siding with Valdemar too aggressively: Honestly, if it weren't for the godly control he'd throw himself into supporting Valdemar immediately, but his model of Vanyel suggests that he really ought to display some moral reluctance, even though he's starting to suspect that he already has enough of a start here to make it the right place to begin building the Western Empire.

(Incidentally, he uses the exact same word that Leareth does for 'flourishing', or at least something that translates identically in Mindspeech.)

The Eastern Empire has a goal of WHAT. 

- arguing with Janos that actually his homeland is incredibly evil is not going to help Vanyel's cause, here.

(Also, he can tell that Janos is unimpressed with something. Probably related to the lack of good census data. Vanyel cannot really blame him, and - from what he knows, Valdemar genuinely is poorer. Vanyel five years ago would have said in a heartbeat that this was because Valdemar is trying to treat its citizens well and fairly, rather than make its elites wealthy, but...it feels more complicated than that, now.) 

:I'm glad to hear that: he says, choosing each word carefully. :I - share that goal. And - to be honest, I think the Empire made a huge mistake, in driving someone like you away: That much, at least, he feels comfortable saying, and it might be something to build on later. :Even in times of war, we need to worry about the ongoing administration of our Kingdom, and I'm sure that King Randale would be delighted to hear your advice on non-war matters: 

And that is why this is the right place to start.

:All governments inevitably make mistakes, and I'm pleased you agree with me about this one. Also that you share my goal. I'd be happy to offer my assistance, though I'll want to know more about how your administration already functions before I'm qualified to give more than the most basic advice; there's a great deal of knowledge I'd need and don't have - any of the language, to start with:

:Yes, of course: Vanyel smiles at him, warmly but very tiredly. :You'll need some briefings. Probably with the other Heralds for now - I'm afraid that my energy may be about to run out. We - can maybe start by getting you some maps and books? I think we have a few texts in Hardornen. Are there other languages from this region that you can read?: 

:A very little Rethwellani, and I very much appreciate it: He'll try to rise, then, since Vanyel is in worse shape than he is. :A very interesting conversation, Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron. One I am very grateful to you for:

:You're welcome: Vanyel ducks his head. :Oh, and please don't feel you need to start on this right away. You're recovering as well - you should feel free to take all the time you need: 

:Advice that certain Herald-Mages could stand to follow: Yfandes teases him, privately. 

Healer Andrel is hovering by the door, and quickly jumps in to help Janos stand and assist him back to his room. 

:I assure you, Herald-Mage, reading is not work:

And then he's going to return to his room, get comfortably settled, thank Andrel graciously, hopefully arrange for some maps or Hardornen books to be sent up, and think about what he's learned about Valdemar.

Janos has come up with a picture of what Valdemar looks like, and it isn't a good one.

The leadership is capable and benevolent - not just normally benevolent, but supernaturally so. Their mages are skilled, if not quite at the level of the Empire's. Their nobles are under control. They have perfectly competent Healers. They have a magical power to prevent civil wars without spending half their income on it, not to mention one to select new members of their leadership group from anywhere in the country, letting them directly appoint competent administrators without the need of a civil-service examination. They started with full information on the Imperial model of government, and the ability to copy any elements they wanted or start anew as they wished.

All of this ought to make the country not just a utopia, but the richest state on Velgarth.

And it isn't. Maybe he's wrong about this, that is a possibility, and it would be the simplest. But the sheets on the bed - the decorations in the halls - the building's construction - the lack of statistics - Vanyel's humility about his own knowledge - Herald's whites - all these suggest that Valdemar is much, much poorer than the Empire.

One hundred years after they fled civilization for a wilderness, that's plausible. Two hundred years. Three hundred years? Perhaps, if you stretch it. Eight hundred years after leaving the Eastern Empire, Janos shouldn't need to build a Western Empire of his own, he should have Gated straight into it!

There are possible explanations. Maybe Imperial prosperity requires a larger population-base than Valdemar can build peacefully, maybe they're (somehow! Vanyel can't be that good!) lying to him about how well their system works. But the explanation that seems most likely, right now, is that who- or what- ever controls Valdemar - the Companion-herd, the spell that Chooses Heralds, the god that cast it - has decided to sacrifice Valdemar's prosperity for some inhuman goal that he cannot comprehend, let alone agree with.

Right now, he wishes he'd learned more about gods before leaving. The teachers of the Hall of Learning had talked so little about them... none of the founders had said much that he'd read, other than restating their fundamental amorality...

But whatever's gone wrong with Valdemar, gods are at the heart of it, and he needs to know more so he can fix it.

He hopes he's wrong. But he thinks people are starving out there, and he has no intention of letting that happen.

He's mostly left alone for the rest of the morning, save for the Healers' regular assessments. 

Around midday, Melody, the Mindhealer from the night before, arrives along with his lunch tray. (They're giving him real food, this time - vegetable stew, greens, a bit of baked fish with cream sauce, bread and butter on the side.) 

:Herald Tantras gave me some books for you: she says. :Selection in Hardornen in the Heralds' library is limited, unfortunately. Vanyel thinks we can dig up some better texts through the Temple of Astera but it'll take a few days: She plops what looks like a history treatise and a book of historical ballads on the bedside table next to his meal. :...Also, I meant to check back with you about the blocks and any aftermath from that: 

He's pleased with the food! Well, actually, he mostly doesn't notice what it is, but to the extent he notices, he's pleased with the food.

:Thank you:, he says, :and thank them both, from me:.

:The blocks were... very uncomfortable:. He'd never actually realized how much of a weakness it was, the extent to which he leaned on his endorsed-compulsions. :I have not noticed any particular aftermath effects.: well, he actually feels a good deal smoother, more comfortable, as if there's now only three swords hanging by a thread above his head instead of five, :but I would like to know if there is any way to defend against them; I don't believe I've encountered the specific technique before:.

Which is horrifying, since while he's technically heard of Mindhealing before, he had not realized that you could use it to do that; he can think of ways to fake it with compulsions, but not easy ones, and his shields would defend against that unless the mage was very good indeed.

:...Most people can't shield out Mindhealing at all. It must be possible, but I wouldn't know how to teach you how, and I don't know who else could either. - I can give you my word that I won't do it again, though. I wasn't anticipating the effects being nearly as incapacitating as they were - normally a block that localized would have correspondingly local and contained effects, and that seemed not to be the case at all. Also, to be honest with you, involving myself at all was already pushing the bounds of Mindhealing ethics. I need to figure out a long-term policy and it's very possible the policy I decide on wouldn't have had me doing that: 

... There's a lot in her speech worth unpacking. She hasn't figured out a long-term policy, meaning... meaning Mindhealing is rare in Valdemar, too. Still, if shielding it out is practically impossible... his brain is immediately filled with ways to use Melody for - assassinations, kidnappings, commando raids...

More important urgent issue: He cannot, in fact, ask her not to give her word she won't do it again, even though it would long-term serve the majority of his endorsed purposes if she dug out Compulsion #6 in another day or two, since he would need to be much more confident than he is that he has a better grasp of the Emperor's him-related needs than the Emperor does in order to have that removed.

:Understood, and I appreciate the guarantee. I think the compulsion was a good deal more general than most, and hence the block on it was, too; that will be the case if you end up treating other Easterners:. Which she probably won't. :I can't provide advice on what such a code would look like, I'm afraid; Mindhealing is extremely rare in the Empire:. Or he'd have known what to do about it better.

Nod. :In that case, I'm likely to be returning to the front in the next couple of days. There aren't enough of us to justify me staying around here when I'm very badly needed there: 

Oh good.

:Understood:

He pauses.

:I do appreciate what you did, though. It may have saved my life:

Nod. :I - can't say I'm glad to hear that, but I am glad we fixed it. And I'm even gladder than I was that you made it out of there: 

:I'm certainly glad I made it here, but I'm afraid you'll get an unreasonably bad picture of the Empire from just this situation. The court's worse than the country is:

...Nod. :I confess I'm curious about what you'd claim are the upsides, but I can't stay. I expect Herald Vanyel will have plenty of questions for you about it later. Is there anything else you need right now?: 

Well, for instance, the Empire has common enough and reliable enough censuses that you can tell how competent a job the government is doing other than by whether there are literal famines taking place. :Nothing very important, though a map would be convenient, to help me follow the details of this history: He taps it as he speaks.

:I think that one has a map included, but it's not recent - I'll see if one of the Healers can chase down a proper map for you: 

And she heads out. 

He is left mostly alone for the next few candlemarks, though at one point another of the Healing-trainees darts in and gives him a map. 

Excellent. Then he's going to start reading the Hardornen history, paying careful attention to mentions of its western and southwestern neighbors, to see what he can learn about the countries. He's particularly curious about their military, of course - about the general military strategies in the west-of-the-Crown cluster - but anything he can learn about how the countries function, he plans to, even if it's just side mentions of little details.

Once he gets his hands on the map, he finds that interesting, too, running his finger along the rivers and borders it shows. It's msising small rivers, he's sure, but other than that it doesn't look too implausible. He'll want a look at the terrain itself - the map never really matches the terrain, he's ridden through invisible marshes and not-worth-mentioning rivers before - before he commands troops, but he'll want to speak the language before then, too, so there's no great hurry.

And at times when he's left alone and he's pretty sure there's no one watching, he'll send out his Farsight, carefully scanning the area first around his room, then around Haven, then in the countryside around that, just to see just what Valdemar looks like at ground level.

Hardorn seems to get on well with Valdemar. It's more recently founded, actually; the Kingdom per se is only around 600 years old, before that it was a collection of smaller city-states. The successor to the first King to consolidate power there did try to invade some Valdemaran territory, and utterly failed, thanks to Valdemar possessing much better logistics - and, though they didn't have more mages at the time and may even have had fewer, their mages were far better trained and able to work as a unit. 

(It's noted that Valdemar didn't invade them back, despite several potential opportunities; in fact, the author of the book claims that Valdemar has a firm policy of never invading a sovereign country's territory, which has been taken more or less strictly by different rulers but has never been fully broken.) 

There've been no full-scale wars between the two nations since, only a few cases where rebelling Hardornen nobles near the Valdemaran border tried to nibble some extra territory, and the Heralds sent an envoy to politely request the King's assistance in dissuading this, not that they seemed to especially need help. (Hardorn, apparently, has a much higher rate of rebellions and civil wars than Valdemar claims, though more than half of their successions are peaceful.) 

There have been a handful of major natural disasters in the last four hundred years - heavy rains leading to severe flooding, an earthquake, a drought that stretched on for nearly four years. Valdemar offered aid each time, even though it's not obvious that the terms of their alliance demanded it. 

Hardorn does not get on well with Karse. Neither kingdom has an especially well-patrolled border, and even during peacetime, the area tends to be home to quite a high population of roaming bandits. Karse has on two occasions invaded Hardorn, and both times managed to nab some territory, not that it can possibly be worth much to them; the land is rough and hilly, unproductive for farming, and each war usually involves a lot of blood-magic being thrown around, causing significant damage.

The book is about fifty years old and obviously doesn't cover the current war, but during previous wars between Valdemar and Karse, Hardorn has usually suffered almost as badly as the combatants; the local weather-patterns mean that any significant combat magic on the eastern half of the Valdemar-Karse border tends to result in storms that blow straight across into Hardorn. The last such war three hundred years ago resulted in a severe famine, despite the fact that it only lasted a year before the then-King of Karse died (supposedly of natural causes, or at least this is what his son claimed) and the new King had a couple of Sunpriests executed for treason and then opened peace talks. 

The book doesn't focus on military history per se, but he can read between the lines. Gates are used very rarely - to move troops in advance of a battle, but not generally during a battle itself, and minimally for supply logistics. Valdemar and Karse don't seem to have enough mages to keep up with the inevitably required weather-working, and they have a lower ratio of Adepts than the Empire does; mages on the stronger end of Master can Gate, but not as far or for as long, and they don't seem to know any concert-work techniques for Gating, let alone permanent Gate artifice. The number of mages relative to un-Gifted troops is also lower. As a result, war is much more often fought along a single front, on the current border, and targeted strikes directly on a major city or capital are almost unheard of. 

Valdemar... did not, over the course of the war, move its troops onto enemy territory for tactical or strategic purposes? Janos can understand 'not attacking other countries', he can recognize the benefits of a clear policy of not making your neighbors afraid, but that's got to be some kind of historian's error. No country that still exists could be that stupid. He's also somewhat curious what Valdemar got out of the aid - a long-term ally, perhaps, but unstable kings have short memories. Possibly sending foreign aid whenever a neighbor has problems is just one of the failure modes of overly-altruistic countries, which - as Vanyel described the Heralds - Valdemar may be. That wouldn't explain their poverty, but it might help mitigate the absurdity of it.

And he is somewhat curious what Hardorn is doing in the present war. Karse is never described in the books as being much larger or much stronger than either of its neighbors alone, and it would either need some major advantage - some uniquely brilliant general or particularly lucky generation of mages? - or to have made a major strategic error, to start wars with both of its northern neighbors at once... and Hardorn couldn't help but take a Karsite invasion of Valdemar as an attack on it, too, not if it would cause famines in the country.

(And he has some trouble believing in no Karse-Hardornen wars over the past three hundred years, but maybe the combination of the Valdemaran limited-alliance and the rough terrain might make that worth it? Not likely, but hardly implausible).

And from the sounds of this, Valdemar and Karse both have *very* undeveloped magic. Surprising; both Savil and Vanyel seemed wholly capable. Maybe that's just that they wanted specialists to look at him, but he might be worried that the two of them are an unusually lucky roll of the dice for Valdemar, when it comes to mage-talent and intelligence coinciding. That would be its own kind of problem.

Haven and the surrounding countryside, to Farsight, pretty much just confirm the hypothesis that Valdemar is much, much poorer than the Empire. 

The major Trade Roads leaving the city - four of them, in the cardinal directions - are paved, though with what looks like a less sophisticated and long-lasting mage-technique than would be used in the Empire. Most of the smaller roads are cobbles or gravel or just hard-packed dirt. There are no canals. No aqueducts. No forms of magically-propelled land transport. Just carts, and people riding horses or mules or on foot. 

The city of Haven itself would be hellish to attempt to take by force. There are three layers of city walls, presumably built at successive times as the city expanded; all of them are quite well maintained, and staffed by blue-uniformed Guards who seem attentive and diligent. The gates through each successive wall don't line up at all, and as soon as the roads enter Haven proper, they go from straight to tortuously winding. The river does run through the city, but is guarded at both the entry and exit points.

The wealthier areas of Haven are...fine. The noble manors are big and well maintained, though less elaborately built than anything in the Capital of the Empire. The few wealthy-looking people he glimpses are dressed more decoratively than the Heralds, which hints that the plain white uniform may be a deliberate choice rather than just a lack of material resources. 

The poor areas of Haven, which are mostly in the western half outside the second-layer wall, are a disaster. Rickety wooden tenements that cannot possibly be up to any building code ever invented anywhere. Narrow dirt streets, sometimes with side ditches for sewage, sometimes without. What looks like the tanners' district is on the west side of the river, and glimpses of the area immediately downstream definitely make it look like raw sewage is being dumped into the water. The Guard-presence is visibly less, and he's glimpsed a few Heralds - quite visible, wearing white and riding white horses - but none in that area. 

There are children in those streets, many of them barefoot despite the snow, all of them underdressed for the cold, all of them clearly underfed. 

Janos is quite sure that if the Eastern Empire conquered Valdemar, the Valdemarans would be very unhappy. He is equally sure that they'd be much, much better off; between aqueducts, canals and indoor plumbing, the plummeting disease rates would more than pay for the imperial taxes without even considering gains in agriculture or mining. They can afford uniforms for their army, at least, which suggests that they aren't quite as poor as they could be, though he frankly thinks that's a lower priority than canals. Or gates. Do they even know what land travel costs do to all society's wealth? They ought to, they've been paying them!

Janos does not, personally, know how to build aqueducts in more than very broad detail. He does, however, know exactly how to open a Gate back to a minor city in the Eastern Empire, send someone who speaks the Imperial language with a strong Hardornen accent to the city's street of booksellers, and purchase every book on civil engineering they have. He is frankly surprised that Hardorn hasn't already done that, and that it has not thereby made it to Valdemar, but he supposes someone had to be first.

Neither the book nor the map have any answers to his questions. 

He continues to get quite generous attention from the Healers, and now that he's more alert, he can notice that the state-of-the-art in Healing actually seems to be very, very good, enough to rival the Palace Healers and solidly exceed most of the city Healers' skill. The red-haired man who introduced himself as Andrel comes back three times over the course of the afternoon and evening, with different trainees each time, and seems to be using this as a teaching opportunity. When they come to properly change his bandages, just before shift change, the wound is entirely knitted closed, though still puckered and angry-red. 

The supper they bring him is just as good as lunch. 

Excellent! In that case, he's going to keep reading, keep recovering, keep scrying, keep being friendly with the healers, make some tentative attempts to learn the language, and assume that Valdemar's leadership will want to talk to him once they've sorted out just what else they'll want to tell him.

The Senior Circle meets. In Vanyel's room at the House of Healing, again; he's been trying to insist that he's well enough to return to his own quarters, and Gemma has declared that he's welcome to do that 'as soon as he can walk there himself'. (Right now, he can barely make it across the room.) 

"So your impression is that we should trust him," Randi says flatly. 

"...I mean. Not fully. But - I think he means it, that he wants things to go well rather than badly - that he cares about people's wellbeing. And he can't go back, and sabotaging us won't help the Empire with anything." 

"Wants things to go well rather than badly, huh?" Savil says dryly. "He's from the Eastern Empire. Where apparently it's normal for successions to involve literal assassins!" 

"Yes. It's...all he knows, I think. He seems somewhat in awe that we don't have constant civil wars? And I think he may have some more surprises coming. But - he thinks well of the Empire. He's compulsioned to be loyal to it, but he's...trying to be loyal to a thing that's good, I think? Melody thought he'd built a lot of himself around that. And that that's why he wants to help us, it's - the same drive." 

"Really." 

"He can't detect Truth Spells. He said under a first-stage Truth Spell that he cared about the flourishing of all people, and he didn't know it was there, he had no reason to try to talk around it." 

"Huh." Tran sounds a little dubious, but also a little impressed. 

"So. What do you think we should do with him?" 

"I think we should introduce him to you and the rest of the Senior Circle. Get some of his advice on internal policy, maybe. And - find out what he needs to confirm for himself about Karse before he'd be willing to help us end this war." 

A long pause. 

"- You think he could do that." 

Vanyel shrugs. "I don't know. It may be that a lot of the military tactics he was educated in won't work here - the Empire has more mages, more resources, and - different rules of engagement. I'm pretty sure they use blood-magic in warfare, for one. But - he's got an outside perspective. I think he's one of the best opportunities we have, right now." 

"And you're sure he won't be suddenly compelled to murder me as soon as we're in the same room?" 

"I'm sure he would know that was a great way to end up dead five seconds later! Which means it doesn't serve the interests of the Empire! Randi, he fled rather than die - he found a way to work with his compulsions so that was his best route forward. I don't think he's going to change his strategy there." 

Randi nods. Sighs heavily. 

"Is he actually recovered enough for proper meetings." 

"I can check with Gemma in the morning." 

"My sense from talking to him is that he's not going to be up for major casting - or fighting - for a while, but he's probably fine to sit in a meeting-room for a while? I am, and I was injured worse than him." 

Savil raises her eyebrows, but lets this slide. 

"All right. Let's go ahead and call it a night now, and - Tran, figure out when I could be available tomorrow to meet with him." 

Janos is left alone and has a very restful night. In the morning, one of the Healing-trainees brings him breakfast, and then Gemma has a look at him before heading out, and declares that he's recovered enough to walk down the hall and take an actual bath, if he would like that. "You'll just want to avoid getting the bandages wet. One of the trainees can help you. - Would you like to borrow some clothes? We tried to wash yours but the bloodstains didn't come out." 

She's already received the message from Tran asking her if her patient is well enough to leave the House of Healing, and whether she would clear him to attend meetings or do desk work. She is going to let Andrel make the call on that, once they see how well he can manage bathing and how tired out he is afterward. 

Certainly he would! Both the bath and "the clothes, thank you greatly, Healer Gemma." 

(He can collect the important things from his old clothes and conceal them about his new, after all, and going around in a bloodstained shirt will hardly help him look capable or recovered.) 

He seems capable of bathing without too much difficulty, though he's more tired than he looks - concealing exhaustion is a very useful survival skill, in the Empire, not to mention important for an officer to keep his men's faith in him high.

It's harder to hide from Healing-Sight, but Andrel lets it slide. The man does at least seem able to get out of bed, walk, bathe himself, and put on clothing unaided and without too much (visible) pain, and he hasn't had any drugs for it since yesterday. 

He still gives him a candlemark afterward, though, both to give him a chance to rest if he wants to nap when no one's looking, and because he has kind of a lot of other things on his plate this morning. 

After that, though, he swings by again. "You're looking much better today. I don't think you need more Healing attention - would you feel ready to move out of your room here to one of the guest suites in the Palace? Also, the King is interested in speaking with you, and would be available to meet this afternoon, but it's entirely understandable if you need another day of rest." 

He can predict already that, although he's not a Herald, this man is enough like the Heralds that he absolutely won't say he needs another day even if he does. At some point, though, there's not much you can do about that. 

He does not need another day. He could possibly benefit from one, but the faster you move, the faster you can accomplish your goals.

(The candlemark is spent on making sure his personal wards are all functional, even in the change of clothes, and also that if he has to Gate to Rethwellan he'll have the funds to pay his own way, if he needs to.)

"I appreciate the King's gracious offer, and would be pleased to meet with him whenever he wishes." Ideally he can also get to his suite fast enough to de-knife; he doesn't think the king of Valdemar would be amused to know that his new visitor had multiple blades on him, no matter how superfluous edged weapons were for Adepts.

"I'll have one of the trainees walk you over, and we can have lunch sent to you there, you don't need to be hiking all over the grounds just yet. The King will send someone to collect you when he's ready." 

The trainee doesn't speak Hardornen, so the walk is quiet. The guest suite is - honestly, very very plain. And small. The bed is comfortable and the furniture is high-quality, though. There's a writing-desk with a padded chair, a wardrobe, and a small table for meals. The trainee shows him via mime how to ring for one of the servants if he needs anything, and points out where the nearest privy is. (It's indoors, at least, and seems to have running water, though the individual rooms don't.) 

"Thank you, and understood."

Hopefully the trainee will also say the Valdemaran words for these things, so he can start trying to pick up the language. He can't lead an army with Hardornen and other people's Mindspeech, after all.

Theory: "Valdemar is poor" has already been confirmed. Apparently they're treating him well for their wealth, though.

And then he can get rid of his weapons, reread a few relevant sections of the history, do a bit more checking up on Haven with Farsight, and wish he spoke the language all the books here were written in.

Lunch is brought to him by a friendly servant who also doesn't speak Hardornen. 

A candlemark after that, another Herald arrives and knocks politely on the door. His Hardornen is fine. "Janos? This is Herald Tantras. May I come in?" 

Herald, not Herald-Mage. Janos wonders what Gifts he has, if any. "Certainly, Herald. Please do."

"I'm glad to see you up and about!" Tantras says cheerfully, letting himself in. "Your recovery is going well?" 

"Very well, yes," Janos says. (There are theoretically situations where you show weakness. This is unlikely to be one of them.) "Your healers are excellent, truly gifted."