"I'm not sure they have the impulse to live up to their mothers either. It'd be nicely symmetric, but - if I were to philosophize, and I really mostly don't, I'd say that women gain little by outrageous ambition, lose little by the lack of it, and are not as much confronted with the fundamental question of their worth in the world, and men are, and it is being confronted with that question that motivates a boy to worry about surpassing his father."

"It's interesting – you know, I don't think I've ever thought about surpassing my father." 

"Did you look up to him, as a child?"

"Not at all. I was very unfair to him, probably. He was in an impossible situation and did the best – well, the best that an ordinary, decent man could be expected to."  

"Not unusual as a description of a person but rare as a way for a man to see his own father."

"Is it? I'd say it describes most fathers of my acquaintance, really." 

"Then that sounds like a great tragedy of your age."

"Not the worst thing about growing up in a country ruled by the forces of Hell, but certainly on the list."

"I think that in countries not ruled by the forces of Hell, it takes - extremely poor conduct on the part of a father, to break a son's yearning to have his admiration and his respect, and to surpass him."

"What's it like for your sons, having to live up to you?"

"They are mostly dead of it, and I think I would have wronged them more if I had tried to have it otherwise."

If Rahim died trying to imitate him – he'd bring him back, of course. As many times as he has to. He can afford it. But if he couldn't – or worse, infinitely worse, if Rahim asked him not to, because leaving that certainty behind was the only way for him to grow – 

"I'm so sorry."

"There are things a Heal can pick you up from and there are things to take to Heaven. Not much in between, really."

"I'm sorry I brought it up. I was thinking of my little boy."

"Of course you were. And I wish you and him the world, and I can't recommend borrowing trouble. You live in a different world from ours, and maybe one with more ways for boys to grow strong."

Except for how there's only ever really the one way to grow strong. Well, if fate itself can break, maybe that can too. It sounds like the kind of thing that'd be on Iomedae's list if he asked her for all its entries, which he hasn't because Iomedae could really stand to stay focused on the fight she actually stands a chance of winning and runs a risk of losing.

"I hope so. I've tried very hard to make it that way."

Alfirin sits with the crocodiles and thinks through her feelings about Iomedae like a responsible archmage.

There's not actually very much more to think about, though. It's not new information, just - old information that she wasn't looking at. After the first couple times checking that there's not anything else that big that she'd been avoiding - thinking more about it is painful, and she's not learning anything.

She decides to distract herself by tracking Tar-Baphon's lieutenants. It's important work, and work she's advantaged at, but is routine enough that if she's still out of sorts - and she is - it won't matter too much.

Adorak, Adorak, Tamrivena, no result, Adorak, Renchurch, "The Audience Pit, Sholthuravon, The Sightless Sea, Orv, the Darklands, The Material Plane."

...She follows that one up with a greater scry.

Shit.

"We may have the start of a complication."

Iomedae shoos her guards. "Go on."

"Magallentis is in the darklands presenting gifts to a group of Alghollthus"

- yeah, all right, that does sound like a complication." She stands to pace, unhappily. "- we shouldn't drop in right this minute, I don't think, unless Elie has Arazni's Time Stop and even then I'd want to ask Aroden first."

"Well part of what makes this complicates is that I can see it. Which means sloppiness or a calculated risk or a trick."

"If it's a trick he'll probably...do it all day? They can't count on you having checked at any particular moment."

"If it's sincere this might also take all day - and if it's a trick they might also have noticed the scrying sensor and stop in an hour."