He nods again.  Reasonable.  It would be odd, to go to all this effort for another life and then give it away, but he wanted to hear it and be sure.

At the next words, he shakes his head, and there's warmth in his inner voice.  Do let me trade my own life away, will you?  I won't tell you it's not monstrous, that you do this to people, but-- don't hate yourself on my account, when I'm glad you were there.

He wishes, pointlessly, that he could see him.  It's odd to be talking like this to someone without a face.

It hardly matters what he looks like, really, it's not - something he considers important about himself, when it's changed so many times. He's not...actually sure he remembers, either. 

He has a name, though, and it's - it goes against the grain to share it for no reason, but maybe it isn't no reason, and it doesn't risk much. You can call me Leareth. A word from a dead language. The cognate means something different now, but a long time ago, in a place far from here, it meant the night sky, full of stars. 

Leareth.  He takes a moment to form the image in his mind, the night sky full of stars. 

We should sleep, and I will go with you tomorrow.

They should sleep. 

The Foresight dream doesn't come, presumably because they were up all night and are now sleeping offset from Herald-Mage Vanyel. Good. Leareth isn't sure if Karal would be...dragged along...and he hasn't explained that. 

Leareth has ordinary dreams, tangled and strange, mostly not in images but surprisingly vivid despite it. (He's shielding both of them from external observation - and against accidental Empathy projection - but not, within that, particularly shielded from Karal while asleep.) There's a surprising amount of math, which probably wouldn't be comprehensible even to awake Karal. 

Occasionally there are visual fragments. Urtho's Tower going up in a fiery blaze, several times, even though that's an imaginary constructed memory that he was never there for in reality.

Vanyel's face, once, standing in the pass in his Whites, silver eyes and thickly silver-streaked hair, but the image is only coherent for a moment before it dissolves back into raw concepts without visual elements. 

Karal dreams of the battle, over and over.  Of having no magic, trying to help, and dying there.  Of having magic and trying to make it do something more useful, and still failing.  (Sometimes flashes of Leareth's math blend into it, and that really doesn't help.)  Of being alone afterward, or being captured, or being burned alive.

But it's the brief image of the man in white that makes him wake in a near-panic.  He doesn't know him, but he knows what they are.

He's too used to a soldier's life to shout or thrash when he wakes up - just tries to calm his breathing and reminds himself of where he is.  The daylight helps.

Leareth is momentarily incredibly disoriented, and remembers to extend mage-sight and check the wards well before he can retrieve recent memories to make sense of, for example, where he is. 

...He's not alone, right. Sorry, he thinks at Karal, since he's not sure whether it was his own dreams that woke both of them. 

Does his - their - body feel rested enough to be getting on with? 

The quickly hidden burst of disorientation is too similar to Karal's own reaction to register as separate, and a moment later he's still thinking about where he is rather than how he got here, so he startles when Leareth stops hiding and says something.  Then he remembers his existence (a little flash of warmth as he recalls the dream of being alone, and the waking world where he wasn't), and finally their last conversation (sadness, acceptance despite confusion, the expectation of more understanding later).

My fault.  Not even a surprising nightmare, given the context, so he has no idea that it was neither his nor really a nightmare.

He sits up, moves a little, drinks some water.  Their body isn't fully rested, but no longer exhausted either.  More sleep, or should we talk to people while it's still daytime and try to sleep at night?  He'd go with the latter, but he doesn't know how mage-reserves work, or whether their travel plans would make sleeping during the day a better idea for some reason.

Leareth considers, checking their reserves. Not fully recovered, but surprisingly adequate; Karal's body is clearly in good health, with excellent physical stamina. Yesterday's backlash is almost fully resolved. A thousand-mile Gate on reserves alone - or a fight followed by a Gate - would be pushing it, but if it comes to that, it would be safe to tap a ley-line or node now, and there are some within reach.

Talking to people now is fine, he thinks. It seems like it would take a while to relax enough to go back to sleep now. (Planning to sleep at night does risk overlapping with Vanyel, and having the Foresight dream - this would certainly count as new information - but that won't be for many candlemarks. And if they can finish Karal's business here, then he can get out of Vkandis' territory sooner.) 

All right.  He considers asking more questions, first - it's not as if he doesn't have them - but maybe it's better to wait until they're away from here, both because of Leareth's safety concerns and just to make it easier to avoid telling anyone something he shouldn't.

He goes downstairs to get something to eat again, washes, borrows a change of clothes from someone, tries to make things feel something like normal.  Chats with the people he sees, but if anyone wants to know how he made it here, he dismisses it with "I got so little sleep I barely remember" or "Don't make me think about it" and a wry expression.

Until his lord asks to see him, in his private study, alone.  "Now tell me the things you haven't. He was newly dead. I don't know how many people noticed," he's a sharp enough man to realize it might be better if they didn't, "but you did not spend a week traveling here from the front, and I have no idea how you would have managed that in any case. What's happening?"

"I... You're right, my lord," he bows his head, "there are things I'm not telling you. Confusing and frightening things have happened to me, and it'll do nobody any good to know. I have to leave anyway, and I doubt I'll come back."  That's enough to imply that whatever it is is dangerous, to him or to others - his lord knows he wouldn't leave if he had another choice.  "But everything I did say was true."

Balthin nods, slowly, thinking it through and deciding not to ask any more.  "Are you... going to be all right?"

Karal's face softens at the question. "I think so."  He is all right, and whatever happens next is so much less important than that.  But it doesn't seem like a miserable fate, either.

"Very well, then. I won't ask. Take what supplies you need."

Karal kneels.  "Then I would ask you to release me from your service, my lord."  He thought he was all right, and suddenly there are tears in his eyes.  "Though I will miss you all my life."

Balthin takes his hands in the formal gesture, holds them a moment, lets go.  "I release you. Go in honor, and with my blessing."

That was the one thing he needed most.  He'd like to stay a while longer, but it's not as necessary, and it doesn't take him too long to stop thinking about that last conversation and turn his mind to the future.  He'll have time to think about the past later, when they're somewhere that doesn't leave Leareth worrying about danger. 

What now?  What do we need, and how do you want to leave?  It seems better if people don't see - I can stay the evening, ask for a room for the night, and have nobody know when I disappeared.

That went better than I expected. Leareth is...he's not sure if 'impressed' is exactly the word for it, but he can recognize that Karal had something precious here, something Leareth wouldn't have thought was possible under most circumstances and certainly would never have thought to aim for. 

He considers for a moment. I would rather not sleep here tonight, but I am not otherwise in a hurry. ...If there are maps here, particularly ones that include Valdemar and Hardorn, that would help for planning where to Gate to. 

The thing about Karal is that he doesn't know how to aim for anything else, has never tried imagining a life without it.  But he knows he was lucky to have this much of it.

I think I can find some.  And we can leave in the evening.  They're not in that much of a hurry, so he spends some time talking with people - he doesn't say goodbye to anyone else, doesn't mention he's leaving or say anything about his plans or his problems.  But he asks how people have been doing, helps with their work, congratulates them on all the weddings and the new babies, sympathizes with their sorrows and the deaths in their families.  Tells some children war stories, when they corner him to ask, then manages to deflect them into showing off their newest skills so he can make impressed noises and give advice on how to better string a bow.  Asks the chatelaine for a room he might have, "at least for a while", finds another change of clothes and some basic travel supplies small enough not to be noticed.  Goes up to the library to look at maps.  Watches the sunset over the mountains.  Dines with everyone in the main hall, sits a while by the fire, listens to the songs.

He could do all these things for days or weeks or months - but it wouldn't change very much, and Leareth is right that they're not entirely safe, and neither is anyone with them.  So he asks,  after going up to the room in the evening, Now?

Now, Leareth agrees. He is more than ready to get out of Karse.

He's decided against Gating directly north. He doesn't actually have a location, just a vague recollection that it's north of Valdemar and of...something...mountains maybe? Maybe unsurprisingly, none of the maps available in the castle records include the unclaimed wilderness north of Valdemar. It would be very awkward if he hit Iftel by mistake. 

He was able to consult some quite detailed and well-labeled maps of Hardorn, though, and in the process identify a couple of promising locations for where he thinks his past self might plausible have planted a records cache. (Leareth copied out the relevant map bits as an aide-memoire rather than steal the good maps belonging to the castle.)

He'll try for the abandoned mine first. It'll mean a candlemark or two of searching the nearby forest, but the Gate-distance is barely a hundred miles, they won't be very tired, and it's already dark but it shouldn't be desperately cold. Depending on how long it takes, he might decide just to sleep at the records cache, but he would rather be all the way in the security of the north. He just needs his past self's clearer written instructions for where exactly to go and how to alert his people to find him. 

Leareth lays the departure Gate-threshold on the (closed) doorway of Karal's borrowed room – aiming mostly on the distance and bearing he calculated based on the map, but supplementing with his intuitive sense that the terrain should be so, a river flowing southwest, jinking around a bend at this angle... It's clearly a much more challenging version than the earlier Gate, where Leareth had a clear and detailed visual memory to go off, albeit a borrowed one. Leareth is concentrating very hard, and takes his time waiting for the spooled-out search spell to land as precisely as he can manage, before he sets it down by "feel" just there and starts building the destination threshold from scratch.

(It may be the first time Karal has had any inkling that unscaffolded Gates are possible.) 

The initial setup feels slightly more draining than the last time, but the distance isn't any greater and they're starting out better fed and rested; it feels tiring, but somewhat less like rapid blood loss, as Leareth steps across. 

Karal pays close attention to the still-fascinating magic, and does notice something is different about it, but he definitely isn't going to interrupt Leareth's focus with questions.  Or argue about who's doing the walking, although it's a very odd and uncomfortable feeling, to not be in control of the body at all.  But Leareth's been putting up with it this whole time, and Karal will obviously have to get used to sharing.

He doesn't figure out what was different about the spell until they step through the Gate and when they look back there's nothing there at all.  You are extremely good at this, aren't you.

There are places in the world where that technique is taught routinely - at a very advanced level of instruction - but yes. ...And Leareth is probably significantly responsible for that curriculum, though he's wildly guessing about anything related to the Eastern Empire right now because his memories are a mess. And there might be other Gate-techniques that only he knows. He's - been doing this for a long time. 

Searching the forest doesn't have to involve tromping around in the dark; Leareth will stop controlling Karal's limbs, and then start casting an area-wide detection spell. You can sit down if you want, he thinks to Karal. I need to focus for the next couple of minutes, but after that it is fairly repetitive and you do not need to worry about distracting me. 

Places in the world, huh.  I've barely even been outside Karse.  He is increasingly getting the impression that his life is going to involve a lot of things he never even thought about before.

He sits down leaning against one of the bigger trees.

What are we doing?  What happens next?  Assuming you can safely tell me these things now.

Can he safely tell Karal these things now? ...Leareth doesn't have a particular argument for why not, at least. (He's not going to get into the details of his plan until it matters less if Karal is being distractingly upset in his head – Karal being upset about it wouldn't even be a reason to update that they can't work together, Leareth suspects that he was distractingly upset about it and unable to make progress for - some period of time, at least.) 

He sends a wordless thought to wait while he finishes building the scaffolding for his spell. Once that part is done, it doesn't take much more concentration than, say, glancing through the contents of one drawer or cabinet after another. 

I am searching for a magical signature on a hidden cache of supplies and records that I think may be nearby. ...I lose a significant chunk of my explicit memories when I - come back, like this - so I am not exactly sure, but I have a process for putting them in locations that would be predictable to my future self, that I would choose again a second time. Once I find it - if I am wrong about the location, I have a second idea to try - then I will reequip myself with protective artifacts, and there should be a map that will direct me to my current project facilities. Which are in the very far north, north of Valdemar, but the climate is...less comfortable, there, and I would rather not wander around blindly until someone from my organization finds me. Though I believe they will be looking. ...Hopefully they will be able to fill in how I died, I still have no idea. 

He definitely wasn't asking about anything like the large-scale plan, just about why they were in this particular empty forest and when they could expect to be somewhere else.  He nods.

All of that sounds tricky.  Tell me if I can do anything to help, but I imagine I can't.  In the meantime, is this a reasonable time to ask you some questions, or should I let you be until you've found your things?  I'd like to have a better idea of... how we mean to deal with there being two of us... before there are more people to interact with.

 Now is a fine time to ask questions. No structured magic is showing up in this segment of forest. Leareth metaphorically closes that drawer and hops to the next to peruse it. It's really very repetitive, almost soothing. 

I may not have all the answers, he admits. I am - very disoriented - I think moreso than usual when I die and return. I am reluctant to make major decisions or long-term commitments until I am back among my people and can check my judgement. But - it seems good to ask. 

I'm not asking for major decisions, he nods, just trying to figure out what makes sense for now.  Sends sympathy about the disorientation.  It sounds hard, but it's not as if he can help, and not talking probably won't help either.

I'm... your prisoner, is the closest thing I can think of.  He means it as a fact, not a complaint or accusation.  One you can't reasonably release, and don't want to kill, and so are being kind to when you easily can.  Does that sound about right?

...More or less. Leareth doesn't have a better frame. I would rather not kill you, and - I know you feel that you owe me, for bringing you home with Kadrich's body, but it made things easier for me as well, to have a safe - safer than the battlefield - place to rest. Most people would have - made things harder. You did not have to be helpful, and you were, and I - 

- I think I have, sometimes, shared a body rather than killing its original inhabitant. I am not going to assume you want anything to do with - what I am doing with my life - but I am not ready to assume you would rather be dead, either. I think that ought to be your choice, whether you want to hear my explanation and what you want to do with it. I worry that this - that everything happening the way it did - was steered by Vkandis, in which case I am afraid of where it leads, but - I am not going to be the first one to decide that cooperation is impossible. Even if I am afraid. 

...I would rather not explain what I am trying to do with my life now. I do not actually remember most of the details and I am very tired. 

This might be more words than he's heard from Leareth at once, and certainly the most emotion he's been allowed to see.  It pulls at his own heart - the uncertainty and the clear attempt to do the right thing in the sort of complicated situation where there might not be much right to be had.  He closes his eyes and projects warmth and reassurance, It'll be all right.  You don't need to explain, and of course I can't tell what we'll decide in the end, but - I appreciate how you're going about all this, and it'll be all right either way.  Please don't worry about me so much.  He realizes that's more than a little ridiculous, but Leareth is trying to be so careful to let him have all the choices he can that it hurts to watch.  He truly wouldn't even mind dying all that much.

I know what my last few days have been like, and it sounds like yours were worse - I can't imagine what it's like, to die and come back like this, without remembering most of what you need, but still knowing what you should be afraid of.  I... I suppose I can't really be sure that I'm glad I could help, since I don't know your plans, but... I am anyway.  And... of course I'll miss my life and everyone I've known, but I don't think I could have kept it anyway, and given that I couldn't, I don't mind this being what happens next.  I've liked your company so far.  You seem like a good man, for all the strange things you're doing, and I don't think you have any reason to be pretending for my sake.

...Leareth isn't sure what to do with that. (He starts out instinctively keeping his reaction pulled back where Karal can't see it, but - deliberately makes himself let go of that, after a moment, and shows, not all of his thoughts, but at least as much of his affect as Karal would be able to see if they were speaking face to face.) He appreciates it, and - feels like like it's evidence that it wasn't unreasonable to decide to share with Karal for the interim term, even if it may not end up being the right choice once he has more context to assess that - but he feels almost more off-balance. 

I generally prefer not to pretend. I think it - trains bad habits. But killing people thoughtlessly is also a bad habit. He may not remember all of the details, but he knows that he's been - trying to do a difficult and dangerous thing, not just dangerous on a concrete level but - the kind of path that can change people, even starting with the best of intentions. And he's been doing it for a lot longer than one human lifetime. There's a remarkable amount of hubris in that, really, to think that against all the odds, he is the one who can remember who he wanted to be and what mattered to him rather than losing track of it. 

But it's why he wants to - try to be kind, whenever he can afford it. Even if it makes it hurt more, later, if he decides he can't afford it anymore. 

Karal appreciates getting to see more of Leareth's reactions.  He doesn't at all mind feeling him in his head, and finds it disconcerting when he pretends he's not there.

He shakes his head a little, smiling.  Then you'll have to kill me thoughfully, if you need to.  I just - wouldn't want it to hurt.  You seem like you do enough hurting already.

...Probably less so when I am more established than this. Leareth methodically moves to checking the next spell-marked block of random forest.

He won't bother trying to disguise that the current situation is...difficult, and one where he's going to be unhappy in multiple ways. He doesn't like being disoriented, or the fact that he doesn't know for sure if his sense of self is intact until he's had a chance to read over all of his old records and make sure they feel like they were written by the same person. ...Oh, and it probably doesn't help that right now he's half borrowing Karal's experience-of-emotions, and Karal - feels more things than he normally would on his own, he thinks. This isn't, to be clear, entirely or even mostly because he's sharing with Karal's mind; a surprising amount of the experience of having an emotion is physical, and comes with a body, at least until he retrains that. 

All of that will take a while to stabilize, of course. Though he'll probably be a lot happier just to be behind real shields, somewhere that he and people who report to him are in control of. He feels very...squishable...right now, and it's not good for his mood.