It's hard to speak of and keep his mindvoice level. 

:About eighteen hundred years ago in Velgarth, there was a very skilled mage called Urtho. He made a number of inventions, created an entire species. Founded a flourishing academy, it must've been one of the most advanced places in the world at the time for the study of magic. He was brilliant and he kept a lot of secrets. And - in his later years, he taught a student called Ma'ar. Who held some pretty extreme views, for my world, that worried Urtho – he was against death as part of the natural order. He thought one ought to take the actions that had the best consequences in terms of the wellbeing of actual people now and in the future, whether or not they were virtuous or obeyed the usual moral standards. I'm extremely confident that Ma'ar is who Leareth was, originally, in his first life. At some point during his studies he must've figured out immortality: 

That - also seems promising, as to him not lying about his values.

:He did a lot of pretty bad things. Though, I mean, it's not like that's news to me either. Even back then it sounds like he was using blood-magic – with convicts, er, people who'd done really bad things and were in prison for it, a lot of countries in my world will kill people who've been found guilty of murder or rape or whatever, just because keeping them in prison forever costs too much resources. And he was fine with compulsions in some circumstances. He completely lacked the concept of having scruples:

:But...I think he was doing all of it in the name of more people living good lives. The kingdom he came from, and went back to after his schooling, had a lot of problems. He was advisor to the King there, making good progress on addressing them. But Urtho got alarmed about his ambition – he had some very firm beliefs about how strong mages shouldn't also have political power – and, er, surprise attacked his previous student. It must have caught Ma'ar completely off guard. He fought the war pretty ruthlessly, fought to win, but...he was sending Urtho letters trying to initiate peace talks. Right up until the end: 

- nod.

It is very, very hard to talk about this part without weeping, even after months to get used to it. :Urtho...had built some magical superweapons. A lot worse than the one that nearly killed me, that was a minor artifact for him. As far as I can tell, he did it as a pure research project, just to see if it'd work, but – he kept them around, hidden in the basement of his Tower. I assume Ma'ar didn't know. It's difficult to piece together exactly what happened in the last twelve hours of the war, but I think that when Ma'ar got close to capturing the Tower, Urtho evacuated his people by Gate, gave one of his weapons to a strike team, and then called a Final Strike on his own fortress and set off a bunch of safeguards. Melted the entire thing to slag. Then the weapon went off and – in combination, maybe also related to a Gate being open at the time, it nearly destroyed the world. Caused massive magical damage everywhere that's still being cleaned up thousands of years later. Ma'ar died, presumably, and then his immortality worked and he came back. I...don't know how much of it he remembers, honestly. He loses memories between bodies, and I don't think he could ever have gotten access to the records I did. It involved a god sort of helping me out, and the gods don't like him much: 

He stares down at the floor. :If they knew how close I already was to agreeing with him, I'm not sure they would have helped me either: 

What was Urtho more afraid of than - that -

:I don't know. I...think he didn't realize how bad it would be, he must've miscalculated something: 

I see. I'm so sorry.

:It...was his loss, not mine. I think he cared about Urtho. He burned a candle for him once on Sovvan – er, there's a rite in my world, burning a candle for someone who's died. I suppose you wouldn't have that kind of thing, if you don't have...death:

It's a painful thought and he veers away from it. 

:I can't imagine what it must've been like, to be him. Waking up in a new body after the war, everything he ever tried to build was gone, and he – kept going. I don't think I could have: 

Nod. 

:...I don't know what to do from here: Vanyel tries to wrestle his mind back from the sick horror toward something actually useful. :I need to get my magic working again. Then... Well, there are more superweapons in Urtho's Tower. I could Gate back in, if Gates work between the worlds. Maybe one of the weapons can kill a god. What resources do you have on your end?: 

We have healing magic, which we should at least try on your injuries. Once you can Gate to Valinor we have some friendly if sort of ineffectual gods who might be able to help. We have two hundred thousand soldiers who have mostly been keeping the continent clear of orcs but who can do more complicated operations than that, if needed. Leareth was able to tap our magic artifacts for power, and the Maia who is on our side. We have the Silmarils, which can be used for very powerful magic but - not on a very helpful timescale.

Vanyel nods. 

:Then I think the next step is to try the Healing magic you have available here. See if that can get me to the point that I can Gate. I, er, had a different problem with Gating before, but we figured out what was causing it – it was a sort of trauma reaction thing, not actually a physical issue – and it was at least less bad, I think I could've cured it all the way with more practice and I probably still can: 

All right. Hopefully soon we'll have some people here with more experience than me but in the meantime the healing we have is just a set of songs, I can sing them.

Vanyel actually smiles. :Songs? Really? That's - wow. I wonder if they'd still work if I learned them... Er, that's not the top priority though, probably you should just try it for a bit: 

I would certainly expect them to!

And he sings. 

He is distinctly average for a Quendi but even the most tone-deaf of Quendi could command quite an audience in Velgarth.

It feels sort of awful to be enjoying the music so much when Leareth is the prisoner of an evil god, but - it's not like deliberately trying not to enjoy it will do anyone any good. 

Vanyel cuddles up against Yfandes and tries to notice whether his mage-gift feels any better. He does think he's starting to feel better in general, the lingering backlash from being surprise-dropped through two Gates clearing faster than it ought, even the soreness in his rear end fading. Hard to tell if his Gifts are going to work any better. Maybe that part takes a while. 

Leareth wakes up in what looks like a hospital, with orcs bustling around attending to patients in different, curtained rooms. He is handcuffed to his bed, but someone has slipped a cloth under the handcuff so it doesn't scrape his hand. 

...What. 

–Memory comes back to him, the inter-world Gate, the attack, getting the others out, his own Gate failing, the moment of everything turning to ice before there was oblivion. This is not a good situation at all. 

Leareth stays calm. It's not as though panicking would help. He remembers the Gate failing but only after the heavy-magic-air happened, and he can't feel that now. Without moving or opening his eyes, he tries to open a Gate underneath him - flicker of confusion, he's not expecting it to work–

It indeed does not work.

Leareth doesn't open his eyes but he stretches out his Othersenses, sensing for magic, attempting to read the minds of anyone nearby. 

No magic. This person is thinking that this other person's injuries are healing all right and that this other other person should probably make it and that she should find the time to check on Leareth too at some point and it's twice as much work to keep a patient restrained but do they get paid twice as much, no, they do not, and do they get twice as many people on staff, no, they do not. 

...That's kind of weird and confusing. 

Maybe it's only magic that Melkor is seen that's blocked - for some reason that thought feels off-centre, there's a diffuse wrongness Leareth can't quite name, but he goes through a dozen or so obscure and not very spells anyway, seeing if any of them work. 

Nope. 

The person comes closer and sighs to herself and cuffs his other hand and undoes the first cuff so she can turn him over. She is thinking about how he doesn't really look like a notorious mass murderer.

...All right, if he keeps pretending he's still unconscious then he's not going to learn anything.

"Where am I?" he tries asking in Quenya.