...I, um, I feel fairly certain he hasn't, says Taliar, blinking up at the entirely non-incinerated Maitimo in whose lap he is presently sitting.

...but someone has, presumably. We should go -

Yeah. He tells his mother, Something's very screwy here - I don't need to resurrect my husband, he's right here. Send Nezhefena, we need to be closer to this.

...congratulations, says Aeleva.

And aloud, "Please bring me to my husband and then bring us our son."

"Of course."

Shadows enfold them - Aeleva is with Corino, standing on an ice sheet in the middle of the open ocean - she doesn't even unwrap herself from the shadows, just vanishes right back into them to emerge in Arda in front of Taliar and Maitimo.

"I'm to bring you to your parents," she says to Taliar. "Emergency."

"I've heard. Both of us, please."

Shadows. Ice.

"Esarkan's been suborned somehow and he spent all morning summoning soulbearers into the imperial palace to be kidnapped," says Corino.

"They can control your body like it's someone else's," says Aeleva. "If there are any left after they tried to do it to me."

...Taliar reaches out his senses across the planet. He demands detail. What is wrong with Esarkan?

Well you see he's got this slug in his brain.

Now he doesn't.

Now no one in Nuime does.

He lets out a little delighted laugh and then says - "and the world they came from, or do we need to talk to Esarkan first -"

"Esarkan first, I think. Nezhefena, it should be safe to take us to the palace now. I eliminated the problem from this world at least."

Shadows.

Now they are all standing in Esarkan's office. Lucky for them that it's a pretty spacious one.

"I told them they should have surrendered," says Esarkan, smiling faintly. "Good to see you, troublemaker."

"Do you have anything to add to my picture of the situation, which is 'mysterious brain slugs were using you to kidnap soulbearers to another world to be given brain slugs of their very own'?"

He shakes his head.

"My love, do you want to come with me and Nezhefena to the world with the other you who was mysteriously in league with the brain slugs?"

"Or, more plausibly, brain-slugged himself" he says, "but yes, let's."

Taliar realizes that he was assuming the other Maitimo couldn't possibly have been brain-slugged because it seemed too awful to think about. He takes a moment to straighten himself out on that, then nods to Nezhefena.

Here they are, near Aeleva's crater while still being far enough away that the heat is merely uncomfortable.

Taliar supposes that if he were being maximally merciful he would make some attempt to communicate with the brain slugs before he kills them all -

- but he means to have general resurrection someday and their tactics do not advertise an ability to negotiate in good faith.

He reaches out his senses. He burns slugs.

That gets all of them except the daeva baby slugs, who are resistant to burning.

Well, none of those are in anyone's brain, so they can wait.

"Time to resurrect the other you?" he asks, looking up at Maitimo.