The reality was that he was stuck here, and High King Aleksander did not say anything concrete about whether or not he could help Handy in this regard, only that he had sources. Certainly Joachim was not able to, and petty king or not, his resources were not inconsiderable, but Gethrenia had no tradition of magecraft in any serious degree beyond alchemy, and what it did have couldn’t help Handy with his problem.