Bastion

by Mercedes Lackey

  :I’m pleased to see you properly value my courage.: There was a chuckle under Dallen’s mind-voice. :Not to mention my astonishing good looks and sparkling personality.:

  Mags found himself grinning and felt his spirits lightening some. :You’re almost as handsome as Raynard’s mule. And a hundred times better as company.:

  He got a snort for an answer.

  The road had entered the Harvest Fair, and it appeared that on the right was the quarter devoted to food and entertainment, and on the left was that devoted to livestock. Clashing bits of music competed with one another, showmen shouted out their attractions, and the aromas of a hundred different things to eat on the one side conflicted with the bawling of cattle, the whinnies of horses, the noise of flocks of chickens, geese, and ducks, the shouts of auctioneers, and the smells of animal sweat and dung on the other. Nearest to the road were the cattle pens, and it made Mags a little dizzy to think how much hay was going to feed the herds—and how much cleaning up it was taking to keep the pens healthy. Although, someone was surely profiting by that; healthy cow dung was valuable stuff, especially for those who had no cattle of their own and fields that would need a good manuring before winter set in.

  It might seem a mistake to put the two quarters cheek by jowl, but men who had just concluded a bargain always wanted to drink over it, and the animal market had to go somewhere. At least the road divided them—and the rules of the Fair were quite strict about sanitation. Every pen had two boys whose only job was to make sure that the pens were clean enough you wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to walk across them without watching where you were stepping.

  It did make for a very noisy passage, however, and a crowded one, as drovers competed with travelers for road space. It was almost enough to give him a headache at this point, and it made him weary all over again to be battered by so much noise and crowding. Much as he had always enjoyed a Fair, Mags was glad to get out of this one and onto the quieter city streets.

  Unusually quiet, which was all due to the presence of the Fair. Even merchants who could be found at their shops from dawn to dusk had closed up and opened little booths if their stock-in-trade lent itself to impulse purchases. And often enough, even if the merchant didn’t close his regular shop, he’d send a ’prentice or two down to the Fair with a booth and some stock.

  Mags breathed a sigh of relief as they found themselves on streets that held very little traffic. They were actually able to spread out a little, and the Companions, eager to be back in their comfortable stable and no longer kept to a slow walk by the press of the crowds, picked up their pace.

  Mags knew Haven intimately at this point; probably no one knew these streets better than he did except the City Constables who patrolled them. But the familiarity was not giving him a great deal of comfort, and the closer he got to the Collegium, the less easy he felt.

  And the more torn.

  Because being home didn’t really mean being safe. Not now that he knew what he was up against.

  On the one hand, he was almost desperately glad to be back with Amily, with his friends. But on the other hand—he’d been kidnapped practically right under their noses. All right, he had been taken from within Haven, not the inside the Palace walls, but . . . the assassins had penetrated the Palace grounds before. They could again. Now Mags truly knew what he was up against in their skills, and he was not going to underestimate them.

  Was he just bringing danger back with him?

  :At least you know after that dust-up with the Karsites, the assassins are not going to be tendering their services there anymore,: Dallen said, in an effort to comfort him. It was a good effort . . . and what Dallen had said was true. The Karsite priests who had hired the men who had taken him had no idea just what it was they had contracted with. When their goals turned mutually exclusive, well, it was not the Karsites who had triumphed, at least not as far as Mags had been able to tell.

  :I don’ think they were lyin’ when they burned up the contract,: he replied, as the street took another turn upward, and the neighborhood became more genteel, with fewer shops and larger homes. That had been why he’d allowed himself to be infected with those dreadful memories. It had been a bit of a devil’s bargain, but the only one he could see his way clear to making at the time.

  I won’t fight you if you pledge to leave Valdemar in peace and never attack the Royal Family and the Heralds again.

  At the time, there was no prospect of rescue. The contract with the Karsites was still to be fulfilled, and he had known that his kidnappers would fulfill it unless he gave them a reason not to.

  At the time, all he could think of was that his duty as a Herald was to sacrifice himself to protect the Kingdom. So he had made his offer, hoping that not fighting was enough of an incentive to them that they would agree to it.

  They had. He still was not entirely certain why, except that maybe their faith in their talisman wasn’t all that strong. The fact that he hadn’t resisted, and had still managed to remain himself, might very well be the proof that their form of coercive Mind-magic couldn’t hold against someone who had training in the Heralds’ form.

  :An’ I kept the letter of the bargain.: He had only pledged not to fight. He’d never pledged not to escape if he got the chance.

  Plus . . . well . . . the Karsites had managed to thoroughly and completely muck things up for themselves by first aggressively confronting, then actually attacking the kidnappers. Mags had the notion that even if he’d escaped, his captors would be in no hurry to make another bargain with anyone as duplicitous as the Karsites.

  So at least there was that much. He might still be in danger, but at least the Kingdom and its leaders were no longer in jeopardy from that source.

  :I don’t think they could lie about that,: Dallen opined. :I don’t think it would ever occur to them to outright lie. The thing I picked out of those memories is that they are absolutely bound by their contracts and pledges unless the person they’ve contracted with violates the agreement first. Which the Karsites did. Who knows? Maybe they’d already seen that the Karsites were not to be trusted and counted on the priests violating the agreement before it became an issue. I suppose that is only logical. Who would trust a clan of assassins to keep their bargains and not get bought out if they didn’t have a stellar reputation? If you can call a reputation for that sort of thing “stellar.”:

  Mags considered that. :Yes, but . . . they made me that promise before the Karsite priests attacked them.:

  Dallen was silent. :That’s true . . . but I still don’t think they are going to renege on what they promised you. Valdemar turned out to be a lot nastier to deal with than any of them expected. And we know now that they want you, specifically. Taking contracts from the Karsites was just a means to finance their deeper scheme, and they’ve discovered that the Karsites will break their word without a second thought.:

  Mags was not so sure about that . . . but then again, it was Dallen who had been sifting through his memories. Right now, the only things he could remember clearly were ones that would actually be useful to him. Then there were things that were muddy—like the attitudes these people had. And Dallen had just said there were things he had shoved away so hard he couldn’t consciously remember them at all.

  Dallen might be in a better position to judge than he was.

  He certainly hoped so.

  By this time, they were out of the district of merely prosperous houses and into the one of extremely wealthy mansions—passing right by Master Soren’s home, in fact. The place was shuttered up, and no surprise, really, with the Harvest Fair going on. Master Soren must be up to his eyebrows in business right now; he was involved in every aspect of the cloth trade since he was on the King’s Council, and he would deem it his duty to personally oversee trade at this Harvest Fair. He certainly couldn’t wait around his own doorstep on the off chance that Mags would be coming by. And Mags was quite certain that as soon as his business allowed, Soren would personally come to se
e that his young friend was all right.

  Still, he felt a faint disappointment, which he quickly scolded himself out of.

  It ain’t as if you’re all that important, either, my lad! he reminded himself. And since all the Companions and their Chosen up on the Hill had certainly known to the quarter-candlemark when he would be arriving back at the Collegium, he knew he could be certain of a warm welcome from his friends.

  :You very nearly got a warm welcome on the road,: Dallen put in, as they passed from the homes of those who were merely wealthy to those who were wealthy and highborn. :It was only being reminded that those who skipped classes would get demerits that prevented a general stampede through the Harvest Fair.:

  Mags smothered a laugh. :That could have been awkward.:

  :A bit more than awkward. Having us galloping through the Fair would be likely to set all the animals in an absolute uproar, and not all the Animal Mindspeakers on the Hill would have been able to keep them quiet.: Dallen shook his head vigorously. :No, you’ll just have to put up with an avalanche at the—oh, look, here it comes now.:

  “Here it came” indeed. Ahead of them, the main gates to the walls around the Palace and Collegia sprang open, and a flood of Companions—some with Gray-clad Trainees, a few with Heralds in full Whites, and many carrying double with people in Healer Trainee Green, Bard Trainee Rust, and Guard Blue—came pouring out. There were even a few ordinary horses amid the crush, which poured down the road and surrounded the five riders in a shouting, laughing mob.

  And then the shouting, laughing mob, having engulfed their prey, turned around and carried the five back up through the gates in a relentless tide of exuberance.

  • • •

  It took all afternoon before people stopped mobbing Mags, pounding his back, and welcoming him home in the heartiest possible manner. He was actually starting to feel a bit bruised by the time he sat down to supper with his closest friends.

  Not that the dining hall wasn’t full to bursting with everyone who could cram in there, but at least he was finally able to not have to answer a hundred questions at once. In fact, he didn’t have to answer any questions at all; his friends kept his plate and cup full, didn’t ask him anything, and let him have some peace. It was good to be surrounded by his friends. Next to him was the Healer Trainee, Bear, with his round, affable face and his air of peace. On the other side of Bear was Bear’s wife (though it was hard to think of her as his wife, even now), the Bardic Trainee Lena, tiny, dark-haired, and with the most melting brown eyes he’d ever seen that didn’t belong to a baby rabbit. They were literally his oldest friends at the Collegium.

  And on his other side was Amily. Amily, who, to him, was the most lovely girl there. Amily, whose intelligence and bravery shone from her eyes, whose beauty was so quiet that most people overlooked it. Not as dark or as small as Lena, they might have been sisters, otherwise. But where Lena was finally acquiring the ability to catch and hold peoples’ attention, as a Bard must, most people’s eyes slid right over Amily. Which suited her just fine.

  Between Amily and Bear, he felt bulwarked on either side by peace.

  So he ate, and when he wasn’t eating, he held Amily’s hand. And sometimes when he was eating, he held Amily’s hand. Princess Lydia, unmistakable with her mane of red curls and her brilliant green eyes, even managed to sneak out of the Palace in a purloined set of Grays to join them at the table, although, of course, absolutely no one was fooled by her “disguise.” She couldn’t stay long, of course; only the fact that the Court ate later than the Collegia allowed her to slip briefly away. But she got a chance to give him a welcoming hug, whisper that she was glad he was safe, and add a demand that he allow Lena to make at least one song about his misadventure.

  “But not immediately,” she added hastily, perhaps stricken with conscience at the hint of panic in his eyes.

  Once she was gone, he was hit with a moment of something that was a little like despair at the idea that he was going to be answering questions from people over and over—for how long? Weeks? Moons? Probably not years; sooner or later something more sensational would happen, and people would lose interest.

  He hoped.

  But even as he thought that, he realized that something odd was happening. All over the dining hall, the Herald Trainees were getting that look on their faces he associated with your Companion is having a word with you. And as they came out of their little trances, they were grabbing friends from Healers’ and Bardic, or the odd Blues, and whispering urgently in their ears. The expressions on most of the faces were a mixed bag of disappointment, understanding, and a bit of stricken conscience.

  As this phenomenon spread through the dining hall, people began gathering up plates, making farewells, and leaving, until there was no one left but Mags’ closest circle of friends.

  “Don’t tell me,” he guessed aloud. “Dallen had a bit of a say, and the other Companions told people to give me some peace?”

  The dark blonde girl across from him, who wore her hair tied up in a tail on the top of her head, laughed. “I told you he’d figure it out,” Gennie said, and shoved over a plate of honey cakes. “Just one more thing—Dallen promised he’d give all the Companions the best bits, and they could tell us, and he’d leave nothing out, so you won’t have to go over it until you’re sick of it.”

  That was a relief, because he was already sick of it. He’d been questioned and cross-questioned to death on an official basis once everyone was sure that the Karsites weren’t coming over the Border. Everything he could remember, things that Dallen had pulled out of his mind . . . “I just wish I could fergit it all m’self, at least for a little,” he said plaintively, lapsing somewhat into the crude accents of the mine.

  “Plagued by nightmares?” Bear asked, pushing his lenses back up on his nose from where they had slid down, as they always did.

  “No, and I dunno why not. Ye’d think I would be.” He shook his head. “Mebbe it’s still all too fresh.”

  “Well, I’ve got some good potions if you need them,” his friend assured him, patting his hand a little, his brown eyes peering at him anxiously from beneath an unruly shock of dark curls.

  “That’ll do, granny,” teased Jeffers, one of the few at the table who was not in a uniform. He combed his nearly black hair back out of his eyes and grinned. There was a healing bruise on one cheek, which was hardly surprising. He was a member of Mags’ Kirball team, of which Gennie was the captain. And Mags was stricken with a sudden sense of loss—because certainly the season was well underway, and certainly they had chosen someone to replace him. He would never want to spoil someone else’s pleasure by taking back the position—but Kirball might have been one of the few things he could do that would take his mind off everything that had happened to him.

  So amid everything else, his kidnappers had stolen his chiefest pleasure from him.

  He didn’t say anything, though he felt Dallen trying to comfort him. It would be better not to mention it at all, or wait for someone else to say something and then be gracious about it.

  But it hurt, and hurt with an unexpectedly deep pain, to know that for the first time since the game had been introduced—he wouldn’t be playing it. At least, not officially, and not on one of the four Collegium teams.

  While he wrestled with his emotions, the conversation had gone on. No one said anything about the game, although people were doing their best to catch him up on other things that had happened since his kidnapping. This, at least, was soothing. It was all commonplace, comforting stuff. Who was seeing whom, who had gotten Whites and gone out on their first Circuits in the Field with their new mentors. Which Companions had foaled. How Sedric was faring as Prince (“No one worries about Lydia. Lydia is perfect, of course, everyone says so”). Who had gotten full Scarlets and Greens, and had gone—Mags really didn’t know any of the people who had, although, thanks to Nikolas’s training, he could actually put faces and a bit of a personality to every name mentioned. Court gos
sip that had percolated down to the Collegia. The fact that it was all so very commonplace—and was stuff that wasn’t even remotely important or earth-shaking—was reassuring. It told him he hadn’t been gone all that long, because no one mentioned was a stranger except for a handful of new Trainees.

  He suddenly realized he was starting to nod over his drink and blinked at Bear suspiciously. “You didn’t go dosin’ me, did ye?” he asked.

  “Not I!” Bear protested. “But when you’re finally home from a stressful time, it’s common to—” Whatever he was going to say was quelled by Lena reaching around and clapping her hand over his mouth.

  “He’s not your patient at the moment, and he probably doesn’t need to be,” Lena chided him, getting away with the indignity as only a new spouse can. She let Bear go before he could start to squirm and leaned around her spouse to talk directly to Mags. “If I were you, I would be absolutely knackered and looking for my bed. Don’t worry. They’ve made sure your room is ready.”

  “And I’m ready for it,” he admitted, yawning. “Sorry I’m not a bit entertainin’,” he apologized.

  “Why, you mean you didn’t get abducted and dragged across country purely to make us a story for us to chew over endlessly?” asked Pip, tossing his shock of tow-colored hair indignantly. “The nerve!”

  That was enough to get a laugh out of him, and the entire crew surrounded him to walk him down to the Companions’ Stables, where his room still was. They left him at the door so he could get back inside the four walls he knew best, sighing a little as he felt tension slip out of him. It was all the same. No one had moved anything, not even when they cleaned it and put fresh linens on the bed.

  He was home at last. And it felt, oh, so very, very good to be here.

  2

  By sheerest coincidence, the timing on Mags’ return could not have been better, although he didn’t know it until he got to the dining hall the next morning after a night of completely exhausted sleep.