Redoubt: Book Four of the Collegium Chronicles (A Valdemar Novel)

by Mercedes Lackey

  “We have brought the herbs of remembrance with us,” Levor continued. “I prepare them now. We shall give them to you, and you will remember. Then we shall prepare you and endow you with the talisman of the Shadao. Its spirit will infuse you, and you will embrace your people and your destiny again. Then we shall steal swift horses and ride away from here, back to our clan.”

  He felt overcome with nausea, and terror sat in a hard lump in his stomach.

  They’re gonna drug me, then . . . do some kinda magic, and that thing will take over and . . .

  Absolute despair crushed him like an overwhelming wave of blackness. There was no way out of this. There was no one to rescue him . . .

  But—

  There was one thing left he could do, and that bird, which sounded exactly like one he listened to every morning at the Collegium, reminded him of that. He had a duty to fulfill, and he could bargain with them to do just that. There might be nothing else he could do, but at least, he could bargain. He would lose . . . he, or at least the Mags he knew . . . would be utterly obliterated. But he could win something. Something important.

  “You gotta know I ain’t gonna put up with this,” he said, roughly, losing some of the cultured tone of his speech under the stress. “I’m gonna fight you, and that spirit of yours, and I don’t care if it kills me. I don’t care what you say about you bein’ my people. I don’t know nothin’ about this Shadao or any of these people, and I don’t care spit about ’em.”

  Levor looked slightly shocked, although that might only have been because Mags had talked back to them. Both the kidnappers looked like people who were not used to being talked back to or having their authority challenged. Kan-li merely nodded, as the little fire crackled and the pot simmered.

  “Mebbe I’ll die. Or mebbe you’ll win. I reckon the odds are even.” He took a deep breath. “But there’s somethin’ I do care ’bout, right now, right this minute. I care ’bout the people that saved me. And that ain’t you. So. I’ll make ya a deal.” He swallowed, and he tasted tears. He didn’t want to die, and this would be a kind of death. But he was a Herald of Valdemar, and there was so much that was more important than one little life. “Ye don’t need the sun-dogs no more. Ye got me. Ye can all go home. Call off yer contract with the sun-dogs. Tell ’em they can stuff it up where their sun don’t reach, an’ call everybody ye got here back. Promise never t’go after th’ Nor—Valdemar an’ the rulers of Valdemar ever again. Promise me thet, pledge it, an’ I won’t fight ye. I’ll drink yer stuff, an’ ye kin do what ye want with yer talisman, an’ ye won’t haveta hold me down or knock me out.”

  Kan-li smiled, very slowly. It was the first genuine smile that Mags had seen from him. “So speaks an honorable man. We understand your feelings of obligation. We will accept your bargain. Behold.”

  He held out his hand, and Levor reached into his tunic and brought out the folded parchment. Kan-li took it, muttered a few words over it, and tore it quite simply in two, without any fanfare.

  Then he shoved the two halves under the simmering pot, where they went up in a few heartbeats, leaving behind nothing but ashes.

  Mags sagged with defeat. “All right,” he said. “You got it. Bargain made.”

  Kan-li nodded. “Bargain made. But forgive me if I do not remove the manacles. I believe in surety. And I do not yet know the extent of your honor.”

  Mags nodded. He hadn’t expected anything else.

  “It will take some time for the herbs to steep,” Kan-li continued. “Perhaps you would prefer to wait in the wagon.”

  Since that sounded more like an order than a request, Mags nodded again. Wearily, he got to his feet and shuffled over to the wagon, clambering back into it and falling into his nest.

  Once there, he felt tears leaking out of his eyes, but he could not be bothered to wipe them away. He could not resign himself to this, and yet, at the same time, he knew he had no choice. So . . . really, all he wanted to do now was to get it over with. Take the drugs, put on the damn talisman, and be done with it. Waiting wasn’t going to make things any better.

  :Mags:

  He didn’t even have the strength to sob, really. It all seemed to have run out of him when he agreed to this . . . thing. And yet, he would not have undone his bargain if he had been offered the chance. He couldn’t. Not and still remain Mags. All he could do was accept, and cry.

  :MAGS!:

  He’d ignored the first little whisper of Mindvoice because it was so weak, so tenuous—and because it wasn’t Dallen. Not that he wanted it to be Dallen. He really wanted Dallen safe, in Valdemar, and away from him. Dallen couldn’t save him, and—

  : . . . Mags . . . I know you can hear me. Stop wallowing in misery and answer.:

  —that, however, was impossible to ignore.

  As was the distinct sensation of claws prickling in his mind, as a sort of warning that they would soon be unsheathed if he didn’t behave himself.

  : . . . Reaylis?:

  :Finally. Now, don’t say anything, just listen.:

  In the midst of misery, he felt a flash of happiness. At least Reaylis was free, and if he was free, so was Franse.

  There was a long pause. For a moment he began to think that the voice in his mind had just been a figment of his imagination.

  :Idiot. Their talismans are listening.:

  . . . Oh. Now he felt like an idiot.

  But what on earth could Reaylis, or Reaylis and Franse together, do? He was still chained to this devil’s bargain . . .

  :Shut up. Dallen is with us. We’re going to get you free.:

  . . . but . . .

  :Agree to the drugs, but ask them to go down to the valley first before they give them to you.:

  He couldn’t see how that would make a difference, but . . . he could profess a concern that he’d start having visions and wander off the side of the cliff. They shouldn’t have a problem with that. How long could it take to get down to the valley, anyway? Not long enough to make much of a problem for them.

  :Good. Now, I see you promised only not to fight their drugs or that specific talisman. Excellent. You won’t be breaking your promise.:

  Kind of moot, since he still didn’t see how one young man, a cat, and a Companion were going to be able to free him anyway. Especially not drugged.

  :I want you to take the damned things and have the damned visions so you can get to the bottom of this mystery about your past, idiot.:

  There was a very long pause. He wondered for a moment if that was all there was going to be.

  But no.

  : Your friend the Healer is right. It’s going to keep coming back on you until you deal with it, and right now you need some clues so you can start.:

  He didn’t want to hope only to have his hopes dashed. But it did sound as if Reaylis and the others had actually thought this through.

  :I am not even going to dignify that with a reply.:

  The offended hauteur of that actually teased a faint smile out of him.

  :Better. Now, I am not going to tell you what we plan.:

  Of course not! If the talismans could listen, they might be able to get it out of his mind.

  :Just get down to the valley, take the drugs, get as much as you can out of the visions. I’m finished.:

  And . . . that seemed to be that.

  He waited for a while to see if there would be anything else—or if his kidnappers might be aware he had been getting messages from the Suncat. But all he heard out there were occasional murmurs and the weary sighs of the horses. Finally he scooted to the back of the wagon and put his head out.

  “Uh—” He coughed, but he’d already gotten their full attention when he started moving. “Iffen ye don’ mind . . . afore ye give me that stuff, can we move t’the valley? I don’ wanta be tied up like afore, an’ I don’ wanta fall off th’ rim, neither.”

  Kan-li looked at his partner, who shrugged. “It is possible. It would be safer. Also, we could more easily ward our camp in the valle
y.”

  The two of them switched to their own tongue and discussed it for a few more moments.

  “More grass for the horses,” Mags suggested during a pause.

  That seemed to decide them. It looked as if Levor had permitted the fire to die down under the pot anyway; he lidded it up, strapped the lid down with a piece of buckled leather, and carefully carried it to the wagon, where he wedged it in.

  There was the usual sort of business of harnessing up the horses, but they didn’t turn to go back down the trail as Mags had thought they would. Instead, they went forward. They must know this road . . . had they traveled it before? Or had they been scouting the region?

  Maybe it was something as simple as memorizing a really good map.

  They went very slowly and very carefully, with Levor poking his head into the wagon every so often to make sure the pot hadn’t spilled. Mags held himself in place, feeling the tension mount. Because even with the prospect of rescue at hand . . . he still didn’t want to do this. He didn’t care for drugs at the best of times, and at the worst . . . he really didn’t care for drugs. He had far too many bad memories and nightmares in his past, and he wasn’t looking forward to revisiting them.

  And anyway, he couldn’t have been more than three when his parents had been killed. How was a three-year-old going to know anything? Unless these drugs were supposed to open him up to that talisman. He was horribly afraid that was the case. Maybe with the drugs they wouldn’t even need to put the talisman on him, it would reach out and take him.

  And he had agreed to accept that. Could he accept it and still remain himself? Could he accept it and still remain loyal to Valdemar?

  He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to have to find out the answer the hard way.

  But he didn’t have a choice. The only thing he could do was to trust to his friends, trust to his own training, and hold onto himself for dear life.

  15

  By late in the afternoon, they had reached the valley floor. It was clearly a better place for a camp. Although the valley wasn’t particularly wide, there was a nice stretch of meadow full of knee-high grass and even a little stream running along one side of the valley. Both of Mags’ kidnappers looked upon this with approval.

  They quickly made another, much superior camp, tethered the horses within reach of the grass and the stream, and consulted with each other at great length in their own language. They actually pitched a tent, dug a latrine, got some boxes and other things out of the wagon and tethered canvas over the lot, and looked as if they planned to settle in for a few days. Meanwhile, Mags made himself comfortable in the wagon. He had the feeling they were going to decide that he needed to drink this stuff as soon as possible.

  Finally Levor got the pot out of the wagon and set it down by the fire. He began straining the liquid through cloth into a bowl; when he had filled the bowl, he brought it to Mags.

  Mags looked at the stuff dubiously; it looked like swamp water and smelled about the same. But when he looked up at Kan-li, it was pretty clear from the kidnapper’s posture that if he didn’t drink it down, the kidnapper was perfectly prepared to “help him” and hold him down and pour it down his throat.

  So he drank it. It tasted as awful as it smelled, and it sat uneasily in his stomach. So uneasily that he wondered if he was going to vomit it all up again.

  But just as he thought that . . .

  He thought he might just have hallucinations or the sort of view that a baby would have of his parents. But that wasn’t what he got at all.

  What he got was very much like standing under a colossal waterfall of images, feelings, fragments, sounds, as if someone had shattered lives and was pouring the bits over him.

  It was completely disorienting, completely overwhelming.

  None of it was coherent. It was all pouring straight into him. He understood, somewhere underneath his panic, that these were visions, not hallucinations and not memories. Or not his memories.

  At least it was all limited to his past, and not to anyone else’s. A few dozen lives, not thousands. But fragments just kept rushing at him, and he couldn’t sort them out. A baby’s birth (his?). A couple and their infant fleeing on fast horses. Kidnapping attempts—a lot of them. Killing, lots of killing. Fighting. More running. Something stolen. Glimpses of a trading caravan. Glimpses of Karsite priests and a city the size of Haven, centered with an enormous building that was not a palace. Another caravan. Storms, inns, sheltering in the wilderness, guesting in temples . . .

  None of it made any sense, and the more he tried to sort it out, the more kept coming at him. It felt as if he were drowning in images, feelings, sensations . . . he felt battered and beaten by it all. It was exactly like being in a hailstorm, and the hailstones kept getting bigger, hitting him harder . . .

  Or a sandstorm, and the images and memories were eating away at him.

  The more he tried to stand his ground, the quicker he was being eroded. His life was joining the storm.

  Finally he just . . . let go. Let go and let everything flood over him. He didn’t try to sort through it, he didn’t try to make any sense of it. He just collapsed on himself and let it roll over him.

  And the moment he let go, it stopped pounding him, and it was as if he were in the center of a flood but was managing to keep afloat on top of it.

  He just clung tightly to his sense of who he was and what was worth living for. The more he did that, the less the flood affected him, until he felt as if he were something like a chip being tossed on the waves of a raging torrent instead of a rock being eroded by a sandstorm.

  He clung to himself even more tightly then; and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it dawned on him to shield.

  Maybe he was missing something by doing this, but at least he wasn’t getting eroded bit by bit.

  He made his shield “slick” on the outside, and now everything was just slipping over him. He was still at the heart of a vision-storm, but it wasn’t battering him.

  There was no way to sense time, no reference at all. He was utterly divorced from his body. At least with the first lot of drugs these people had fed him, he might have been lost in nightmares and hallucinations, but he had an anchor with his body, which got hungry and thirsty, and fought its way clear of the drugs on a regular basis. He couldn’t sense his body at all now. He had no idea what was happening to it in this kaleidoscope of utter chaos.

  But once he shielded, he could at least still sense Dallen’s faint presence, and he hung onto that. As long as he had that, he wouldn’t go completely mad. As long as he had that, he was himself, Mags, and not Meric.

  Or rather, he was Meric, but he was mostly Mags . . . there were things he did want to remember when this was over, things that belonged to Meric and only Meric. Things about his mother, his father.

  Meric. That had been what his mother called him, the mother that had died shielding him.

  He sensed these things off in the maelstrom, but he didn’t go fighting after them. That would only have opened him up to erosion again.

  He concentrated on remembering everything good about being Mags. He went over every move in every Kirball game he had ever played. He concentrated on what it felt like to become a single entity with Dallen. He tried to remember every song that Lena had performed for him. He tallied all that Bear had taught him—healing, history, and plain, honest friendship.

  And he thought about Amily.

  Amily and Dallen were like twin supports for him, keeping him steady, helping him to hold on. They were remarkably alike in so many ways . . . brave, steadfast, loyal . . . curiously vulnerable, surprisingly strong. He finally understood, or at least, he thought he did, what Amily wanted.

  She wanted to be herself. Not her father’s daughter. Not the cripple. Just herself. But that was by far not the only thing she wanted. She wanted the same for everyone—that was why she didn’t press him on anything. She wanted him to make up his own mind about things, without persuasion, much les
s coercion. To be himself. Maybe the reason she understood that so well was because she had been regarded as everything but herself for so very long by so many people. She knew what it was like to be tucked under a label and have no one look past that label.

  But Mags had looked beyond the obvious, and he had seen the quiet, clever girl for all she was and could be. That was one reason why she loved him

  And she had, consistently, looked past his labels.

  That was one reason why he loved her.

  Oh, yes . . . that was part of Mags, too. He loved Amily. He hadn’t recognized it as “love” until this moment because it was such a quiet version of that emotion—and in that, it was the twin to hers. But it was love, all the same. And it was very like the love he and Dallen shared, though he rather had the notion that was more like brothers.

  That’s what they don’t have, these men . . . and they would never think I would, either.

  That must be why he was able to ride out this flood when others would be overwhelmed and lost in it, even losing their very selves to it. Mags understood then that it was not because he was able to hold onto himself that he was surviving this. It was because he was able to hold onto others.

  And holding to that, holding to the warmth, the friendships, the loves . . . holding to all those things outside himself that made life worth living . . . that was how he weathered the storm, floated on the torrent; and finally, as the tempest of memories and images, visions and sensations, began to ebb, he drifted safely into shore, dropped lightly onto the sands of morning, still himself.

  * * *

  He didn’t open his eyes. Quite frankly, he was completely exhausted. This might have been the most difficult and physically demanding night of his entire life.

  He could hear Kan-li and Levor speaking, but now he found he could make out fragments of what they were saying. Kan-li was asking his underling how long Mags would remain unconscious.

  Levor professed that he had no idea. Kan-li was not happy about this, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he changed the subject to whether or not one of them should remain here with Mags while the other went to steal some faster horses.