Bastion

by Mercedes Lackey

  Well, why not? And if nothing else, he could use the practice at meditation.

  He got the talisman out of his pocket, put it where he could see it in the firelight, made himself comfortable, and let his eyes rest on it while he unfocused his thoughts. If he had it right, things were not going to come to him if he forced them. He had to relax to let them through.

  The problem was, this was very boring.

  Other things kept intruding. A stem of hay was tickling one wrist. There seemed to be a harder spot under one buttock. The cave smelled dank. The howling wind was unnerving. And—

  “So, at last we meet!” said a soft voice that sounded uncannily familiar—but not in Valdemaran! He looked up in shock. A figure stepped out of the passage that went deeper into the hill. “I will bless rather than curse this wretched storm. It has been impossible to get you alone until now—Cousin Meric!”

  Mags froze and looked up at the face that stared down at him, lit by the flickering firelight.

  A face that was as familiar to him as his own.

  Because it was his own.

  14

  Mags was paralyzed with fear and shock, as paralyzed as if he had drunk another dose of that potion that the assassin Levor had brewed for him. His heart pounded, and his chest felt tight. It was very hard to breathe. The stranger dropped down on his heels and regarded him curiously, with his head tilted a little to one side. He seemed entirely at ease. The firelight lit up one side of his face. It was a jarring experience, seeing what he usually saw in a mirror.

  No wonder all the assassins who had “recognized” Mags had been so startled. The likeness between them was unnerving. Why, they even wore their hair about the same length, he and the stranger!.

  Mags decided that staying very still was the best thing he could do right now. This, clearly, was the young man he had been mistaken for by all those assassins. Which meant he came from that clan of assassins. Which meant he probably was a highly trained assassin himself. No move was a good move right now. Any move could be interpreted as an attack, and . . . well, he didn’t much want to think about the consequences.

  :Look at his posture. He doesn’t mean any harm,: Dallen said instantly into his mind. He wondered how on earth Dallen could even think that! Just because the young man was relaxed didn’t mean he wasn’t about to do something awful. He could merely be so confident of his own abilities that he considered Mags no threat at all.

  “I don’t mean you any harm,” the young man said, echoing what Dallen had told Mags. He smiled a little, and it seemed to be a perfectly genuine smile. “Really, I could have murdered all of you a hundred times over before this, if I’d cared to. I’ve been studying you for quite some time now. Don’t feel bad, though; you’ve never had to deal with someone who has been trained from the cradle to do what I do.”

  “Uh . . .” Mags swallowed, his mouth very dry. “I . . . uh . . .”

  :He’s completely blocked my Mind-magic. How in the seven hells did he do that?.: Dallen was shocked to the core.

  Startled, Mags used his own Gift, only to realize with a start that so far as his Gift was concerned . . . there was no one in front of him. No one, and nothing. Was it possible that the stranger wasn’t there at all, that he was an illusion, or a spirit, or . . . wasn’t there supposed to be a Gift that let your spirit walk about while your body remained at home?

  “You’re not some sorta . . . Sending. Are you?” he managed. “Because . . . so far as me and Dallen are concerned, you aren’t here.”

  The young man laughed. “No, it’s this.” He reached into his shirt and pulled out a talisman identical to the one Mags had found. “If you were to put that one on and let it warm to your body, you would vanish from the Senses of the Mind yourself. Yes, even broken as it is. But it needs to be on your body for some time, to grow accustomed to you. We, those of us at the head of the House, don’t wear the common ancestor-spirit talismans. These talismans are reserved for those of our blood, the direct bloodline. We are . . . privileged. But we wear these to keep us from being detected in the course of our missions.”

  Mags swallowed again. This was a very surreal conversation. He kept expecting Jakyr to burst in here at any moment, regardless of the blizzard. Realistically, he knew that Jakyr would be lost in moments if he tried. “What do you mean, our blood?” he asked. “’Cause . . . you called me cousin. And we damn sure look alike. And . . . I reckon you know about two fellers called Levor and Kan-li, and they pretty much out and said that I was kin to them. But I don’t know just what I’m supposed to be kin to.”

  “May I sit?” the young man asked. At Mags’ stiff nod, he did so, crossing his legs and sitting near enough to touch Mags on the shoulder. He didn’t appear to be the least uncomfortable sitting on the bare stone. He was as graceful as a cat, supple as a serpent. Mags had to think for a moment about what the stranger had said—that he’d been trained from the cradle. It fit in with those memories he’d gotten from one of the previous assassins.

  His clothing was . . . odd. Something like Kan-li and Levor had worn, but the fabric was thicker and looked softer. It wasn’t a single color, either; it was a mottled gray, and Mags realized after a moment that this would have allowed the young man to blend in just about anywhere the stone of the hills showed through. Which was to say, virtually everywhere in these caves and the valley.

  “As I said, be at peace. I could have killed you too many times to count, my cousin,” he said. “Watch.”

  He was only just within reach of Mags, but a moment later, he had Mags’ knife in his hands. Then in the next instant, before Mags could even blink, the knife was back in the sheath at his side.

  “You’re one of—that bunch of killers,” Mags managed. He tried very hard not to sound accusing. The last thing he wanted to do was set this man off on a rampage.

  “Correct.” The young man nodded, not taking offense in the least. “That is what we do. The House of the Sleepgivers. That is the name we give ourselves. Of course, the true Sleepgivers are only those who are trained to the peak of perfection. The others of the House are . . . less able.” He wrinkled his nose. “Very much less able, in the case of those who first encountered you and your adopted kin. Truly, we should never have given in to venality and taken the commission in the first place. For that, my apologies.” And he gave a little bow. “But I was not in command of the situation of you. And although we are taught to master our emotions, in the case of my father and my other relations, their emotions, sadly, mastered them.”

  “You know, what you’re saying sounds real pretty, but it’s not making any sense to me,” Mags responded, with a touch of irritation, which he quickly covered. Don’t make him mad, stupid. Never make the trained killer mad. “Who are you, why’re you here, and—”

  As he looked at the young man, he could see subtle differences from his own face. His was a trifle thinner, the cheekbones more prominent. His hair had a bit of a wave to it, this young man’s was straighter. He thought perhaps that he was shorter than the other, too, although until they stood side by side, he wouldn’t be able to tell. There was no doubt that they were related, and closely, and they could certainly pull off convincing masquerades of each other. But they were not twins.

  In a way that was comforting. He didn’t want to be anyone’s twin. Especially not the twin of a trained killer.

  “Again, my pardon, and I shall begin at the beginning. I am your cousin Beshat.” He smiled, broadly. He had very good teeth, even, strong, and white. Nicer than Mags’ teeth. “Call me Bey. And although the name you were born to was Meric, as it always is for the first son of the line, I shall call you by the one you have here. Mags.”

  Mags began to feel a hint, just a hint, of friendliness to this—Bey. Because Bey wasn’t forcing a name that wasn’t his any longer onto him. Unlike Levor and Kan-li, who insisted on calling him “Meric.”

  “And so, Mags, this is a tale, a tale long in the making and long in telling. Your tale and mine.
A tale of twins who married twins, and two cousins, one the elder—” he nodded at Mags “—and one the younger, by a mere moon. And I know it is a tale you will want to hear.”

  Jakyr must have been having fits by now. :Have you told Jakyr about this?: he asked Dallen. And got a surprising answer.

  :No.: Dallen was very firm on that. :It won’t do any good. He’ll die if he tries to get to you. This Bey fellow—let’s try something. Ask him to take off the talisman to prove his good will.:

  Mags looked the young man straight in the eyes. They were disconcertingly direct and honest and didn’t seem to belong to a hired killer. “You say you could’a killed me and didn’t, but it’s pretty obvious from everything that’s been goin’ on that your people want me alive fer some reason. So prove yourself. Take off that talisman, so me an’ Dallen can look at your mind.”

  “Dallen, yes! That is the horse-that-is-not-a-horse! And you can speak with him all the way to the next cave!” The young man chuckled with what seemed to be delight. “I will certainly oblige you. Unlike the men my father sent, I have taken pains to study you, you Heralds. I know you will not harm me unless and until I prove I intend to harm you.” And with that, he lifted the leather cord that held the talisman around his neck over his head and set it to one side. He looked at Mags expectantly, almost as if he thought Mags would react in some way.

  As the stone cooled, the young man became present in Mags’ mind. And Mags did react, not by startling, but by narrowing his eyes. “That’s one helluva trick,” he muttered, and skimmed the young man’s surface thoughts for anything nasty.

  Nothing. This young man was nothing like any of the others of “his kind” that Mags had encountered. Mags would never have known what he did—or claimed he did—just from the fairly cheerful tenor of his mind.

  Of course, there are killers who like to kill. They’re probably pretty cheerful about it, if it comes to that.

  :I went deeper than you, and I got nothing either,: Dallen admitted. :I think we should hear him out. He’s . . . very different.:

  Shadow and light played around Bey from the fire behind him. He should have seemed sinister, but his completely relaxed posture and half-smile made him the opposite. “I have been following you since you crossed the Karsite Border,” Bey said. “I studied you and the Heralds from afar while you were at the Throne Hall and Place of Studies. I was very, very careful. I left no trace of my passage. It was a good test of my skills, I think. Oh, my father does not know I have done this. Officially I am on my ‘wild year,’ when I am permitted to go anywhere I please and do anything I want, so that I will become jaded with the world and content to return to the House of Sleepgivers and take up my duties.” He laughed at that, as if it was some sort of joke. If it was, Mags didn’t get it. “I simply did not tell him that I did not trust the competence of those he sent after you. And it seems I was correct in my estimation.” He made a tsking sound, and shook his head. “To call them fools is to do perfectly respectable fools an injustice. But . . . all right, I am getting ahead of myself. Let me first tell you of your kin.”

  “It’s only fair to warn you I got no love for ’em,” Mags said dryly. This conversation was taking on a distinctly surreal quality. The howl of the blizzard in the distance, the warmth and crackle of the fire, the assassin acting as if he’d been invited for tea and a meat pie . . .

  “Nor do I blame you in the least,” Bey replied. “Here is the meat of the matter. The House of Sleepgivers is all that is left of a great clan. And yet, in another fashion, it is the culmination of a great clan. Or—would you rather I showed you?”

  “What do you mean?” Mags asked, warily.

  “You have the same Blessing as your father and your mother, so I have learned from following you, and so I would have assumed from your lineage,” Bey said, quite casually. “You are a Mindwalker. You can read thoughts as a scribe reads a scroll.” He spread his empty hands wide in an expansive gesture of welcome and acceptance. “So read mine.”

  Well, if that wasn’t a potential trap in the making, Mags didn’t know one. Mags shook his head. “And have you cosh me while I’m doin’ it, and—I dunno, cart me off like the last time. No.” He narrowed his eyes. “But my Companion can.”

  :Oh. I like that. Jermayan can guard me from any treachery. I can rely on him; he is very good defensively.:

  That meant Dallen was going to tell Jermayan at least. Mags wondered how long Jermayan could keep this a secret from Jakyr.

  Possibly a long time. Jakyr isn’t all that good at Mindspeaking.

  Bey nodded, as if he found this completely understandable. “Wise, and I cannot blame you in the least. Let it be so.”

  Bey closed his eyes and relaxed . . . and Mags scooted back in his bed to put a good bit more distance between them, and took his knife in his hand.

  The story unrolled in Mags’ mind as Dallen got it from Bey. The House of the Sleepgivers had once been a clan so large as to be considered a nation. They were famed for their single warriors, rather than for their army. Their home was, not unlike parts of Valdemar, an insalubrious place to live; but unlike Valdemar it was hot, dry, mountainous desert. Their warriors were all they had to sell, so sell them, they did. They sold the warriors’ services, and literally sold the warriors in some cases, when the warrior’s family was in great need or great debt.

  Mags watched as Dallen sent him the images he got from Bey’s mind. If there was a spot not unlike hell, this desert was surely it. Furlongs of sand and scrub interrupted by barren mountains, hot and dry in summer, cold and dry in winter. The only water came from infrequent rains and deep, deep wells, wells that were guarded with the lives of those who possessed them.

  The only two ways to live in this desert were by herding and by fighting. Only those families that controlled a well could herd, however. So the clan became very, very good at fighting. Now, under most circumstances, “fighting” would turn to “raiding” as they stole the property of their more prosperous, and better-watered, neighbors. But they were too poor to afford decent weapons, and a cadre of fierce fighters armed only with what they could make with wood and stone could not prevail against those armed with steel. They turned to another sort of fighting and raiding—making it the passage into adulthood for a young boy to kill a fully armed warrior of the “fatlands” and steal all his weapons. Thus, they became incredibly efficient and incredibly stealthy murdering machines.

  Once an adult, such training did not suit going into an army or even a mercenary corps; but as a bodyguard, or even a gladiator, they were second to none. So they sold their young men, and their young men commanded the highest prices.

  So . . . they prospered. But when you sell your young men, soon your numbers begin to dwindle. And that is what happened. So the Shadao—the great lord of the clan—had decided that there was only one solution.

  Sell death itself.

  Death that came on silent feet, came by night or day, at any hour, struck without warning, and was gone.

  :It’s interesting though,: said Dallen as Mags watched Bey’s quiet face. :At one point they were very careful, almost ethical, in what jobs they took. They saw themselves as the hand of the gods. They destroyed those whom the gods should have. But after a while the money just got too good, and they took any job at all.: Dallen paused. :Bey is . . . he wants to go back to the old ways. He hates that the House of the Sleepgivers has given up what he considers “honorable work” in favor of “highest bidder.” He also hates what the House has become in terms of the Sleepgivers themselves.:

  Once the Sleepgivers had never released a man to do their work unless he had reached the pinnacle of his “profession”—which essentially meant, someone like Bey. But they discovered . . . something . . .

  Mags couldn’t quite make out what it was; it seemed that even Dallen’s thoughts were foggy on the subject. It had to do with the talismans and the drugs. There was some transference of memory involved, as he knew. The talismans held a coercive
spirit of some sort. Dallen seemed to almost understand it all, but he just couldn’t quite grasp what it all was and how it all worked.

  :Don’t worry about it. It’s nasty and it’s brutal. That’s all you need to know.:

  Maybe it worked like the Karsite demons. There was probably more than one kind of those.

  So now, instead of being carefully taught and nurtured, inculcated with philosophy and ethics as well as the deadly arts, the House of Sleepgivers was turning out . . . killing machines. As soon as a boy could walk, he was taken from his parents. He was put into training, a sort of training where friendships were discouraged and cutthroat competition encouraged. Then, at adolescence, the trainees were tested and divided into three sorts. The first were the expendable ones, who were led to believe that good performance would lead to a rise in the ranks. This was not true. This would never be true. They were well trained, yes, but they would never be missed if they were killed in their commissions. Those were the sort that had been sent north in the initial contract with Karse—because the Shadao felt that the House might as well have someone else pay for the expenses of the search for his missing heir and wife. If they were caught, their talismans would kill them, and they were allowed to be aware of this, as incentive not to get caught.

  The second rank was of those who were like Levor and Kan-li. They were very, very good and very, very skilled. They knew the secrets of the herbs and the talismans. They were entrusted with many things. But they were not the best of the best.

  Those were very few indeed, and Bey was one. They never used the herbs. They were never given those talismans, only another sort that hid them from Mind-magic and—other magic?

  Mags couldn’t quite grasp that.

  :Doesn’t matter,: Dallen insisted, and he trusted Dallen. Things was all fuzzy when we talked about the Truth Spell, and the stuff that guards Valdemar and drove that first fellow mad. Maybe it’s part of all that.