Redoubt

by Mercedes Lackey

  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 less 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.

  :Mags.:

  It was Reaylis. Mags kept himself from starting, and possibly making a noise, just in time.

  :They’re a bit distracted, and they and their talismans are far enough away from you that you won’t alert them. It’s safe for you to speak now. Are you all right?:

  He considered that. :Mostly,: he replied.

  :I expect you feel as though you’ve been running up a mountain with Dallen on your shoulders,: came the unexpectedly sympathetic reply. :I don’t know if you know your maps of this part of the world all that well, but you are not horribly far from White Foal Pass, and there are a fair number of Heralds and Guard in this part of the world. Dallen has managed to summon a goodly number to your side of the pass. It would make war break out again if they crossed the Border, but if we can get you to them—:

  :Aye,: he replied, and then he nearly did jump out of his skin as a cold nose and equally cold . . . something . . . thrust into his hands, then a weight landed on his chest. His eyes snapped open, and once again, he was looking to Reaylis’ blue eyes. The cat had just slipped a very thin, very sharp little blade into his hands.

  :Hide that in your boot,: the cat said. And between that moment and the next, Reaylis was gone, slipping between the canvas and the body of the wagon. Mags slid the blade down his ankle just in time. Kan-li unfastened the canvas flaps, looked in, and caught him awake.

  “The day renews,” Kan-li said, and he looked at Mags with his head tilted ever so slightly.

  “The day renews,” Mags replied automatically, then realized he had answered the kidnapper in his own language.

  Kan-li nodded with satisfaction. “Good. It has begun, and the life of our people has taken root in your soul. There will be another drink of the herbs in the afternoon, all things permitting, and perhaps a third tomorrow. Then, the talisman.”

  Mags just gazed at him, allowing all of his exhaustion to show.

  “Perhaps food and drink, then sleep?” he replied, sagging a little sideways in an exaggerated version of how he really felt.

  Slowly, Kan-li nodded. He went out, and came back with a full waterskin and a wooden bowl of soup—at least this time the soup was real soup, with meat and other things in it, and not just broth.

  There were seasonings to it as well that his tongue didn’t recognize but that his memory did. It was extremely disconcerting, because he still felt exactly like himself, and yet he had all these . . . bits . . . that were not supposed to be part of him, that had become part of him.

  :That was the whole point, idiot,: the Suncat said acerbically.

  Kan-li returned, took the bowl, and helped him out of the wagon. To his chagrin, he was extremely wobbly, but at least it didn’t take much to exaggerate his weakness. It took Kan-li’s aid to get to the area they had marked out for a latrine, but at least by the time he got there, his gait had steadied, and Kan-li did not linger but only waited at a distance for Mags to finish and walk back to the wagon on his own. Once he saw Mags could manage alone, he stayed by the fire. He was watchful, though, and it was clear that if Mags made any sort of move that Kan-li didn’t like . . .

  Mags got in unassisted and crawled to his nest.

  He curled up in it in a position where he could easily reach his boot and the manacles, lying on his side the way he’d been forced to lie when they’d captured him. He closed his eyes and feigned sleep.

  :He’s coming to check on you right now.:

  He heard the canvas move a very little. He kept his eyes closed and breathed deeply.

  :He’s gone. Start cutting on your bonds now. I’ll warn you if they come back so you can stop.:

  The knife was very sharp, and Mags worked diligently at the manacles on his ankles, cutting them almost all the way through, and just leaving a little tag of leather he could readily snap. He had to stop three times as his captors looked in on him, but Reaylis gave him plenty of warning.

  :How are you feeling?: Reaylis asked after the third check.

  He took stock of himself. :Not bad.:

  :Can you fight? You won’t be fighting very long, I expect, but you might need to fight. Franse certainly can’t.:

  He took a deep breath and felt a hot, smoldering anger inside himself that he hadn’t expected. These kidnappers and assassins had fully expected that embedding all this stuff about his supposed people would make him turn toward them.

  In fact, it was having the opposite effect. And he had no idea why.

  He only knew that every bit of him rebelled, utterly, against their culture, their beliefs, and their way of life, even though he couldn’t consciously remember anything about it. He just had the utter conviction that it was all just wrong.

  And he knew then that this must have been how his father and mother had felt. Only this complete sense of revulsion could have made them flee so very far, across so many foreign lands.

  And he was not going to allow these people to win.

  He was going to find out what he needed to know to make them fear Valdemar and Valdemarans so much it would be hundreds of years before their kind would even think about coming there again—and leave them with a lesson so indelible that never again would they dare take a contract to destroy the Kingdom.

  He went to work on his wrist manacles. :I can fight,: he said grimly. :And I want to go home.:

  It was a good thing that knife was so sharp, and he was very patient. He was literally cutting the leather one fiber at a time. He narrowed his concentration down to feeling how the blade was biting into the leather, adjusting it minutely until he felt a fiber part, listening to the faint creaks and snaps as he worked his way through it.

  By the time he had the wrist-cuffs down to the same little stub of leather, the sun was far past noon, and the wagon was entirely in shadow. Evidently they had decided to let him sleep rather than give him that second dose of herbs. Perhaps they thought he was in such a weakened state that the second dose would not be needed until tomorrow.

  :Mags! Plans have changed! Snap your cuffs now, and be ready to get to the back of the wagon and jump!: Mags started, and he slipped the knife into his boot. The tone of Reayl
is’ Mindvoice was beyond urgent, and Mags didn’t question him. Especially not since, at that moment, he heard shouting erupt outside, and the voices were Karsite.

  Damn! He snapped the cuffs, but he gathered up the chain from the wrist cuffs, using the cuffs themselves as a handle for the loop of chain. He might need a weapon after all and that tiny knife, sharp as it was, was not going to do the job. Then he gathered himself under cover of all the noise going on out there, and moved to the back of the wagon.

  He peered out through the canvas. The sun was just going down. The camp was ringed by Karsite soldiers, but fortunately they all seemed to have axes, clubs, and swords at the ready, not bows. The three black-robe priests were standing next to the fire, and the chief of them was having a shouting match with Kan-li.

  Kan-li’s hands were starting to glow a sullen orange in an alarming fashion, and Mags could see a chain with an amulet dangling from one of them.

  Had he changed his mind about further doses of their herbs, given how long Mags had been sleeping?

  Or was the amulet also some sort of weapon?

  Remembering the insensate entity that had seemed to inhabit the ones that Ice and Stone wore, Mags could well imagine that it was.

  Now the Karsite priest’s hands were also starting to glow, an ugly red, as his face turned that extraordinary shade of purple again. The other two were making gestures as the sun dropped below the horizon, gestures that Mags suspected had something to do with demon summoning. Levor was backing up and reaching for a weapon at his belt. It wasn’t a sword; at this distance, Mags couldn’t see what it was.

  The priest lunged for Kan-li’s throat, hands glowing the color of old blood.

  :NOW!: shouted Dallen and Reaylis together into Mags’ mind, as a white shape burst out of the forest nearest the wagon and hurtled toward Mags. Mags balanced on the back of the wagon, preparing to jump. Clinging to the saddle was Franse, with Reaylis somehow balanced on his shoulders, both hands buried desperately in Dallen’s mane and his eyes squeezed shut.