Foundation

Like I don’ feel anythin’ strong about it. Like this ain’t finished yet, an’ till it is, no point in thinkin’ anythin’.” He pondered. “It’s good the kiddies is got away, and it’s good Master Cole cain’t keep on, but anythin’ other than that ...” He shook his head. “It’s like somethin’ in a book. I know it’s real, but it don’ feel real. It don’t feel finished.” He shook his head uneasily. “Y’ know, it wasn’t smart t’ get too friendly with nobody. You tell half them kiddies m’ name, they won’t know who I am. Mebbe that’s it.”

Jakyr sighed, and got up to walk to the window. “And the ones that died?”

Mags felt badly then. He knew he should have been angry about it all. When it happened, though, he had to be honest—it scared him, it terrified him, in fact, but he had never been angry. “I reckon I’m a bad lot, sir,” he sighed, feeling a sick sinking in his stomach. “I reckon yer gonna tell me so.”

“Why?” Jakyr asked.

“’Cause when people died? All I could think was I was glad it weren’t me. I’m still glad it weren’t me. Them as is dead, is dead, an’ nothin’ is gonna make ’em not dead.” He hung his head. “Reckon’m as bad as Master Cole.”

Jakyr turned to stare at him. “Good gad, Mags, I certainly don’t think that!” When Mags looked up at him, it was his turn to struggle for words. “Look, I think what you are feeling is a great deal like what I felt when I was a young man in the Guard, and I was in battles. I mostly did not know my fellow soldiers, there was no time to get to know them and, Mags, when they died, I felt the same. I was glad it wasn’t me.”

He swallowed, and searched Jakyr’s face for a hint of falsehood. He found none. “For true?”

Jakyr nodded. “For true.” The Herald looked away again. “It may have been a battlefield for you your entire life, Mags. How can I think you are a bad person because of how you handled it?”

Mags swallowed. It was comforting, and yet ...

Oh, well.

“Well, is it important to you to actually see it? See the man get his punishment?” Jakyr seemed to be finding something very interesting outside that window to look at.

Mags shook his head dismissively. “Nossir. It don’ matter. Not a bit. I guess ... I dunno why, it just don’ matter. ’S like the Mags you hauled outa there an’ me, they’re two different kiddies.” He shrugged again. “The ol’ Mags, he woulda danced on Master Cole’s grave. The new one ... Cole don’t matter. I got stuff to do, and Cole don’t matter. ’Cept that he’s trouble. I cain’t ’splain it any better nor that.”

“Then I’ll take your word for it.” Jakyr nodded decisively, just as the bell rang for supper. He seemed satisfied. “Go nurse your aches and get fed. The sooner you can ride well, the sooner we can be gone.”

Mags limped off.

He himself was more than a little puzzled about his own lack of emotion. Once, nothing would have pleased him more than to see with his own eyes Master Cole being humiliated at worst, and punished terribly at best. Now ... now he had other things to think about. His mind was so crowded with all of those things that, no, it just didn’t matter.

Well, all but a feeling of warmth when he thought about the other kiddies, especially the youngest, being taken somewhere that they were getting the same sort of care and treatment he was. And he had been the instrument of that. That felt good.

And if Cole Pieters got away with the worst of the things he’d done, at least there was this much: he would never be given a free hand in the running of his own mine again. No new kiddies would be slaving in the tunnels. He would have to pay miners an honest wage.

Last of all ... there was the thought that Cole Pieters was, indeed, trouble. And the farther Mags got from him, the better Mags felt. He didn’t want Master Cole to ever think about Mags again. Cole Pieters was a bad, mean man, and Mags hoped that Cole Pieters would forget about him entirely. The sooner that happened, the happier Mags would be.

He thought all that over while waiting for his aching muscles to settle down and let him sleep, and it occurred to him that being at the mine and having to run it the proper way, actually being forced to part with his money to pay his workers, was possibly the worst punishment that could be devised for Master Cole.

Mags fell asleep with that thought in his mind, and it gave him at least a level of satisfaction.

And even though he ached, he knew it wouldn’t be for long. He was used to hard work and sore, tired muscles. In a few days, even if he still wasn’t a good rider, he would be fit enough to stay in the saddle all day. Then they could leave, and Master Cole would be left far, far behind.

His dreams were disturbed only once, by something too vague to be called a nightmare, a dim dream of hunting for something, or someone, knowing that there was something else dark and dangerous that was hunting for the same thing. And knowing that if the other hunter found that thing ... something terrible would happen.

___________________

The way to Haven unrolled before them, there was a good breakfast in Mags’ belly, and the air held the scent of snow to come. If Mags was not sitting in the saddle with the easy and careless grace that Herald Jakyr had, at least he was no longer sitting in the saddle like a sack of grain about to fall off. And if Herald Jakyr was worried about him being able to handle the long travel, he didn’t show it.

Those were all the positive things. Also positive—since the night he had had that dream of hunting something, all of his fears, while still in the back of his mind, seemed to have been pushed to the back of his mind. He had no good reason to feel so—so trusting. Well, other than that Dallen kept telling him that he could and should be. But it didn’t seem to matter that he had no reason for feeling this way; it even felt a bit is if he was dreaming while wide awake. As a consequence, he was feeling good; a sort of drowsy contentment, like the aftermath of one of those once-a-year feeds when he was full and warm and allowing himself the incredible luxury of not thinking about the next day And maybe that was stupid, but right now, it didn’t matter.

Herald Jakyr, on the other hand, looked as if he was fretting enough for both of them. It seemed he was more worried about the weather than about Mags falling off, and as they got packs strapped to the two Companions, it seemed to Mags that he was rightly concerned. Mags didn’t like the way the sky looked, or the air felt. It was a little too damp, the sun a little too bright, and yet there was the sense that there was something lurking just over the horizon. He was not weatherwise, but it felt as if there was a storm coming.