Foundation

a peg next to the fire.

“Hungry?” the Herald asked. Mags nodded. In fact, he was ravenous. A couple of meat pies and a handful of dried fruit had not done much to assuage his hunger, especially now that he was used to eating regular meals.

Once again, Jakyr motioned to him to follow; they went down to an enormous kitchen where a sleepy-eyed fellow gave them bowls of thick soup and slices of buttered bread, a couple more cold meat pies, and an apple apiece. They ate it all there, in the kitchen, perched on stools. When Mags looked around for more, the fellow smiled, and went to the pantry, coming out with a wedge of cheese and another apple.

“Bed,” Jakyr said shortly, and Mags nodded, following him back up to the room on the third floor, eating his cheese and his apple on the way. He finished the last bites of each as they reached the room itself, tossed the core in the fireplace, divested himself of his outer garments, and crawled into the bed. A moment later he was asleep.

He woke to the sound of bells, which was entirely expected. Jakyr was still asleep and didn’t look likely to move, but he was ravenous again. He followed his ears to the washing-up room and an indoor privy, then his nose to the kitchen and the eating hall. This time, when he sat down at a table as he had been used to do at the first Guard House, the Guardsman doing the serving asked him who he was, and what he was doing there. He had a moment of paralyzed fear, sure as he was sure of his own name, that he was about to be uncovered as some sort of imposter—

:Just tell him your name, that you are with Jakyr, and you are Chosen of Dallen.: Dallen gave a kind of mental chuckle, and Mags coughed and complied. His answer seemed to satisfy the man. There were no more questions, and there was a great pile of hotcakes and honey, along with a platter of bacon, in front of him shortly.

He kept his mouth busy with food and his ears open, and soon learned that the worst of the storm had missed the city, but had hit the countryside to the west very hard. The Guards were going out in teams to look for stranded travelers, and to check on isolated farms, before getting to work clearing the road.

It appeared that he and Jakyr were not the only people lodging with the Guard. An old man in bright scarlet asked how the road was to the east.

“Clear and clean; we got snow falling still, but naught like what’s to the west. Yon Herald must’ve brought us luck,” laughed one grizzled fellow. “I tell ye, little as I fancy going out to look for strays, I fancy being snowed in here with no one for company but you ugly dogs a lot less.”

That earned the man a laugh and some remarks about where he was likely to be spending that night. That interested Mags not at all, so he went back to his food.

After eating his fill, and tucking a couple of apples into his pockets, Mags tiptoed into the room, got his now-warm coat, and went to check on the Companions.

:We will be moving soon,: Dallen told him, after gleefully accepting the apple. :As soon as Jakyr wakes, nearly. Jakyr wants to get back to Haven as soon as he can. So tell the stable keeper to feed and water us and make up our nosebags with sweet feed. While he is doing that, bring down the big packs, and go to the kitchen, and ask for traveler’s pies, as many as they can spare, made up into two packets.:

Mags blinked at that, for he had seen the trays of waiting meat and apple pies in the kitchen. “We canna eat that many, and surely he don’t mean to ride like he did yesterday!” he exclaimed. He was still moving stiffly, though his muscles were loosening.

:Oh, not at all,: Dallen replied with amusement. : Most of the pies will go with the rescue parties. Jakyr will just want to be sure that if we have to stay overnight in a Way station, you don’t starve. He is an excellent fellow, but he has one deep flaw. He cannot cook. In fact, he has been known to ruin boiling water.:

Mags shook his head, but went and did as he was told. And since Jakyr still wasn’t awake, he decided to take advantage of the facilities and have a quick hot wash. Not a good soaking bath, though he would have liked one, but a thorough washup. No telling when he’d get another chance, and he was discovering that he liked being clean.

Dallen’s words proved true. No sooner was Jakyr awake than he was fretting to be on the road. When the Guards asked if he could be of help locating stranded travelers, he regretfully shook his head.

“I’ve not got the Gift for it, I fear,” he told the Guard Captain who asked him. “I’m no better at it than you. And I’m overdue at Haven. I’ve gotten word I’m needed, and the sooner I get my charge there safely, the better.”

The Captain nodded wisely and made no further entreaties. Far sooner than Mags would have thought, they were both on the road again, riding through snow that fell thickly, but not with the fury of the blizzard that had pursued them here.

He set a hard pace, but not the grueling one of the previous day. And they did, indeed, spend that night in what Dallen had called a “Waystation,” a one-room structure reserved for Heralds traveling or “on circuit,” whatever that meant. Though small, it was stoutly built, and comfortable once they got a fire going on the hearth. Jakyr proved as much of a disaster at cooking as Dallen had foretold, and although Mags did not know a great deal about it, after the first two pies were burnt past the point where even he would eat them, he firmly evicted the older man from the hearth and took over the warming of the pies and the making of pease-porridge himself. Fortunately, Jakyr had not done too much damage to the pease-porridge before Mags intercepted him.

The remainder of the journey was uneventful and unvarying. They rose about dawn, whether they stayed in a Guard Post, a Waystation, or—rarely—in an inn. Mags cooked at need, Jakyr cut firewood, both tended their Companions, with Mags getting better at it all the time. Jakyr did not speak much; Mags got the sense he had something on his mind that had nothing to do with him. And in a way he felt isolated, but he was also relieved. So much of his time in life had been spent in silence that he was often hard-pressed to make the kind of conversation the Guards they stayed with found so easy.

But finally, after Mags had lost count of the days and nights—which wasn’t hard, with all of them being much alike—Jakyr finally gestured to him to come up alongside and spoke.

“We’re less than a candlemark from Haven,” he said, his eyes on the road ahead except for a single side glance at Mags. “Now, you know what that is, right?”

Mags nodded. Between his own reading and Dallen’s memories, he did indeed know what Haven was. The