Foundation

“Other than that Soren thinks he can be our eyes inside the new Heralds’ Collegium.”

Nikolas held his daughter carefully and regarded Mags out of those unreadable eyes. “Amily has put it quite succinctly. Soren thought you might be amenable to acting as a set of eyes for us, if we told you what to look for,” he said, in a soft voice that was neither high nor low. “Doing what I presume you just did for Lydia and Jak, since I am sure they quizzed you about those mercenaries. His plan was to not ask you for anything you would feel uncomfortable about. Merely observing and reporting.”

The Herald paused, and Mags felt that more was coming. “Aye, go on.”

Nikolas inclined his head. “But I have just been speaking with Herald Caelen, and he has a high opinion of you, Trainee. The Companion that Chose you is one of the brightest, and your Gift is strong, mature, and under remarkable control. We think you can do more than that. We think you can be an impartial set of eyes on the Heralds themselves as well as the Trainees. In fact, we think you can report to us about all the Trainees, as well as the Bards, and the Healers.”

Mags felt as if someone had just doused him with a bucket of ice water. “M-me?” he stammered.

Nikolas nodded. “We are in odd times. Our ranks have inflated. Change is on us, and not everyone likes that change. And we do not know what the sudden increase in our numbers means. Historically, when many, many new Trainees are Chosen, they are going to be needed in a few years’ time. Which is ... not necessarily good. Need implies interesting times ahead.”

Numbly, Mags nodded.

“Like me, people underestimate you. Because of your background, they are pleasantly surprised when you aren’t a village idiot, and then think no more about you unless you impress them further. I would like to train you on ways to remain virtually invisible. If you are willing to help us, that is, and serve Valdemar and your King in this most peculiar fashion.” Nikolas favored him with a lopsided grin. “And you can say no.”

He could say no? Well that was about as wrong as it got. He knew what all this meant ... he understood why Dallen had been sharing memories with him so much that it sometimes seemed that Dallen’s memories were his, and vice versa. Dallen was catching him up on the years of growing up like a normal person did, so that he wouldn’t act like an uncivilized feral cat. In fact—

No, he would ask Dallen about that later. Right now, here he was, an unknown quantity in the Collegia. He lived apart from the rest of the Trainees. He had excelled only in weapons work and riding, and any sufficiently agile dunce could do that. He had no family ties, he had no ties of friendship. He was a stranger to everyone here, and he was not accustomed to the sorts of things that Valdemarans took for granted.

And the consequence of this was that Mags knew very well what Herald Nikolas was asking him. He was so much an outsider that he was the perfect observer. And yet, he was so much an insider that no one would ever suspect that he was watching everything.

Yes, he understood what was being asked of him.

And he understood why it would be impossible for him, for anyone Chosen, to refuse.

“I’m in,” he heard himself saying.

And Lydia dazzled him with her smile.

Chapter 13

Suddenly the two weeks of Midwinter holiday had gotten a lot more interesting. In the morning, Mags still kept up with his riding and weapon practices, and with reading things that Herald Caelen suggested to him. Then Mags went every afternoon to Master Soren’s house, staying until early evening. No one who saw him would have thought he was anything other than what he seemed to be, an awkward youth, severely disadvantaged but very bright, that Soren’s niece and her friends had taken under their wing. In a way, that was a part he was playing. And in a way, that was very much the truth. Dallen’s shared memories made up for a lot of what he had missed by being raised as a virtual slave, but not everything. Both of them were being very careful that those memories stayed separate. It gave Mags a context for things, but those were still things that he himself had not gone through.

Lydia and her friends spent very little time on intrigue; they were very much enjoying the holiday, and they were doing their best to make sure he enjoyed it, too. Now that they had his consent to help them and Lydia’s uncle, that seemed to be all they really needed from him for the moment. If he happened to be at the salle at the same time as the mercenaries, he would observe them as closely as he dared. Then he would come to the open house and tell them what he found out—which usually took not very much time. Other than that, since virtually everyone was gone from the three Collegia, he didn’t have much to report. Which left him feeling free to enjoy the holiday as well with his new friends. Enjoying a holiday—having a holiday at all!—was a very new thing for Mags, and an unmitigated pleasure compared with all of the other new things. Although he would never want to go back to his old life, that old life was so much simpler than this one.

Well, for these few days, this new life was a bit less complex. And the things he was doing were less mentally taxing. For the first time in his life he found himself playing games.

At first, he just couldn’t quite grasp the concept of games. Doing something just for the sake of doing it? What was the point? There didn’t seem to be much sense in blindfolding someone, spinning him around to disorient him, and waiting for him to catch someone and determine who it was. It made no sense, until it was done to him, that is.

And first there was the breathless, fluttering, near-fear moment when he was blinded and spun. Disorientation without actual threat—he knew they weren’t going to hurt him, and suddenly the disorientation was ... well, he didn’t have a name for it. It made him feel excited, a thrill of anticipation of something good happening, and the dizziness called up the urge to do very silly things to make them laugh. Then there was standing there, in the dark, waiting to get his equilibrium back, while around him he heard breathing and giggles, and the scuff of feet on the floor. That was exciting, too—something was going to happen, and no matter what it was, the outcome was going to make no difference, so he was free to succeed or not. Free! It was like a sudden drink of strong thousand times more acute, his heart raced, but in a good way. For some strange reason, this was all terribly exciting in wonderful ways. Every other sense just came alive to the point that he almost didn’t need his eyes. And this was not his Mindspeaking ability; he was keeping that heavily shielded, as Dallen had taught him, because using it would be cheating. No ... no, this was like working in the mine, in the near-dark, when you felt your way to your place in the seam, or felt your way out, when you listened as hard as you could to see if you could overhear something useful. And when you had to rely on everything except your eyes. Except this was all good. He could win the game and they would all laugh, or he could lose it and they would all laugh, and what he did simply didn’t matter, because no matter what happened, everyone would laugh. This was completely, totally good. He stood very, very still, listening. Waiting.

Then suddenly, he feinted in one direction, and as he heard the circle of youngsters scuttle to evade him, he