Caelen stared at him. “Andâif he had an accident in there, if a box fell on him and knocked him outâ”
“Even if it didn', ye cain't hear in there nor be heard outside, all them papers just muffle everythin'.” Mags' heart was in his mouth now. “An' it ain't heated. Ye lay there, hurt . . . the cold . . .”
“Lena!” Caelen barked, startling her so that she dropped the handkerchief. “Round up whoever you can, but make sure you get me a Healer among them. Mags, let's go! In this coldâ”
He didn't have to finish the sentence.
He snatched up his cloak; Mags shrugged his coat back on. Both of them made for the stairs and the outside door at a run.
And this was where things got . . . interesting. Because there was no direct route to the Archives. Instead, they had to run to and through Bardic, then Old Bardic, then Healers', then the Guard barracks, because that was how the paths had been cut. On the plus side, they managed to scoop up four Guardsmen on their way through the barracks. On the minus side . . . there was no path cut to the Archives.
But there
was
the clear trail of someone forcing his way through the snow to get there.
“Waitâ” One of the Guardsmen suddenly held up a cautionary hand. “Sir, I am a tracker. More than one person came through here.”
Mags froze. Suddenly, he
felt
that fear from his dreams, from that brush against something horrible the night the blizzard began.
Herald Caelen paled a little. “Are you armed?” he asked quietly. Two of them nodded; the other two went back into the barracks and came out again with four swords, one of which they gave Mags without hesitation. He clutched the hilt in his mittened hand, then tore the mitten away and cast it aside. Better to have a freezing hand than no grip.
“Carefully now,” Caelen said, grimly, and the burliest of the Guards began forcing a way for the rest of them.
:Dallen!:
:We have raised the alarm. Help is right behind you.:
Dallen paused.
:Keep me tight linked.:
At the door to the Archives, the second Guard in the line carefully tried the door, as the rest of them flattened themselves against the wall on either side of it. The door was unlocked, and he eased it open, a little at a time. In his mind, Mags showered gratitude on the Archivist for being so meticulous. The door was well oiled, and opened without so much as a creak.
“Outer chamber's empty,” whispered the Guardsman, and one by one, they all slipped inside.
:Open your mind to Caelen,:
Dallen ordered. Mags blinked, then obeyed.
He sensed Caelen then, thinking hard.
Mags, when you “hear” this, tell me.
:Got ye, sir,:
he thought back, hoping that he had properly understood those lessons from Dallen about how to think into the head of someone without Mindspeech so that they could hear him.
Good. I want you to relay my orders to the Guards. You have my permission; theirs is implicit.
Whatever that meant. If Caelen said it was allowed, it must be.
He opened his own mind a little further, to the four in his vicinity, and told them what Caelen told him.
:Crouch low, crawl if you must. Stay below eye level. Do nothing until Caelen signals, no matter what you see or hear. Nod if you understand.:
All four Guardsmen nodded, although one looked a little startled. Caelen signaled for all of them to move forward.
You, too, Mags. You are going to be my eyes and ears. I am too old to crawl; all I will do is give the game away.
Well, Mags was used to crawling on his belly through narrow tunnels at need; this was nothing to him. He sheathed the sword, turned his belt around so that the scabbard was at his back, and flattened himself on the floor, skittering along noiselessly, like a lizard.
The door into the Archive room was open a crack. The large Guard eased it open as well. They all moved inside.
It was brighter here than in the outer room, but still dim. The worktable was overturned, and one of the chairs smashed, a box lying on its side with the contents strewn on the floor. Mags reported it all to Caelen.
Tell the redheaded Guardsman to work his way around the wall, with the rest of you following. I want you directly behind the redhead.
Once again, Mags relayed the instructions. This time he was the one to give the signal, and the designated Guard, who was almost as good at belly slinking as Mags, eased forward.
:Keep your mind open to me, too, Mags,:
Dallen urged.
They all inched their way across the frigid floor, their breaths puffing out and hanging in the still air in tiny white clouds. Halfway down the length of the room, the silence was broken by a low moan.
“Hushabye baby,” said a strange, high voice. “They haven't come for you yet. Here. Drink your drinkie, there's a good baby.” The voice giggled. “Oh, and when they come for you, there will be
such
a surprise! They'll be so pleased!”
Oh, dear gods . . . that sounds like a trap.
Mags was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to have heard that thought. But he hadâand so had Dallen.
:Tell Caelen that Nikolas is getting something ready. Mags, we are going to need you; you are the key to this. I want you to ease close until you can see what is going on, get a good look, and then ease back.:
I've been told, Mags,
came Caelen's thought, hard on the heels of that.
Do what they tell you.
:I need to scout,:
Mags thought at the Guardsmen.
:Ain't getting closer than I have to.:
All four nodded, and he slithered past them, trying to breathe as slowly and silently as he could.
When he got to the end of the shelves, he moved over across the aisle so that he was sheltered by their bulk, then peered around the corner.
The Archivist's desk was here, and a strange, thin, dark man was seated at it. Behind him, tied to another chair, bound hand and foot and with a gash on his forehead, was Bear, unconscious, but still alive. The man was dressed in odd clothing of a very dark gray; his head and hands were wrapped in what appeared to be bandages, and despite the fact that it was freezing in this room, his arms were bare. Laid out on the surface of the desk was a glittering array of knives.
The man seemed to sense Mags looking at him. He glanced sharply at the shelves, but he was looking high, not low, and Mags pulled back out of sight. He waited, listening for footsteps, but none came.
He slithered back to the others.
:Mags, Nikolas says that is a very dangerous man, some sort of highly trained killer. He can easily fight all five of you at once, and if he thinks you are going to win, he'll kill Bear.:
:Butâ!:
:Don't worry, we have a plan. All we need you five to do is to fight him, distract him, get him as far away from Bear as you can. And stay alive! He'll concentrate on the one he thinks is weakest, that will be you. So your job is to be the lure, drawing him away from Bear. The Guards are to keep coming at him, but never let him close with them. Have you got that?:
Mags motioned to the others to put their heads together with him. Carefully, Mags thought those instructions into the heads of the Guardsmen as hard as he could, staring into their eyes. All four of them nodded slowly. The redhead pointed at Mags, and mouthed the word “bait.” Relieved, Mags nodded.
:Tell them the weapons might be poisoned.:
Gulping, Mags did so. The big man looked angry, the redhead narrowed his eyes, the third shrugged, and the fourth smiled grimly.
Mags looked at the fourth curiously. The man stared back at him, hard. Slowly, Mags sensed a thin mental voice.
It won't be the first time we've handled cowards of that sort, boy. You just see to it that you don't get scratched.
Mags nodded.
:All right. We are getting something in place. Stand up carefully and wait for my signal.:
They got to their feet, one at a time, so slowly and carefully that even their clothing didn't whisper. And they waited in the semidarkness, Mags feeling ready to scream with the tension, as a tuneless humming threaded its way toward them from the back of the room.
Finallyâ
:Now. But don't charge him. Walk out until he can just see five of you, but not who you are. And let him hear your footsteps.:
Mags relayed that. And at his signal, they moved forward, soft footfalls muffled by the shelves and boxes all around them. They rounded the last shelf to find the strange man on his feet, waiting for them, a knife balanced on the tip of one finger.
:Now you step into the light, Mags.:
Mags did so, his hand clutched to his sword hilt.
The man stared at him.
“Not YOU!”
he screamed.
“YOU are not supposed to be here!”
He threw the knife, but Mags was already anticipating the action, and ducked back behind the shelf. The knife thudded into the wall and stuck there, quivering, as the man grabbed a handful more, and sent them flashing after the first. Mags showed himself just long enough for the man to see he was untouched, then jumped back into shelter again.
This time the man was tempted enough to rush them. And he was faster, a
lot
faster, than anyone Mags had fought before.
For a moment his mind raced in panic. But then, a curious calm came over him.
Don't attack. Just evade.
He didn't have to fight backâthe other four would do that for him. All he had to do was to keep from getting hit. And with his mind open to the others, he could sense what
they
were going to do, where
they
were going. All he needed to do was to move with that.
And then, as he ducked and sidestepped, used his sword to deflect an oncoming blow and slid under it, he saw what Dallen had been talking about.
A door in the rear of the building slid stealthily open, and through it cameâ
Barrett.
Barrett and his gang of pranksters, one of whom without a doubt must have been good enough to pick that lock.
Mags did not allow himself to get distracted, but as he danced his way out of the man's reach, he got glimpses of the gang slowly hauling Bear, chair and all, toward the door.
Meanwhile it was all he could do to avoid the whirling maelstrom of blades that the man had become. He knew, instinctively, that he
had
to keep the killer's attention; that if the man got sight of Bear being taken out, it would be all over. So he danced and capered as he never had in all of his life, allowing his terror to show on his face. He sensed that terror was a better lure than defiance or bravado. Which was just as well, because he was
so
frightened now that he couldn't have squeaked out a single challenge or boast.
And thenâat lastâthe gang reached the door.
A forest of arms reached forward, grabbed them all, and yanked them out of sight.
The door slammed.
The killer whirled.
“It's over, mate,” the redhead said. “You might as wellâ”
Give yourself up,
was what the Guard was probably going to say. But he never got the chance to finish the sentence.
With a scream of outrage, the killer threw away all his weapons, turned, and ran himself onto the redheaded Guard's sword.
EPILOGUE
“I
C'N think'a better ways t' get a holiday,” Mags said “I C'N thinkâa better ways t' get a holiday,” Mags said weakly.
Bear nodded as a servant girl handed him a dose of his medicine. “Wouldn't have been my choice either,” he replied.
They were not in the Collegium; they had been set up in a luxurious suite of rooms in the Palace. The very rooms, in fact, that had been occupied by the arrogant foreigners.
“Still . . . this's better than my room or the stables,” Bear continued. “And nobody's going to come all the way over here to ask me some stupid question about herbs that they can look up the answer to.”
He sounded more than a bit cross, and Mags didn't blame him. Exactly that sort of thing was why he and Bear had been moved over here in the first place.
Bear was still not supposed to leave his bed or couch unless he had to, but Mags was under no such restrictions, and spent much of their first day here searching the room for anything the foreigners might have hidden there.
He knew of course, that far more competent people than he had already gone over the place; if they had actually found anything useful, he and Bear would be the last people to be told. But he couldn't help hoping he'd find something overlooked. After all, they had left in a terrible hurry, so much so that it was hard to tell if they had taken anything with them.
“No luck with the beds, I suppose?”
Mags shook his head. He had gone over the bedsteads in meticulous detail, examining every seam, every place where the finish seemed to be a bit rougher than it should be, every place where even the tiniest of objects could have been hidden. He had found nothing, of course, and it was no use to look in the mattresses and pillows as he was certain those had been replaced and taken apart before he and Bear were brought here. In fact, it seemed that only a few innocuous things had been left behind by the first group of searchers.
“Do you ever wonder if those men were even from the country they claimed to be from?” Bear asked.
“I s'pose they could be.” He shook his head. “Not sure it matters.”
“And why did they wait a whole day after that madman killed himself to leave?” Bear continued. Clearly, he had forgotten that he had asked that question already, not once but several times. It was the effect of the medicine, Mags had been assuredâjust as he had been told that he was here with Bear as much to keep an eye on his friend and provide him with company as to recuperate himself. He didn't mind. In fact, he was rather pleased that they trusted him so much.