Bastion

no one had. He was not tempted to use his Gift to try to find out, for what could he do to help anyone he found?
    As he sat back down in his bed nest, he felt something in his pocket poke at his leg. The talisman, of course. He wondered if Lita had been right, if it could help him unlock more of those memories.
    :I don’t see any harm in you trying,: Dallen said in unprompted response to the thought. :I’ll guard you from here from anything nasty you wake up, assuming that you do. You really aren’t any farther away from me than if you were in your stable room and I was out in the Field.:
    Well, why not? And if nothing else, he could use the practice at meditation.
    He got the talisman out of his pocket, put it where he could see it in the firelight, made himself comfortable, and let his eyes rest on it while he unfocused his thoughts. If he had it right, things were not going to come to him if he forced them. He had to relax to let them through.
    The problem was, this was very boring.
    Other things kept intruding. A stem of hay was tickling one wrist. There seemed to be a harder spot under one buttock. The cave smelled dank. The howling wind was unnerving. And—
    “So, at last we meet!” said a soft voice that sounded uncannily familiar—but not in Valdemaran! He looked up in shock. A figure stepped out of the passage that went deeper into the hill. “I will bless rather than curse this wretched storm. It has been impossible to get you alone until now—Cousin Meric!”
    Mags froze and looked up at the face that stared down at him, lit by the flickering firelight.
    A face that was as familiar to him as his own.
    Because it was his own.

14
    M ags was paralyzed with fear and shock, as paralyzed as if he had drunk another dose of that potion that the assassin Levor had brewed for him. His heart pounded, and his chest felt tight. It was very hard to breathe. The stranger dropped down on his heels and regarded him curiously, with his head tilted a little to one side. He seemed entirely at ease. The firelight lit up one side of his face. It was a jarring experience, seeing what he usually saw in a mirror.
    No wonder all the assassins who had “recognized” Mags had been so startled. The likeness between them was unnerving. Why, they even wore their hair about the same length, he and the stranger!.
    Mags decided that staying very still was the best thing he could do right now. This, clearly, was the young man he had been mistaken for by all those assassins. Which meant he came from that clan of assassins. Which meant he probably was a highly trained assassin himself. No move was a good move right now. Any move could be interpreted as an attack, and . . . well, he didn’t much want to think about the consequences.
    :Look at his posture. He doesn’t mean any harm,: Dallen said instantly into his mind. He wondered how on earth Dallen could even think that! Just because the young man was relaxed didn’t mean he wasn’t about to do something awful. He could merely be so confident of his own abilities that he considered Mags no threat at all.
    “I don’t mean you any harm,” the young man said, echoing what Dallen had told Mags. He smiled a little, and it seemed to be a perfectly genuine smile. “Really, I could have murdered all of you a hundred times over before this, if I’d cared to. I’ve been studying you for quite some time now. Don’t feel bad, though; you’ve never had to deal with someone who has been trained from the cradle to do what I do.”
    “Uh . . .” Mags swallowed, his mouth very dry. “I . . . uh . . .”
    :He’s completely blocked my Mind-magic. How in the seven hells did he do that?.: Dallen was shocked to the core.
    Startled, Mags used his own Gift, only to realize with a start that so far as his Gift was concerned . . . there was no one in front of him. No one, and nothing. Was it possible that the stranger wasn’t there at all, that he was an illusion, or a spirit, or . . . wasn’t there supposed to be a Gift that let your spirit walk about while your body remained at home?
    “You’re not some sorta . . . Sending. Are you?” he managed. “Because . . . so far as me and Dallen are concerned, you aren’t here.”
    The young man laughed. “No, it’s this.” He reached into his shirt and pulled out a talisman identical to the one Mags had found. “If you were to put that one on and let it warm to your body, you would vanish from the Senses of the