Bastion

tale long in the making and long in telling. Your tale and mine. A tale of twins who married twins, and two cousins, one the elder—” he nodded at Mags “—and one the younger, by a mere moon. And I know it is a tale you will want to hear.”
    Jakyr must have been having fits by now. :Have you told Jakyr about this?: he asked Dallen. And got a surprising answer.
    :No.: Dallen was very firm on that. :It won’t do any good. He’ll die if he tries to get to you. This Bey fellow—let’s try something. Ask him to take off the talisman to prove his good will.:
    Mags looked the young man straight in the eyes. They were disconcertingly direct and honest and didn’t seem to belong to a hired killer. “You say you could’a killed me and didn’t, but it’s pretty obvious from everything that’s been goin’ on that your people want me alive fer some reason. So prove yourself. Take off that talisman, so me an’ Dallen can look at your mind.”
    “Dallen, yes! That is the horse-that-is-not-a-horse! And you can speak with him all the way to the next cave!” The young man chuckled with what seemed to be delight. “I will certainly oblige you. Unlike the men my father sent, I have taken pains to study you, you Heralds. I know you will not harm me unless and until I prove I intend to harm you.” And with that, he lifted the leather cord that held the talisman around his neck over his head and set it to one side. He looked at Mags expectantly, almost as if he thought Mags would react in some way.
    As the stone cooled, the young man became present in Mags’ mind. And Mags did react, not by startling, but by narrowing his eyes. “That’s one helluva trick,” he muttered, and skimmed the young man’s surface thoughts for anything nasty.
    Nothing. This young man was nothing like any of the others of “his kind” that Mags had encountered. Mags would never have known what he did—or claimed he did—just from the fairly cheerful tenor of his mind.
    Of course, there are killers who like to kill. They’re probably pretty cheerful about it, if it comes to that.
    :I went deeper than you, and I got nothing either,: Dallen admitted. :I think we should hear him out. He’s . . . very different.:
    Shadow and light played around Bey from the fire behind him. He should have seemed sinister, but his completely relaxed posture and half-smile made him the opposite. “I have been following you since you crossed the Karsite Border,” Bey said. “I studied you and the Heralds from afar while you were at the Throne Hall and Place of Studies. I was very, very careful. I left no trace of my passage. It was a good test of my skills, I think. Oh, my father does not know I have done this. Officially I am on my ‘wild year,’ when I am permitted to go anywhere I please and do anything I want, so that I will become jaded with the world and content to return to the House of Sleepgivers and take up my duties.” He laughed at that, as if it was some sort of joke. If it was, Mags didn’t get it. “I simply did not tell him that I did not trust the competence of those he sent after you. And it seems I was correct in my estimation.” He made a tsk ing sound, and shook his head. “To call them fools is to do perfectly respectable fools an injustice. But . . . all right, I am getting ahead of myself. Let me first tell you of your kin.”
    “It’s only fair to warn you I got no love for ’em,” Mags said dryly. This conversation was taking on a distinctly surreal quality. The howl of the blizzard in the distance, the warmth and crackle of the fire, the assassin acting as if he’d been invited for tea and a meat pie . . .
    “Nor do I blame you in the least,” Bey replied. “Here is the meat of the matter. The House of Sleepgivers is all that is left of a great clan. And yet, in another fashion, it is the culmination of a great clan. Or—would you rather I showed you?”
    “What do you mean?” Mags asked, warily.
    “You have the same Blessing as your father and your mother, so I have learned from following you, and so I would have assumed from your lineage,” Bey said, quite casually. “You are a Mindwalker. You can read thoughts as a scribe reads a scroll.” He spread his empty hands wide in an expansive gesture of welcome and acceptance. “So read mine.”
    Well, if that wasn’t a potential trap in the making, Mags didn’t know one. Mags shook his head. “And have you cosh me while I’m doin’ it,