Bastion

dark dream he had been struggling through. But when he glanced up through gummy eyes, a handsome set of gleaming white teeth smiled down at him out of the shadow-shape looming over him.
    There was no mistaking those teeth.
    An irrelevant thought intruded through all his unhappiness. Why does he have to be handsomer than me?
    “Bey!” he exclaimed, trying to scramble to his feet and nearly falling down because his left hand and leg had gone numb.
    “Ehu! Not so fast, cousin!” the Sleepgiver laughed softly, catching him before he fell and steadying him. “There, sit yourself back down again. We have a great deal to discuss.”
    The cavern was almost completely dark; the fire had burned down to low flames over coals. Bey tossed a couple of logs on the coals; the bark caught and flared, giving a little more light. Mags could see Dallen and Jermayan, heads up, watching them. No one else seemed to have awakened.
    But Bey’s words only reminded Mags of what he was going to have to do at dawn. “Not much to discuss,” he said, dully, sitting back down again and rubbing his leg and hand to get the prickles out. “I gotta give myself up. You know that, I know that, and there’s not much anybody can do about it. Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d come with me so you can keep ’em from trying to hang one of those spirit-holders around my neck. But—”
    “Not so fast, my cousin,” Bey interrupted, with a gesture of negation. He sat down next to Mags. “Speak quietly. I would not like to waken your friends until we have a plan, you and I. I said, we have a great deal to discuss. I am certainly not going to let you walk out to those . . . toads. They would not heed me, for I am not the heir yet, and they would most certainly hang one of the Ancestor Stones about your neck, aye, and dose you with the herbs until you purged yourself of everything useful to me!” He scowled. “You will do me no good if your Blessing is destroyed by such handling. So I am here to keep you out of their hands.”
    “Wh—what?” Mags could hardly believe what he was hearing.
    “When I left you, I went outside of the caves for the first time since I arrived here. I was not pleased to see my countrymen on the heights above, and particularly not pleased to see those countrymen. The only thing that pleased me—” the teeth shone again “—was to know how miserable the last storm had made them. So! I crept about their camp, less than a shadow, and I learned much. I watched them send their message and—I am sorry I could not prevent this—I saw them strike down your friend.”
    “But—what do you think I can do?” Mags asked.
    “You and I have shared minds. Therefore, you have knowledge of my training. You are not quite the equal of me, but you are ten times the Sleepgiver of any of those dogs outside.” Bey’s tone was arrogant, but Mags was not about to argue with him, not with hope unlooked-for in his hands. “Your friend, who became nearly a spitted fowl—how fares he?”
    “He’s hurt, but he’ll live,” Mags said. Bey nodded.
    “That is well. He is rash. If he is hurt, we can put him with the others of your friends who are no help to us. The most secure place is that cave wherein you bathe in steam. A good custom that; I adopted it, and I think I shall take it with me. We should put them there and pile wood before it to act as a bulwark. They can fire over that at need.” Bey held up a finger. “Your mate. She is useful. I have seen her shoot.” He held up another. “The doctor-of-herbs. He is also useful. His mate and the old singer, they are not. They shall be with your wounded friend, while you and I dispose of those inconvenient dogs outside, and your mate and the doctor stand ready.”
    Mags gaped at him. After all of the emphasis the Sleepgivers had put on blood relations—he could scarcely believe the words coming out of Bey’s mouth. “But—those are your kinsmen!” he stammered.
    Bey made a little motion with his hands, as if he was brushing away a bug. “Not that close. Cousins of cousins of cousins of cousins, and probably born of slave women. Idiots. And they follow a faction that would keep to the old, bad ways. This is as good a way as any to be rid of them.”
    Mags felt a tiny chill down his back at the casual way that Bey had just dismissed the murder of his own countrymen . . . but he couldn’t let that stop him. Nevertheless, it was . . . telling. Bey was, in his own way,