Bastion

sort of beast show. And the dancing bears he had seen, so cruelly shackled and goaded, made him shudder with revulsion.
    Once outside the tent, they realized they had been in there longer than they had thought; Bear’s stomach actually growled, and they all laughed as Bear blushed.
    “Well, that says what we’ll be doing next,” Amily declared.

3
    T he quartet caught a wagon back up the Hill that left well after sunset, but also well before the Fair closed for the night. It had been a wonderful day; they had eaten odd and tasty things, seen a trained-horse exhibition put on by genuine Shin’a’in horse traders, enjoyed one of the multiact shows with acrobats, rope dancers, and people who had climbed and disported themselves on poles held up by handlers, and one who had done amazing things on silk scarves hung from the top of the tent. They were pleasantly tired, but before too long, Mags knew, they would start to feel unpleasantlyweary and begin to be quarrelsome. There would be a huge rush for the last wagons, and almost certainly some people were going to wind up walking back. He put that to the others, and they all agreed that they might as well make their way back to the Collegia.
    It was a good decision; the wagon was almost empty, and they were tired enough by the time they reached the pickup point that their purchases were beginning to feel very heavy.
    Someone had finally taken pity on the Trainees and put a layer of fresh hay in the bottom of this wagon, so the ride back up was much more comfortable than the ride down.
    Mags had been able to lose himself in all the activities of the day, but now that it was all over, he found his mind going over and over the conundrum of his origin—and the worries over what it meant. Now that he knew part of it . . . it was almost more frustrating—and worrying—than when he had known nothing.
    And yet, he could not help thinking that until he knew completely who he had been, he would never be sure what was driving his decisions. And if he didn’t know what was driving them, how could he be sure they were good decisions?
    The other three chattered away for almost half the journey before they finally noticed he hadn’t said anything. “You’re very quiet,” said Amily, and squeezed his arm affectionately. “It’s all right. If we’re bothering you, just say so.”
    “Not bothering me,” he replied, and after a moment he decided to say more. “But . . . I’m kind of in a quandary, here. It’s like I’m on a map, but I only generally know where I’ve been, so I’m not sure where to go next. I’ve got no direction. You all, you know exactly who you are and what you come from. Now, I kind of know, but it’s all fragments. It’s not helping much.”
    “Well, you know what they say,” Lena said, after a long silence. “I mean, it’s even in a song. ‘Lost and Found,’ I know you’ve heard me sing it before.”
    He nodded.
    “Nothing’s ever really lost; it can always be found again if you look hard enough. You can find all about your whole past if you decide you want to. Look what you’ve already found out! And I think you already know the worst at this point, and it’s not so bad, really. So what? You come from some sort of clan of assassins, which doesn’t make you an assassin, or a traitor, but when you think about it, all the things that make a good assassin are the same things that will make you really useful to the King and Nikolas. Right?” She patted his knee. “The rest of what’s lost is just details. Details you really ought to find out but still, details. And you actually do have a direction. You know exactly what my father is training you for.”
    Well, that was true, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t agree with it. It would be interesting work, and certainly needful work. But by the same token, this made him profoundly uneasy. Perhaps an assassin’s skills would make him a good spy. But they would also make him a good assassin. What if things started to blur? What if he found himself murdering someone and justifying it to himself and others?
    :Nonsense. You have me,: Dallen said firmly, before he could get himself wrought up. :Whatever gave you the idea that I’d let you do something like that?:
    He felt rather stupid for a moment. Dallen was his moral compass, just as every Companion was every Herald’s moral compass. As long as he had Dallen, he would be all right—and if for some reason he no longer had Dallen,