Bastion

with Amily, with his friends. But on the other hand—he’d been kidnapped practically right under their noses. All right, he had been taken from within Haven, not the inside the Palace walls, but . . . the assassins had penetrated the Palace grounds before. They could again. Now Mags truly knew what he was up against in their skills, and he was not going to underestimate them.
    Was he just bringing danger back with him?
    :At least you know after that dust-up with the Karsites, the assassins are not going to be tendering their services there anymore,: Dallen said, in an effort to comfort him. It was a good effort . . . and what Dallen had said was true. The Karsite priests who had hired the men who had taken him had no idea just what it was they had contracted with. When their goals turned mutually exclusive, well, it was not the Karsites who had triumphed, at least not as far as Mags had been able to tell.
    :I don’ think they were lyin’ when they burned up the contract,: he replied, as the street took another turn upward, and the neighborhood became more genteel, with fewer shops and larger homes. That had been why he’d allowed himself to be infected with those dreadful memories. It had been a bit of a devil’s bargain, but the only one he could see his way clear to making at the time.
    I won’t fight you if you pledge to leave Valdemar in peace and never attack the Royal Family and the Heralds again.
    At the time, there was no prospect of rescue. The contract with the Karsites was still to be fulfilled, and he had known that his kidnappers would fulfill it unless he gave them a reason not to.
    At the time, all he could think of was that his duty as a Herald was to sacrifice himself to protect the Kingdom. So he had made his offer, hoping that not fighting was enough of an incentive to them that they would agree to it.
    They had. He still was not entirely certain why , except that maybe their faith in their talisman wasn’t all that strong. The fact that he hadn’t resisted, and had still managed to remain himself, might very well be the proof that their form of coercive Mind-magic couldn’t hold against someone who had training in the Heralds’ form.
    :An’ I kept the letter of the bargain.: He had only pledged not to fight. He’d never pledged not to escape if he got the chance.
    Plus . . . well . . . the Karsites had managed to thoroughly and completely muck things up for themselves by first aggressively confronting, then actually attacking the kidnappers. Mags had the notion that even if he’d escaped, his captors would be in no hurry to make another bargain with anyone as duplicitous as the Karsites.
    So at least there was that much. He might still be in danger, but at least the Kingdom and its leaders were no longer in jeopardy from that source.
    :I don’t think they could lie about that,: Dallen opined. :I don’t think it would ever occur to them to outright lie. The thing I picked out of those memories is that they are absolutely bound by their contracts and pledges unless the person they’ve contracted with violates the agreement first. Which the Karsites did. Who knows? Maybe they’d already seen that the Karsites were not to be trusted and counted on the priests violating the agreement before it became an issue. I suppose that is only logical. Who would trust a clan of assassins to keep their bargains and not get bought out if they didn’t have a stellar reputation? If you can call a reputation for that sort of thing “stellar.”:
    Mags considered that. :Yes, but . . . they made me that promise before the Karsite priests attacked them.:
    Dallen was silent. :That’s true . . . but I still don’t think they are going to renege on what they promised you. Valdemar turned out to be a lot nastier to deal with than any of them expected. And we know now that they want you, specifically. Taking contracts from the Karsites was just a means to finance their deeper scheme, and they’ve discovered that the Karsites will break their word without a second thought.:
    Mags was not so sure about that . . . but then again, it was Dallen who had been sifting through his memories. Right now, the only things he could remember clearly were ones that would actually be useful to him. Then there were things that were muddy—like the attitudes these people had. And Dallen had just said there were things he had shoved away so hard he couldn’t consciously remember them at all.
    Dallen