Bastion

Jakyr. Jakyr was handicapped by the fact that he really didn’t want to hurt the fellow, and the fight that ensued, though short, turned into something rather brutal. By the time it was over, the chair and table were good for nothing but kindling, the pottery in one of the cupboards and the basin and pitcher were shards, Jakyr had a black eye and bruises on his throat, and the only reason that the fight had ended at all was because Mags had managed to get behind the man and brain him with the flat of his own ax.
    After they’d bound him and shoved him into a corner, swept out the broken pottery and thrown the ruined furniture—and the lid on the bed box—into the woodpile, Jakyr woke the interloper up with a rude pail of ice-cold water from the little well to the face.
    The man spluttered into consciousness, tried to rise, discovered he was bound, and glowered at them.
    “I’m trying to be charitable here,” Jakyr said carefully, “but it’s damned difficult. What are you doing in a Herald’s Waystation?”
    “What are you doing in my house?” the man roared back.
    “It’s not your damned house!” shouted Jakyr.
    “Wait!” Mags interrupted, holding up a hand. “This ain’t gonna get us nowhere. Lemme Truth-Spell ’im.”
    Jakyr paused and blinked at Mags. “You’re right. We don’t have to get consent for the Truth Spell when we catch someone breaking the law.” He waved at their captive. “Do it, Mags.”
    It was Dallen, not one of the teachers at the Collegium, who had taught Mags the Truth Spell. Dallen had taught Mags practically everything he knew about his Gift, and since Mags had an exceptionally powerful Gift of Mind-magic, Mags could lay the strongest possible variation of the Truth Spell on a miscreant—or someone who simply wished his story to be believed. This version could compel the truth out of the person it was placed on, and more. It would compel them to tell the whole truth, blurt it out in fact, without needing specific questioning.
    This would be the first time Mags had ever put the Truth Spell on someone who wasn’t a fellow student, and it felt very odd to be doing so. Even odder was the part of the spell where you concentrated on a pair of . . . eyes. He actually saw the eyes hovering over the miscreant’s head for a moment, and from Jakyr’s start, so did the Herald.
    Then they blinked out, and the blue aura of the Spell enveloped the man.
    Mags could not help thinking, though, as Jakyr moved in and took his place to question the man, about the eyes. Because the assassin’s magician who had gone mad had babbled about eyes watching him. Were these . . . the same eyes?
    He didn’t get a chance to think about it for long, however, as Jakyr barked, “What are you doing here?”
    “This is my home!” the man snarled back. “My father gave it to me! What the hell do you think I’m doing here?”

11
    “N ow what do we do?” Mags asked aloud. The man had finished ranting, he had dismissed the Truth Spell, and they had gagged him because he still kept ranting about “his house” and “his rights.” He was sitting on the edge of the empty bed box, and stared up at Jakyr, hoping that the senior Herald had an answer.
    “I confess I am at a loss,” said Jakyr, staring down at the man, who glared back at him and issued muffled and incoherent sounds from behind his gag. “We clearly have a problem here. This should not have happened. At all. Someone at that village—what is it?”
    “Therian,” Mags said, consulting the map. He wasn’t surprised that the name had flown out of Jakyr’s mind; it had gone from his as well. What should have been a routine, if somewhat irritating, Circuit was turning into something unexpected and ugly.
    “Someone at Therian thinks he has the right to give away Crown property, and I will be unsurprised to discover it is the Headman, given the general attitude out here.” Jakyr paced back and forth—even though there wasn’t a lot of room to pace in. The man continued to glare. Jakyr continued to ignore him. “He couldn’t do that unless one of two conditions obtains. Either the rest of his village doesn’t know, or the rest of his village is convinced they don’t have to obey the law. If it’s the first, we can probably come down like the Wrath of the Gods Themselves and frighten them all into appropriate behavior—probably even get the Headman dismissed. If it’s the second, we have a real problem on our hands.