If that happened... .
Well, Mags would find them and kill them, or die trying.
If Amily’s kidnapping had affected only those who loved her, it would have been hideous, but the situation was being made even worse by the fact that it was getting political, with one faction demanding that Nikolas resign his position (as if he could!), another faction spinning hysterical suppositions about what demands the kidnappers were going to make, and a third faction quite ready, willing, and able to declare war on Karse and take the Army across the Border.
“And we all know how well that works,” Sedric had said, dryly. “Always supposing that the goal is to get an innocent girl slaughtered and send her father and probably a good portion of the Heraldic Circle insane.”
By the time the third day of Amily’s captivity dawned, every possible wild scheme had been floated, from sending an army of bloodhounds (which they didn’t have) to quarter Haven, to turning out and searching every single building within the boundary.
Mags was nursing a cup of tea—which was just about all he could manage—when Bear finally turned up and sat down beside him.
“Talk to me,” Bear demanded. “Seriously. Talk to me.”
Mags shook his head; Bear grabbed him by the shoulder. “Look,” he said sharply. “I’m not asking you to talk to me because I want to go all softy oozy-woozy-oo on you and pat you on the shoulder and go ‘there there.’ I want you to talk to me because you haven’t offered up any ideas, but I know you, Mags, and I know there are ideas in there.”
“Half-ideers, mebbe,” he muttered, staring down at the tea.
“That’s the point. They’re half ideas because they’re still in there.” Bear tapped Mags’ forehead. “If you talk about them, you’ll move them outside into the light, you’ll be able to get a good look at them, and then you can turn them into whole ideas. But you can’t do that till you get them out.”
“Right,” Mags replied, dispiritedly. “ ’Cause I’m so good at thet.”
Bear smacked him in the shoulder. Hard. More than hard enough to make all those bruises shout in protest. “Stop it,” Bear said angrily. “Or I swear by every god there is, I will beat you senseless.”
The mere idea of Bear even trying to beat him senseless, much less succeeding, finally roused Mags out of his lethargy. He sighed. “Aight. Look. Prollem is, we don’ know where they got ’er. We know they ain’t left Haven, ’cause a flea couldn’ leave Haven right now. The whole edge of city locked down when I yelled. So they gotter be in Haven, on’y nobody kin find ’er, an nobody kin find them. It’s them shields. I ain’t niver seen anythin’ like ’em. They—like—clamped down, like a river clam, when I got too near ’em, an’ thet’s made them Karsite bastards so’s nobody kin find ’em. It’s like they don’ exist.”
Bear’s brow furrowed as he was joined by a dispirited Lena. “But they don’t have a shield on Amily, do they?”
Mags shrugged. “I cain’t find ’er, an neither kin ’er pa. Iffen they drugged ’er th’ way they drugged you, there ain’t much there t’find anyroad.”
Bear nodded earnestly. “Well... I don’t know... if you can’t find her and you can’t find them, can you find someone who’s thinking about her or them?” Then he shook his head. “No, forget I said that. Practically everyone is thinking about her. That won’t help.”
If only there were a way to find those shields . . .
A vague memory crossed his mind. Something to do with... he sat up straight.
Bear looked at him with speculation, but he said nothing.
::Dallen. What’s thet stone?:: he demanded.
He sensed Dallen wincing. ::It’s... easier to say what it isn’t. It’s not alive, and it’s not dead. It can’t think, but it stores memories. And the reason it’s all those things is because... .if all of the Heralds and Companions are like a giant spiderweb, the stone is the hub. In a sense, it’s all of us, all of us that are, and all of us that ever were.::
::So if anybody’d ever seen anythin’ like them shields, then how t’find ’em’d be i’ th’ stone?:: he demanded.
::Yes, but . . .:: Dallen’s tone grew desperate. ::It was never intended to be used that way. All of the connections and the memories, that’s an accident.::
::Am I gonna hurt it iffen I go pokin’ ‘ round i’ there?::
::No... but it can hurt you.::
Mags took a long, deep breath. ::An’ iffen I don’t? How many people git hurt then?::
There was a long, long silence.
::Go to the stone. Take Bear and Lena. Tell Bear to bring his emergency kit. I’m getting some people who will meet you there.::
Waiting for them was Sedric, and Mags nearly backed out of the idea right then and there. Because... if using the stone to find out something could hurt him, that was acceptable. But hurting the Heir to the Throne?
Sedric raised an eyebrow at the look on Mags’ face. “Did I grow a second head without noticing?”
Mags clenched his teeth. “Puttin’ me i’ danger’s one thing. Puttin’ you i’—”
“Stop right there. Nobody is putting me in danger. This is what we are going to do—” Sedric stopped and snorted. “We don’t need to stand here in the open corridor and blabber about this. First, we are going to go in there and sit down. Then I will tell you what we are going to do.”
Reluctantly, Mags opened the door to the little room and bowed the Heir inside. He and Bear and Lena followed.
They all took seats around the table, and Sedric closed the door. “Now, everyone get comfortable. Bear, you are here precisely because you are a Healer with no Gift, which means that no matter what happens, you won’t be affected. I have to tell you, son, your father has no clue how valuable that is; I’ve been running the Pelagir border, and a Healer you know isn’t going to get sucked into a bad situation because he has a powerful Gift is worth his weight in gold. Same on the Karsite Border; the Karsite demons go straight for the Gifted Healers, as if you were the ones with targets painted on you.”
Bear looked at him in amazement. “They do?”
Sedric nodded. “Now, since you aren’t Gifted, I don’t need to worry that if Mags gets sucked into the stone, you’ll follow. You’ll be making sure Mags doesn’t get into any trouble. If he starts to, it will be up to you to break him out of the state he’s in. I assume you know a number of ways to do that.”
Bear nodded soberly; he pulled off the shoulder bag that contained his emergency remedies and put it on the table, open and ready.
“Lena, you are here to help Bear extract Mags. As a Bard with projective powers, you can jar Mags loose by hitting him with emotion, even a projective vision if you can manage it. Meanwhile, I want you to look only at Bear, never at Mags, and doubly never at the stone.”
Lena actually brightened at that; Mags got the feeling that she had not only been feeling guilty, she had been feeling useless.