:Tell them the weapons might be poisoned:
Gulping, Mags did so. The big man looked angry, the redhead narrowed his eyes, the third shrugged, and the fourth smiled grimly.
Mags looked at the fourth curiously. The man stared back at him, hard. Slowly, Mags sensed a thin mental voice. It won’t be the first time we’ve handled cowards of that sort, boy. You just see to it that you don’t get scratched.
Mags nodded.
:All right. We are getting something in place. Stand up carefully and wait for my signal.:
They got to their feet, one at a time, so slowly and carefully that even their clothing didn’t whisper. And they waited in the semidarkness, Mags feeling ready to scream with the tension, as a tuneless humming threaded its way toward them from the back of the room.
Finally—
:Now. But don’t charge him. Walk out until he can just see five of you, but not who you are. And let him hear your footsteps.:
Mags relayed that. And at his signal, they moved forward, soft footfalls muffled by the shelves and boxes all around them. They rounded the last shelf to find the strange man on his feet, waiting for them, a knife balanced on the tip of one finger.
:Now you step into the light, Mags.:
Mags did so, his hand clutched to his sword hilt.
The man stared at him.
“Not YOU!” he screamed. “YOU are not supposed to be here!”
He threw the knife, but Mags was already anticipating the action, and ducked back behind the shelf. The knife thudded into the wall and stuck there, quivering, as the man grabbed a handful more, and sent them flashing after the first. Mags showed himself just long enough for the man to see he was untouched, then jumped back into shelter again.
This time the man was tempted enough to rush them. And he was faster, a lot faster, than anyone Mags had fought before.
For a moment his mind raced in panic. But then, a curious calm came over him.
Don’t attack. Just evade. He didn’t have to fight back—the other four would do that for him. All he had to do was to keep from getting hit. And with his mind open to the others, he could sense what they were going to do, where they were going. All he needed to do was to move with that.
And then, as he ducked and sidestepped, used his sword to deflect an oncoming blow and slid under it, he saw what Dallen had been talking about.
A door in the rear of the building slid stealthily open, and through it came—
Barrett.
Barrett and his gang of pranksters, one of whom without a doubt must have been good enough to pick that lock.
Mags did not allow himself to get distracted, but as he danced his way out of the man’s reach, he got glimpses of the gang slowly hauling Bear, chair and all, toward the door.
Meanwhile it was all he could do to avoid the whirling maelstrom of blades that the man had become. He knew, instinctively, that he had to keep the killer’s attention; that if the man got sight of Bear being taken out, it would be all over. So he danced and capered as he never had in all of his life, allowing his terror to show on his face. He sensed that terror was a better lure than defiance or bravado. Which was just as well, because he was so frightened now that he couldn’t have squeaked out a single challenge or boast.
And then—at last—the gang reached the door.
A forest of arms reached forward, grabbed them all, and yanked them out of sight.
The door slammed.
The killer whirled.
“It’s over, mate,” the redhead said. “You might as well—” Give yourself up, was what the Guard was probably going to say. But he never got the chance to finish the sentence. With a scream of outrage, the killer threw away all his weapons, turned, and ran himself onto the redheaded Guard’s sword.
Epilogue
“I c’n think’a better ways t’ get a holiday,” Mags said weakly.
Bear nodded as a servant girl handed him a dose of his medicine. “Wouldn’t have been my choice either,” he replied.
They were not in the Collegium; they had been set up in a luxurious suite of rooms in the Palace. The very rooms, in fact, that had been occupied by the arrogant foreigners.
“Still ... this’s better than my room or the stables,” Bear continued. “And nobody’s going to come all the way over here to ask me some stupid question about herbs that they can look up the answer to.”
He sounded more than a bit cross, and Mags didn’t blame him. Exactly that sort of thing was why he and Bear had been moved over here in the first place.
Bear was still not supposed to leave his bed or couch unless he had to, but Mags was under no such restrictions, and spent much of their first day here searching the room for anything the foreigners might have hidden there.
He knew of course, that far more competent people than he had already gone over the place; if they had actually found anything useful, he and Bear would be the last people to be told. But he couldn’t help hoping he’d find something overlooked. After all, they had left in a terrible hurry, so much so that it was hard to tell if they had taken anything with them.
“No luck with the beds, I suppose?”
Mags shook his head. He had gone over the bedsteads in meticulous detail, examining every seam, every place where the finish seemed to be a bit rougher than it should be, every place where even the tiniest of objects could have been hidden. He had found nothing, of course, and it was no use to look in the mattresses and pillows as he was certain those had been replaced and taken apart before he and Bear were brought here. In fact, it seemed that only a few innocuous things had been left behind by the first group of searchers.
“Do you ever wonder if those men were even from the country they claimed to be from?” Bear asked.
“I s’pose they could be.” He shook his head. “Not sure it matters.”
“And why did they wait a whole day after that madman killed himself to leave?” Bear continued. Clearly, he had forgotten that he had asked that question already, not once but several times. It was the effect of the medicine, Mags had been assured—just as he had been told that he was here with Bear as much to keep an eye on his friend and provide him with company as to recuperate himself. He didn’t mind. In fact, he was rather pleased that they trusted him so much.
“I reckon—I reckon they had somethin’ they needed t’ get or someone they needed t’ talk to.” Truth was, he didn’t know, and really couldn’t hazard a guess, but Bear seemed to find the answer satisfactory.
“And how could they get out and not be seen?” Bear continued—as he always did.
“Oh, they went over th’ wall. Guards found the place even afore anyone knowed it was them that went.” That had been all over the Palace and from there to the Collegia in very short order.
“They must have been better in snow than they made out.” Bear sighed. “I wish I had paid more attention when I was treating them.”
“I wisht I had paid more attention to ’em in general.” Every tiny bit Mags had observed had been gone over by so many people that they all blurred together in his memory. “Mebbe somethin’ would have tol’ us how t’ catch ’em.”