Mags got the thoughts just like that, as a kind of poem. Which... maybe made sense, since almost all the books the foreigners had left behind them had been of poetry.
“He’s babblin’ about things that ain’t there, how they stare at ’im and won’t go ’way, how they’ve even got inside ’im,” Mags reported with confidence. “Tha’s basically it. Same thing, over an’ over. I think he thinks th’ words keep th’ eyes outa his head. ’E’s still seein’ things w’ eyes starin’ at ’im, an’ more of ’em all the time. ’E’s jest scared ’bout to death.”
“That’s more than anyone else got from him,” Bear said thoughtfully. “And—yes, unless I drug him to sleep, he’s always frightened, his heart is always racing. So he’s still on about the eyes. I don’t think there’s any doubt Lena was right. I am going to have to dig deeper in the Archives.”
“Fer what?”
“Something that will shut off—well, whatever it is that he has that is attracting these things,” Bear said.
Mags blinked at him. “Ye mean, ye think he ain’t seein’ things that ain’t there, ’e’s seein’ things that are?”
“Best explanation I can come up with,” Bear replied. “I’ve tried just about everything else that would shut down a hallucination. So what’s left? They aren’t hallucinations.”
“Huh,” said Mags.
They went out, leaving the poor man to his horde of invisible tormentors.
Chapter12
THE moment Mags woke up, he knew by the sinking feeling in his chest that there was trouble, and it was aimed at him. Again. And once he knew that, he could feel it all over again, that pressure of unfriendly, accusatory regard out there.
:Wha’ happened whiles I was asleep?: he asked Dallen immediately. He squeezed his eyes closed, forcing down the nausea that this called up in him. Dear gods, he hated, hated this. In a way it was worse than anything he’d endured at the mine. There, at least, no one had actually hated him.
:The damned Foreseers had more of their visions,: Dallen replied with disgust. :Still just as vague, except that one of them said he saw you, specifically, with your hands covered in blood, and nothing but you. And it was someone who’d come to see the Kirball game and knows what you look like, so we can’t wonder if it is a case of mistaken identity. So it’s all to do all over again.:
Mags tightened his jaw. :Dammit.: He felt his spirits sinking lower, felt that certainty that it just wasn’t even worth getting out of bed anymore. :Knew it couldn’ last.:
Maybe what he ought to do is just give in to the depression and curl up in bed and never get out again.
:That’s all right, we’ll weather this. Just do as you did before. Keep quiet and stick with the team. They all know you, better than anyone but me. You can do this, Mags, don’t let these fools make you give up. As long as your team is around you, no one will do or probably even say anything.: If Dallen was picking up on his despair, the Companion wasn’t actually addressing it directly.
:But they’ll think it,: Mags replied, the nausea, the ache, all coming back. :An’ they’ll talk about it behind m’ back.:
He got the sense that Dallen would like to help, but had no idea how to. It was the same old thing all over again, with the difference that this time he’d been “seen” with blood on his hands. Blood on his hands? Was it a metaphor? If it was, then in a sense every Herald had or would have blood on his hands. They were often responsible for life and death decisions. Their judgments condemned people. What they uncovered condemned people. Messages they carried condemned people.
And of course, they fought in battles alongside the Guard. That, after all, was what Kirball was about, preparation for war. So all Heralds would have blood on their hands, eventually.
For that matter, he’d already been responsible for people dying. There were the murdered mine kids he hadn’t been able to prove were even dead. And most of all there was that crazy killer that had kidnapped Bear. That man was dead literally at his hands. Who was to say that this so-called vision wasn’t about the past rather than about the future?
It was so unfair.
For a long, long time he contemplated the idea of just not bothering anymore, of turning his face to the wall and telling the whole world to hang.
But... Dallen wouldn’t let him. And anyway, if he just sank into depression and gave up, what would that do to Dallen? That would pile being unfair to the one creature that had always been good to him on top of the general unfairness of the universe.
He dragged himself out of bed reluctantly, and prepared to face the ordeal of breakfast.
It was not quite the ordeal it had been the first time all those wretched Foreseers had spread their stories, since the Trainees of his team had already gotten wind of what was up, and had filled in the others as they waited for Mags. But once again, he was getting the suspicious looks, and once again, certain folk who were dubious of anything that was not Valdemaran were allowing their prejudices free range.
How stupid was that? Why should where your parents came from have anything to do with whether you were a good or a bad person? Especially when you couldn’t even remember them?
Unfairness piled on top of unfairness.
He managed to get through the day, unconsciously taking that hunched-over, defensive, hunted posture the whole time. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until he straightened up for Kirball practice and felt his muscles unkink. But that didn’t stop his mind from sending his body right into that same posture again once practice was over.
Over the next two days, things remained the same, with the same waking-to-sleeping tension. The only good thing was that the weather was warming up enough that when he wasn’t in class or at practice, he could study out of doors. So that was where he took his books and stayed until there wasn’t enough light to read by, hidden in some little cluster of bushes in Companion’s Field. That kept him out of his room in the stable, where he would sense the thoughts of everyone who came near the stable.
It was very peaceful out there. Any sounds from the Palace and Collegia were muffled, any spilled-over thoughts too distant to bother him.
Actually, it was more than peaceful—even though it was a bit lonely. Still, he’d always been lonely, and only during the past half-year had he been anything but lonely. You just didn’t make friends at the mine. Even the kiddies he’d sporadically helped hadn’t been friends.
As he packed up his books to go back to his room and try to sleep, he thought about that. This time last year, he was at the mine. He remembered very well how he had welcomed the warmth after the killing cold, and welcomed other things too—because spring meant all sorts of things were edible that were not, later. And if you could get away into some of the forest around the mine and you knew what to look for, you could find them.
Strange how last spring he had been as close as he ever got at the mine to being happy. But he’d had a belly full of greens almost every night, and back at the mine, a full belly meant you were happy. Lion’s-tooth was sweet when it first came up, not bitter, and it was one of the heartiest weeds there was, so there was a lot of it. Cattail root was delicious, but impossible to harvest in the winter unless you wanted your feet frozen solid, and you had to be sure you were getting it, and not water iris, which was poisonous. There were tiny wild onions too, mushrooms (though you had to be careful of those as well), sorrel, the tips of birch twigs, brooklime, clover, cow-pea, mustard, violets, pigweed, sow-thistle, jewel-weed, shepherd’s purse, pokeberry, plaintain, knotweed, and very young nettles. There were other things you could eat if they were cooked, but how could any of the mine-slaves get a fire, much less a pot? So they had to confine themselves to what could be eaten raw.