He wished that they had been. He wished with all his might that Dallen had not saved him.
:No... : came the gasping mind-voice feebly. :... was worth it... :
But this was all his fault! He knew that going that hard and fast over the course was bad enough by day, and yet he had agreed to it! And it had been his mind that the Other had brushed against! He was too open, it was his fault, he must have let some shields down without realizing it. It was all, all his fault, and he could never say he was sorry enough to make up for this.
Limping, bruised, and bleeding heavily from a cut on his forehead, Mags followed, ignored by everyone intent on getting Dallen safely into his stall in a special small area at Healer’s Collegium, a little stable especially for injured Companions who were too badly hurt to be in their own stalls.
When, after an agonizingly long time, they finally reached the stable, it was to find the waiting stall already prepared. There was another sling arranged on the rafters above the stall, one with a pulley so that Dallen could be let down from time to time to sleep on his side. But now he was transferred to this sling, the big, patient horses were led away, heads nodding with each step they took. Healers swarmed over the Companion, properly setting his legs, then encasing them in strips of cloth dipped in plaster wound around and around them so there was no way for the broken bones to move. Then a bottle was thrust between Dallen’s teeth and he raised his head, head and neck trembling, so the contents poured down his throat. Then he set his chin down into a second sling so that his head didn’t have to dangle and let the drugs take over.
And slowly, for the first time since Dallen had Chosen him, Dallen’s Mind-presence faded from Mags’ mind, leaving only a vague and undefined something in the back of his head.
Mags curled up in a miserable heap on the straw in Dallen’s stall, crying silently. Dallen hung from the sling like a lifeless chunk of meat, and only the slow heaving of his sides and the vague presence still like an echo in the back of his mind gave him any indication that Dallen was even alive.
All he wanted to do was die. How could even a Companion survive something like this without being crippled for life? If he hadn’t been so... so stupid, so despondent, Dallen would never have suggested the reckless run. If he hadn’t been so careless as to let down his shields, even though he didn’t remember doing so, this wouldn’t have happened. If only he had insisted on not doing this at all, or insisted on stopping as soon as the last sun vanished, it wouldn’t have happened. It was all his fault.
A heavy, horrible silence hung over everything here, a silence that was not even broken by his sobbing. He had learned the hard way how to cry silently a long time ago. So when Lena came running into the stall, his presence took them both by surprise.
He sat up at the sound of frantically running footsteps, and turned toward the stall door, and Lena’s shocked face stopped the breath in his body and the sobs in his throat.
“Da—” she began, then registered his presence. Her face changed from anguished distress to—well, he couldn’t read it.
“Mags, what is wrong with you? How could you have been so horrible? You aren’t stupid, you knew better than to run that course in the dark! Why did you do this to Dallen?” burst out of her, her voice shrill with accusation. “Why did you hurt him?”
Well it looked as if he was not the only person to blame himself.
“I didn’ do it!” he snapped, without thinking, lashing back defensively. He went in an instant from anguished to angry. It sounded as if she thought he had taken a crowbar to Dallen’s legs! “It were a horrible accident! We was runnin’ obstacles! An—something—”
“Why were you running obstacles in the dark?” she retorted, interrupting him before he could tell her about the murderous mind he had brushed up against, her cheeks red with fury. “How stupid is that? What were you thinking, why did you make Dallen do that?”
“I didn’ make him do anything!” Mags shouted back, then glanced guiltily at the poor hanging Companion. If he hadn’t been so low, would Dallen ever have suggested such a thing? “ ’E was the one that said we should do it!”
“Did he want to, or were you so drowning in feeling sorry for yourself that he would do anything, no matter how stupid it was, to get you out of it?” she shouted back. “Bear was right! You don’t care about anything but yourself! You won’t even take responsibility for this! You’re horrible! You’re a horrible, horrible person and you probably are going to try and kill the King, because anyone that would do this to Dallen would do anything!”
He almost jumped up out of the straw and hit her. He did jump to his feet, and he had to fight with himself not to hit her, or grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled, or shove her to the ground. His hands clenched and unclenched, his chest heaved and hurt, and his head spun in circles.
And the awful thought went through his mind then that if Dallen died... if Dallen died, he wouldn’t care about anything. He would go crazy. If he could have to fight not to hurt Lena right now, there would be nothing holding him back if that happened. He’d just want everything else to hurt as much as he did. And no matter who it was that was in front of him at that moment—if they came at him the way Lena was now, there was no telling what he would do to them.
Maybe that was it. Maybe that was what the Foreseers had seen. The moment when he snapped and did the unthinkable.
Meanwhile words, awful, hurtful words poured out of his mouth, and he could do nothing to stop them. “Get out, ye worthless bint!” he screamed back at her. “Ye get in ’ere on the strength of yer pa’s reputation, an’ ye cain’t even sing a simple song in front of people wi’out sommun holdin’ yer hand an’ tellin’ ye wot ter do, an’ ye dare tell me all thet stuff? Ye close yersel’ in yer room an’ sulk fer days ev’time summat goes wrong, ye make half yer Collegium try and cosset ye back t’ actin’ like somethin’ other than a wee babby, an’ ye tell me I am th’ one thet on’y keers fer hisself? Ye tell me I am th’ selfish one? Aye, the world circles ’round poor wee Lena, an’ ain’t nothin’ else matters, not even though m’best friend broke both ’is legs savin’ me! ’Tis all ’bout you! Get out! Leave me alone!”
Her mouth hanging open, she stared at him, as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Then, with a sob that wrenched its way out of her chest, she whirled and ran for the door.
With an identical sob that felt as painful as it sounded, he dropped back down to the straw, sure that his cup of misery had overflowed.
He’d said unforgivable things to her. She would—no one would—ever forgive him, ever trust him again. The moment Amily found out what he had said, she would hate him forever. Everyone would hate him.
And rightly. He was destroying everything around him, as surely as if he was running about the Collegium with a knife, slashing everything he cared about to ribbons.
Maybe that awful thing that had brushed up against his mind wasn’t from outside; maybe it had been from inside him!
Maybe that wild rumor was true—and there was something hateful, malicious inside him! Maybe it—this thing that was the real Mags—had broken out for just a second, and he had seen and felt what he really was inside!
Blindly he ran for the door, and just as blindly tore down the path to his room. He stumbled and fell several times, picked himself up without a thought and kept running. He raced past the accusing eyes of the other Companions and into his room and slammed the door behind himself, locking it.