So why—
Mags didn’t dare pause, for Temper, acting with that terrible urgency impelling him, was making his way from shadow to shadow with a speed that Mags could scarcely believe. The only possible way Mags had of trying to contact anyone up at the Collegium was to stop and concentrate, but he didn’t dare stop. If he did, he’d lose the man; if he lost the man and couldn’t say where or how the man was going to get in, the only choice would be to rouse the Collegium. If he did that, Temper would see and know that he had somehow been exposed, and he would vanish again. All that Mags could do for the moment was to stick with him, and hope that once they were on the grounds he could get hold of someone to raise a quiet alarm and ambush Temper as he searched for the book—the book—why the book? Why that book?
Then, like a gift, another set of images flashed across his mind and into Mags’ grasp. And suddenly Mags knew why he wanted it. The thoughts were carried on waves of frustration and despair.
The book was the key to a cipher he, and the rest, were using to communicate with their superiors.
It was nearly unbreakable too, unless you had the key.
The key was simple enough. Every fortnight it would change to the next set of lines in the given poem. Letters of the alphabet were assigned to the letters in those lines. There were further complications involving maths that Mags barely glimpsed and which made his head spin, but the basis was the changing lines of poetry in that book.
The irony was, since no one in Haven had had any idea that they were getting secret orders—from whom? Mags couldn’t tell, that wasn’t in Temper’s surface-thoughts—the orders probably could have been written plainly.
The problem was, Temper and his cohorts had come to the end of the poem they were using. The last message gave the number of the page the next one would be on. But they hadn’t memorized that, so even if they had memorized all the poems in the book, the odds of then remembering which one was on which page was rather slim.
And they couldn’t tell that to their masters. The message delivery all went one way. Nor was there any possibility of getting another copy of the book.
Not without going home. And anyone going home to report such failure would be killed. There was very little tolerance for mistakes; none at all for a mistake like this one.
The man Mags called “Temper” slowed his pace.
They were now among the homes of the well-to-do. There was great danger of being spotted here, there were many patrols of both the Watch and the Guard, and they were more alert to subtle signs of an interloper than were the ones down deeper into Haven, who watched mostly for overt violations of the law and crimes being committed openly on the streets. This was how Mags had gotten away with purloining so many dinners. Innkeepers and householders were expected to see to their own security. After all, there were only so many Watchmen and Guards, and far too many windows, doors, and roof-hatches.
Ah, but here Mags had the advantage. He knew this part of Haven much better than Temper did. Now he could run ahead, while Temper only skulked—
Or so he thought.
To his chagrin and incredulity, he sensed Temper straighten, take a folded, sealed packet out of a pocket, and with that in his hand, stride confidently up the middle of the road. He was a man with a message to deliver, and no one was going to look at him twice. No, Mags would have to skulk; not even in the darkness was he going to pass as someone who belonged up here, as ragged and filthy as he was.
At least he knew the area; he knew who had dogs, who had private guards, whether or not those guards were vigilant. So he followed Temper just out of sight, keeping walls and other obstructions between himself and the foreign agent, so that if Temper heard the sound of Mags’ bare feet on the pavement, he’d see nothing if he turned to look.
He didn’t seem to hear anything, however, and Mags kept up a running, mostly inarticulate prayer that he wouldn’t.
Mags was very aware of the nearness of the Palace, the looming walls that surrounded it, and that they were drawing nearer to it with every moment. There was an open space, officially designated as a park, between the last of the Great Manors and the walls around the Palace and Collegia.
Here, the man paused; his mind closed to Mags’ as he searched intently for something. This was the back of the Palace, not far from Companions’ Field. There was nothing like a gate here; surely he wasn’t going to try and get over the wall!
Even as Mags watched, that was exactly what he did.
He raced across the open lawn, and if Mags hadn’t been watching him, he would never have seen him go. He took advantage of a cloud passing over the moon to run to the wall in that moving shadow.
Then, impossibly, he jumped for the wall and scuttled up it like a spider, disappearing over the top.
With a spasm of despair, Mags followed in his wake.
Chapter18
MAGS discovered why Temper had chosen that particular spot to go over the wall. A massive vine of some sort had grown up along it—it had rightfully been killed, but someone had carelessly left the main stem embedded in the wall. It was just as good as a ladder.
That must have been how he and his cohorts had fled the Palace in the first place, after the blizzard. Whoever had left this thing here was going to get the sack at least—
But that would be later. Right now—
Mags tumbled over the top of the wall and rolled to land. Temper had a good lead on him now. They were right at the edge of Companion’s Field. From Temper’s fleeting thoughts, he had a good many paces lead over Mags at this point. Mags hurried to narrow that lead, and spotted the man—the shadow, rather, if he hadn’t been watching Temper’s thoughts, he wouldn’t have known it was a man—hiding in the shadow of the end of the stable that contained Mags’ own room. Mags took cover himself, and waited for Temper to make the next move.
But if ’e goes straight fer the Guard Archives, I kin get t’ th’ stable, an’ get one’a the other Companions t’ wake up ’is Herald and—
And that was when it all went horribly wrong.
Temper was in sight of the Companion’s stable. His mind flashed over with that unholy glee and excitement, and the image of what he was going to do to distract everyone from his raid on the Archives branded itself into Mags’ mind.
He was going to barricade the doors, and set fire to the Companions’ Stable.
Horror washed over Mags. Oh, the others would be able to get out—they could batter the wooden doors down, and no Companion was going to be as terrified by fire as a horse. But Dallen couldn’t. Dallen was drugged and the next thing to immobile. He would be trapped in there while the stable burned around him. The moment the others broke the doors down, flaming debris would fly inside, setting fire to all that straw and hay—
He’d be trapped, helpless.
Terror ripped through Mags like a lightning strike; there was no time to spare, no time to use Mindspeech to wake the people he knew, no time to do anything except rouse everyone his thoughts could reach, and fast. Except he didn’t know how to do that the way that, say, Rolan did it. He could “shout,” but only to the limited number of people he knew. So he did what he had been told, over and over again, never to do.
He dropped his shields. All of them, even the ones that had been up and protecting him before he even knew there was such a thing as a Gift, before he really knew there was much of a world outside the mine. Everything went down, so that he, in turn, could reach everyone.
And as the dozens, hundreds of minds up here rushed in on him, battering him from all sides, he screamed his warning into them. Even into the mind of Temper, who was frozen in place for a moment as the image of what he had intended to do came flooding back at him, laden with a burden of warning, panic, and terror.