Valdemar 03 - [Collegium 01] - Foundation (42 page)

Mags frowned, then quickly put on a more pleasant expression. “Well, I'd do about anything for Bear,” he said.

“So I see.” The Archivist ate complacently. “I should like to reward that diligence if I may. Perhaps if you can give me an idea of what you are looking for in those records, I can do some delving for you when my other duties are complete.”

Mags was not as surprised as he might have been, because he was rather occupied with the question of why Bear had lied when he'd handed over the notes he had taken. “Sir, that'd be . . . real good of ye,” he said, hoping he sounded grateful and sincere. “Ain't no secret.” He described how he had been found, the raid of the Guard on the bandit strong-hold, and what little he could remember. The old man nodded. “So, nothing more than due diligence to find this. I will assist you as I can.” He finished his soup and Mags got up to let him get out. “Of course, that will have to wait for some time, until things return to normal. We've left the Archive building snowed in; there seemed no good reason to heat it in this emergency, and it didn't seem likely that anyone would want to get in there.” He chuckled then, just before moving away. “Well, perhaps your eager Healer friend. He was terribly anxious to discover whether your research privileges would expire when
you
found what you were looking for, and whether his were independent of yours. I was able to reassure him on that score.”

With that, the old man worked his way into the press of people trying to get fed, and was gone, leaving Mags feeling distinctly uneasy.

Bear had been acting oddly since coming back from Midwinter holidays. He had tried to act normally, but sometimes he had been sullen, almost angry, and now that Mags came to think about it, when the idea of checking the Guard reports had come up, though Bear had been relatively quiet about it, there had been an oddly keen quality in his interest. And when Mags had gotten them all permission, there had been a light in Bear's eyes that was all out of proportion to the somewhat dull prospect of reading old reports.

And now this.

He bent his mind toward the stables, where Dallen, like the other Companions who were not immediately needed, was drowsing in a kind of semihibernation. Even the Heralds working down in Haven were mostly not bringing their Companions. There was just no room for them in the narrow snow passages, and there was not that much for the Companions to do except pass an occasional message.

It took the Companion a few moments to respond. Mags explained to him what had just happened, when he was sure Dallen was awake enough to take it all in.
:Why would Bear lie?:
he asked.

:I'm not sure.:
Dallen pondered that a moment.
:If I were to guess . . . if he is looking for something, and he doesn't want you or Lena to know about it . . . he either thinks the information could hurt you, alter your opinion of him, or makes him feel ashamed. And before you say that whatever it is wouldn't matter, it clearly matters enough to
him
to lie about it. So it matters.:

Mags moved out of the noisy dining hall to the end of the hallway where there was relative peace.
:I don' like it.:

Dallen pondered that for a bit.
:I think you had better. I will query Nikolas if you could have permission to reveal your role for him to Bear—trade a secret for a secret, as it were. You see if you can find him. Get Lena; she can be of great help.:

And that was when Mags discovered that Bear was missing.

“. . . no, sir, he's not there.” Lena made a better impression on Healer Praston than Mags had. The head of Healers' Collegium, from a very highly placed family, had listened to Mags' uncultured speech, looked at Mags' short stature, and concluded immediately that Mags was a hysterical and unlettered boy, probably overstressed by the entire situation they were all in. Lena, on the other hand, had pulled on every bit of dignity she could manage, as well as the most cultured accent she could feign, and had the Healer listening and paying attention to her with the first few words she spoke. “He had no reason to leave his rooms for this long, and the three Bardic Trainees who were squeezed in there have been tending the warming furnace for him since yesterday.” She grimaced. “He wouldn't tell them where he was going, so they assumed it was to see a girl.”

Praston grimaced. “All right, chances are he is fine; perhaps he was called down into Haven and neglected to tell anyone. But we should be sure—”

“Sir,” Lena said patiently, “We are sure. His medicines are all there, his bag is there. He's very meticulous about organizing his medicines, too; I can tell you that nothing at all is out of place or missing.”

Now Praston began to look a little alarmed. “There is always the chance he was called into Haven for something other than a medical emergency—” He pursed his lips. “Nevertheless, let me raise the alarm. Better we do this and discover to our chagrin that he was only paying a visit to some old patient of his. Young man, ask your Companion to find us a Mindspeaking Herald that can search that way for us.”

“Don' have to,” Mags replied immediately. “I am one, an' I already tried.” When he first realized that there was something wrong, he had done his best to “hunt” for Bear. But his first tentative sweep of the Collegia and grounds had netted nothing; his second, aided by Dallen, had also come up with nothing, and had extended somewhat down into Haven until the press of so many minds had become too much for him to sort through. He was beginning to feel sick with worry. Why would Bear be down in Haven? And if he wasn't in Haven, where was he? There was no way, short of a god plucking him bodily away, that he could have gotten
out
of Haven.

Praston no longer looked a little alarmed, he looked startled and frightened. “You two stay here,” he commanded. “Don't move. This is clearly serious.”

As Mags and Lena exchanged a frantic glance, he summoned half a dozen of his Trainees by the simple expedient of sticking his head into the hallway and shouting at them. Within moments, they were scattering, to get the Guard, then someone from the Palace Guard, someone in charge of the Palace servants, Herald Caelen, and two others Mags didn't recognize. It took a while for them to arrive, and until they did, Praston quizzed Lena and Mags closely about Bear, especially his state of mind since Midwinter Holidays.

He clearly did not like what they had to tell him.

“Did he seem despondent?” Praston persisted, as the first of those he had summoned arrived. “Did he talk about feeling worthless, or say that no one would miss him if he was gone?”

Mags shook his head, and Lena answered that. “No, sir,” she replied. “Nothing like that. He wasn't
happy,
it was because of something that . . . something that happened at home over the holidays. But he wasn't despondent.”

“You're absolutely
sure
about that?” Praston asked. “He didn't talk about death, wasn't interested in listening to ballads about death, didn't write about death?”

“No!”
Lena replied with force. “Nothing like that. And what—what happened wouldn't—he was angry and unhappy but—”

“Perhaps you had better tell us so we can judge for ourselves,” said Praston, as the last person edged into the crowded office.

“I can't.” Lena lifted her chin stubbornly. “He told me in confidence.”

Praston looked as if he was ready to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled. It was the head of her own Collegium who interrupted bluntly. “Lena, you are not experienced enough to tell if something would or would not drive a boy to thinking of suicide. Tell us.
Now.”

Mags had read about
command voice,
but this was the first time he had heard anyone using it. He found himself ready to tell the Bard anything she wanted to hear, and probably plenty of things she didn't, and he wasn't the one who had been directly addressed.

Lena looked stubborn for a just a little bit more—after all, she was a Bard herself, and raised in a Bard's household—but a moment later her shoulders sagged and her face dropped. “His parents wanted him to get married the next time he came home. They'd already betrothed him to a girl. He knew her, her family was from nearby, and he really didn't care about her, but they weren't in the least interested in hearing his objections. There was a big row about it. He slept at a neighbor's house for most of the holiday.”

Whatever the adults had been expecting to hear, this wasn't it. Praston opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again, shut it again. Finally, he managed to say something on the third try. “You can't be wedded without your consent, you know,” he said weakly.

Lena shrugged. “Have
you
ever tried to go against what your parents want?” she asked bitterly. “Even when it's something you hate?”

Praston shook his head, and looked at the others in the room. Caelen shrugged. “I can see where the boy would be embarrassed about it, and I can see that it would upset him, but no, I cannot see him courting death over it. Not unless he had a previous romantic attachment—?”

He looked at Lena, who shook her head, and Mags, who grimaced. “Never seemed t' care much fer girls,” Mags offered. “Never said nothin' t' me.”

“All right, then, that's one thing we don't need to worry about. So unless he's down in Haven, which
you,
Salenys, will send your men to check on, we have to assume he's still here, on the grounds, and for some reason he cannot or will not respond to us.” Mags blinked; Caelen had just taken over the search, and Praston was figuratively stepping back and letting him. “Lita, what can your people do?”

“Question witnesses,” she said immediately. “And the Trainees can go put on their cloaks and search. I'll send out some of the teachers to do the questioning, starting with the three that are in his rooms. The rest, I delegate to you.”

Caelen nodded. “Master Howarth, I leave the Palace to your people. The rest of us can make a
real
search of the buildings and grounds. I'll get that organized. Right now it is sounding as if Bear was injured or became suddenly ill and is lying in an out-of-the-way place, unconscious. The sooner we find him, the better.”

Then he turned to Lena and Mags. “And you two,” he said, his expression grim, “You had better come with me.”

Lena was crying, though it was not from anything that Herald Caelen had said to her. It was because she, like Mags, had suddenly realized that the reason Mags had not been able to “find” Bear was—because Bear was dead.

But Mags was not ready to believe that. He had always known when Death touched anyone in or around the mine, even people he knew almost nothing about, like the house-servants. There was an
absence
when someone died that hit him when it happened, and left a lingering feeling of
void
for at least several days. The last time anyone had seen Bear was yesterday morning, and Mags was sure he would have known if Bear was dead.

Caelen sat them both down in a corner of his office and gave Lena a big handkerchief to sob into. Mags listened with half an ear as he gave orders for the search, occasionally turning to Mags to ask a question about whether Bear had ever gone to this or that place, and if he had, what had taken him there. Mags answered as best he could, but meanwhile, his mind was racing.

Then he heard it. “—no, don't bother with the Guard Archives. The Archivist left it locked up the first night of the storm.”

“No!”
he shouted, leaping to his feet, startling everyone. “No, don' you see, tha's it! Th' Archives! Bear wanted somethin' in there, somethin' he didn' want the rest of us t' know about! Now they're locked up tight, an who'd go there now anyway? 'S perfect time t' go lookin'!”