Bastion by Mercedes Lackey Page A

knee. “The rest of what’s lost is just details. Details you really ought to find out but still, details. And you actually do have a direction. You know exactly what my father is training you for.”
    Well, that was true, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t agree with it. It would be interesting work, and certainly needful work. But by the same token, this made him profoundly uneasy. Perhaps an assassin’s skills would make him a good spy. But they would also make him a good assassin. What if things started to blur? What if he found himself murdering someone and justifying it to himself and others?
    :Nonsense. You have me,: Dallen said firmly, before he could get himself wrought up. :Whatever gave you the idea that I’d let you do something like that?:
    He felt rather stupid for a moment. Dallen was his moral compass, just as every Companion was every Herald’s moral compass. As long as he had Dallen, he would be all right—and if for some reason he no longer had Dallen, there would be a lot more wrongfulness going on than he really even wanted to consider.
    :We learned our lesson with Tylendel,: Dallen said soberly. :If I have to knock you down and sit on you to prevent you from doing something stupid, I will. Not that I expect to ever have to. If anything, you overthink things. ’Lendel was many things, but thinking wasn’t his strong suit.:
    It was extremely odd to hear someone talking about an historical, tragic figure as if he were a—
    :Emotional, overwrought, impulsive manchild who made a habit of blundering about regardless of consequences and paid the price, and I would rather not go into it any further.:
    Mags blinked a little at Dallen’s vehemence. It almost sounded as if Dallen had been . . . present at the time of the tragedy! Could that even be possible?
    But Dallen had made it quite clear that he was not interested in discussing the situation, and Mags knew better than to press. In fact, Dallen had sounded as if the situation had caused him pain as well as the irritation he was voicing.
    Maybe someday he’d find out, but clearly, that day would not be today.
    Still . . . there were more to his concerns than that, of course.
    One of the large ones was personal, insofar as anything that affected a Trainee or a Herald could be personal. He had not extracted a promise from those people to leave him alone—only to drop the contract with Karse. He was pretty sure that they were going to keep coming for him until they got him, one way or another. For some reason, he was important to them, and he needed to find out why. He needed to find out whoit was they kept mistaking him for.
    It had to be someone important in their circle. That was the only explanation for why they wanted him so badly. If he looked so very like this person, it would probably be extremely useful to them. He could be used as a decoy. This person could appear to be in two places at once, which would certainly impress people.
    He needed to figure out how to get them off his trail.
    :You know, if it is only your appearance that has them so set on having you, that can be altered. Although scarring yourself that badly would make you more recognizable in Nikolas’s service, since if the scars were easy to hide, they would think of that, too.:
    Mags shuddered to think of what it would take to get that scarred up. :You are not making me feel any better, horse,: he replied crossly.
    This was . . . a puzzle. So far, he hadn’t found the way to crack it.
    There was no doubt whatsoever that the answer was somewhere in his personal past, not in the generalized “clan memories” that had been fed to him. If he resembled someone that closely, he had to be closely related to that person. A brother he didn’t know about? That seemed unlikely, since both his mother and father were dead—unless, perhaps, they had been forced to leave a child behind when they left their home?
    :I agree we need to discover all this. It might be extremely