Mercedes Lackey - Foundation

All right. He was used to the dark. He took a deep breath to calm himself, and reminded himself of that. He closed the door behind himself and felt to the right until he encountered the rope—a good thick one that hummed and vibrated with the force of the wind on it. He grasped it in both mittened hands—and as Dallen had advised him, he was wearing not one, but two sets of mittens, felt ones inside sheepskin—and stepped away from the shelter of the building.

He was immediately glad that he had both hands on the rope. The wind nearly blew him over when it hit him, and within moments every inch of him was snow-caked. What little skin he had left exposed stung and burned with the snow being driven against it. The scarf around his mouth was damp and ice-rimed; his breath froze as soon as it hit the fabric.

:Go, Mags. The longer you take, the worse it gets.:

From that moment on, he thought of nothing more than the next step. Hunching his shoulders against the wind, head down and eyes closed—it didn’t matter if his eyes were open or shut, since he couldn’t see anything—he hauled himself along the rope, hand over hand. He had never been outside in a storm like this before. At the mine, he had either been in the mine or in the sleeping hole, and had no reason to go anywhere. He would have been terrified if he’d had the strength to spare for terror. He was already tired from the hauling; shortly, he was exhausted, and every step was agony.

In the back of his mind, he could hear Dallen encouraging him, cheering him on. That was the only thing that kept him going, as his feet got heavier and harder to lift, as his arms felt like lead, as his hands numbed and his body ached with the cold.

:Keep going, Mags!:

The harsh air burned in his lungs, his throat felt raw, and every intake of breath brought a stab of pain at the end of it. His toes and fingers burned.

:Don’t stop! They know you are coming!:

All he really wanted to do was to sit down and rest, and he knew that was the last thing he could do right now. If he stopped, even for a moment, the cold would get him. The simple journey to the Collegium stretched on into a hellish eternity—

And then, suddenly, at last , it was over. He had expected to have to get the door open himself, but as Dallen had said, there must have been a crew of rescuers waiting right there for him. He felt people grabbing his arms and pulling him along, felt a blast of air on his face so hot in comparison to his chilled flesh that it felt like a furnace. His eyes were caked with snow and frozen shut; he just let people hustle him along, passing him toward another set of helpers who pulled off his pack and saddlebags. More of them unwrapped the scarves from around his head and face, and helped him take off a coat that was so ice-caked it was as hard as armor. As soon as the coat was off, someone else came to wrap him in fire-warmed blankets. That same someone pushed him into a seat and he just fell back into it; he found a hot mug in his hands, and as the snow finally melted from his eyelids, he was able to open his eyes.

At first all he could see was a fire, and feeling still numb inside and out, he stared at the flames, thinking that he could never, ever get enough of them. He was not the only person here; there were two more blanket-wrapped figures trying to thaw themselves on the hearth, both Guardsmen.

He sipped at the hot liquid in the mug; it was spiced cider, but there was a good amount of something else in it. Something much stronger than wine!

He was right next to the fire in someone’s room and he wasn’t the only one crammed in there, bundled in blankets. Besides the two Guards right at the hearth, there were two of the stablehands and another Trainee, all with identical mugs in their hands and identical glazed looks in their eyes.

“Is that everyone?” He recognized Herald Caelen’s voice.

“I’m not sure—” someone else replied uncertainly. “There’s no way to know if there is anyone fallen or lost out there unless it’s a Herald or a Trainee—”

By this time, Mags’ mind had woken up enough for him to realize that the second speaker was right—almost.

He gulped down another big swallow of his drink, coughed, and spoke up. “Herald Caelen—they tell me I got a strong Mindspeakin’ Gift. Reckon I c’n see if I c’n find anyone out there, if that’s—uh—not misusin’—”

He didn’t even get a chance to finish that statement. Caelen shoved his way through the people nearest the fire and grabbed Mags’ shoulders. “That is most certainly not misuse of your Gift!” he exclaimed. “Please, Mags—”

“Right. Here.” He shoved the mug at Caelen, huddled up in his blanket, rested his head against his knees, wrapped his arms around his legs, and closed his eyes. :Gonna need yer help with this, Dallen:

:Absolutely. First, drop all those shields I showed you how to set in place.:

He had not done that in all the time he had been here. Dallen had warned him that he shouldn’t—had cautioned him that because he had been Chosen, his Gifts would be opening up at a tremendous rate.

Now he realized just how much that Gift had burgeoned. The moment he dropped those shields, it felt as if he was in the center of the Midwinter Market, only a thousand times more crowded, and everyone was talking at once. Worse, it was mostly fear, as people all over the complex, all over Haven, reacted to the storm. It felt like being in the storm all over again; all those minds, all those internal voices, none of them putting a watch on what they were saying—it all overwhelmed him, threatened to wash him away in the flood, and he felt as if he was drowning in it—

Then he sensed Dallen, strained to hear him, and got the sense of what Dallen wanted him to do. He began raising the shields again, but one at a time this time. First, all those people farthest away, down in Haven. He didn’t need to listen to them. He couldn’t help them now if he wanted to, anyway. And they, almost certainly, would not want him to know what they were thinking.

That cut the clamor down to a fraction of what it had been, and he let out a sigh of relief. The next shield was easier: to screen out those who were closest to him, in the same building. They wouldn’t want him to hear their thoughts either.

And that improved things a very great deal indeed.

Now he was able to actually pick out individual “voices.” One by one, he sorted through them, not really listening to what they were babbling, because most people just had a running internal babble going on, but looking for the nuances that told him they were safe and indoors. Their fears, while real, were not immediate. And their minds were ... well, they weren’t numb, the way his mind had been when the cold was getting to him.

He found five that were not.

“Gardener—” he heard himself mutter. “Just at Palace kitchen door—ah—in. Guard—Guard needs help. In th’ rose garden, lost the rope. ’Bout—’bout a horse-length from it. Fell an’ slipped an’ lost it. Got sense to stay where he is—”

He heard Caelen shouting directions but paid no attention. There were still three more. “One ’f them pesty furrin mercs. Headin’ for town t’ drink. Near th’ gate, I think. Damn fool.”

He had never quite realized how brutal and how crude these men were until he got a glimpse of their thoughts. His lip curled with distaste as he heard more from that mind than he wanted to. There was a Herald in the gatehouse, with the Guardsmen on duty there. “I got that one.”

He had never done this before ... he hesitated a moment, then realized that if he waited for Dallen to do the contacting, he might lose some details. He did a kind of mental cough, and—well it felt as if he was tapping on the outside of the other’s mind, as if on a door.