Chapter 14. Mind Probe.

Summary: Wherein Josan has someone rummaging through the trash-heap that is her mind, and gets a new employer.

Disclaimer: Valdemar, Velgarth, and all Canon Characters are the properties of Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon. I am using them without the original authors' consent or knowledge. Only the plot and original characters are mine and may not be used without my permission.

It was later in the morning. The man 'Gavin' had disappeared somewhere, probably to make a report to his superiors, whoever they were, and I hoped that I wasn't going to get into any more trouble. Herald Target, er, Alberich and Lady Talia had escorted me into the Palace proper to a special sound-proofed room that the Heralds apparently kept and used for the purpose of focusing their various forms of mental Gift when needed. It was a bare room that contained a set of benches surrounding a wooden round table. On the table was a large crystal ball that was perfectly round and completely flawless. I wondered how much the thing cost until it occurred to me that the Kingdom was paying for it, and that price was probably not an object.

I and Lady Talia sat down on a bench while Alberich stationed himself by the door. We sat not talking while we waited for a few minutes. Roxy, while absent in body was present in spirit, so to speak, and was busily being a wiseass in the back of my mind. I realized that I had better find her something constructive to do with her time before she drove me nuts.

Before I could get sufficiently bored or insane a young male Herald in a fresh set of Whites entered the room. This, I decided, must be the Farseer they wanted to try locating The Client with. He looked vaguely familiar and Roxy silently supplied a picture of him, sans Whites, in one of the taverns I use as a contact point. I started to wonder just how many denizens of the Palace spent time in Exile's Gate.

He introduced himself as 'Brant', a name which reminded me of a donkey's bray, and sat down next to Lady Talia, opposite the table from me. Silently the three of us clasped hands, with Roxy making it a fourth.

When I was a child I was very poor, as you may have guessed by now. I did not eat on a regular basis, and when I did the food wasn't all that great. Bread usually had a lot of stone grit in it from the mill, and I didn't get much in the way of vegetables or meat. That, combined with the fact that for many years I was more concerned with actual survival then the health of my teeth meant that I didn't exactly have the best dental care.

All that changed after my first paid kill.

One of the very first things I did was go to a special type of Healer who does nothing but fix teeth. I think I spent most of the money from that kill there; in return he gave me a mouth full of gold and porcelain teeth. It hurt like hell, the Healer had offered to give me some kind of drug that would keep it from hurting, but I didn't want to take anything that might dull my senses.

Imagine, if you are rich enough, having a Healer who specializes in dentistry poke around in your mouth. You can feel the probe and little mirror they use go this way and that, the probe pressing and poking and prodding, occasionally hitting a particularly sensitive tooth.

That experience is about the closest I can think of to getting mind-probed by the Heralds. It didn't hurt, exactly, but I could feel Lady Talia poking into some very odd corners of my mind, nooks and crannies that I didn't even know were there. Occasionally she would hit some particularly sensitive memory, causing it to surface. I tried to focus on my meetings with The Client, without bringing anything else up, but I think she picked up a lot more then I wanted her to. Bitch.

Roxy, of course, was no help.

: Hey Boss, can you ask her to go back a bit? I wanna see that stoop I did the other night:

I ignored that as usual. She might not mind watching herself almost die, but I sure minded remembering it again. Whatever Lady Talia was doing made the memories as vivid as if I was watching them happen for the first time. I winced as a particularly nasty episode during my stint as one of Garth's child soldiers surfaced. It hurt.

"Will you just find The Client and quit poking at the other stuff?" I finally growled at her.

She laughed shakily and I got the impression that she was somehow more deeply affected by my memories then I was. Served her right for poking around in my mind.

"I'm not the one bringing them up," Talia said, "you are."

Shit. I am not that fucked up.

:Roxy? Can you give me a hand here?:

:Only if I get to see that stoop first:

I growled but relented, as clearly as I could I pictured the attack on Alberich and felt Talia's Empathy grab a hold of the memory. Suddenly I was there again, seeing the weapon flicker out of the corner of my eye and knowing that there was no way for me to deflect it in time. Like a streak of living lightning Roxy was there, stooping before the blade and taking the cut that was meant for me. All the emotions I felt then, fear, anger, pain, hatred, bubbled up in me again, and I had to fight to keep from reacting to them and doing something I would regret.

I felt drained, and I think Talia was a little stunned as well. Funny that, you would think that she would be used to seeing violence in other people's minds, being an Empath and all. On second thought maybe she is used to it, just not hardened to it. I guess that makes her a better person then me.

:Happy now?: I asked Roxy.

:Wow, I was pretty brave, huh Boss? Can I watch it again?:

:Hell no. Now it's your turn:

:Aw, Boss!:

I remained firm, sometimes Roxy reminded me of a small child. A spoiled small child.

:I heard that, that's a dead mouse on your pillow.:

:Just do it:

I felt Roxy reach out and grasp my mind firmly. Beside me Talia started in surprise, I guess I should have warned her. Fortunately she stayed in my mind, and I was able to sit back and watch as the two of them got to work on it. Roxy grabbed all the wandering streams of thought that seem to delight in tormenting me and glued them together, taming them temporarily. Talia reached in and gathered together all the bits and pieces of memories that I had of The Client and pulled them together, creating a living portrait of him in my mind before gluing it into her. Now that I was no longer needed Talia released my mind, and a second later I felt Roxy follow suit.

Talia took the image and fed it to the other Herald. He took it and focused on a crystal ball, I couldn't see what he was doing, but that didn't matter anymore. I was rather useless at the moment.

"Got him. Sort of. He's indoors, in a cellar probably. No windows."

"Direction, do you sense?" Asked my Herald Target.

"Uh... Exile's Gate, that's it," The Farseer sounded puzzled, and I wondered if he really knew what he was doing. I snorted, I could have told him that The Client operated out of Exile's Gate.

:I could have told him that too, Boss.: I snorted again, my mind felt like someone had turned it inside out, let it dry out in the sun, and then neatly put it all back in place with the corners tucked in, and for what? I was about to say something, but then the conversation turned seriously weird and I quickly shut my mouth.

"Do you think you can hook him?" Asked Lady Talia in her sweet voice of hers.

"I think so...wait a beat." We waited for far more then a beat and I, for one, was getting tired of trying to hold my breath when he suddenly nodded, let go of the crystal, and leaned back letting out a great sigh. "Got him."

Herald Alberich raised an eyebrow, "Hooked, is he?"

The other guy nodded, "I'll check him every couple of hours to see if he's changed position, but for now we have him. Once we get a fix on him we can move in."

"Uh, what?" They all turned to look at me, and I guess they were somewhat surprised to see me. Like they had forgotten me, or something. I felt insulted, I'm good at disappearing, but not that good.

:I think they mean that he left some kind of indicator on him and that'll let them follow him around. Or something.:

"We're watching him," said the nameless Herald at the same time as Roxy. He glanced at Herald Alberich, who shrugged. I guess that was all I was going to get, and to be truthful, I didn't really want to know the details. All I really knew about mind magic I picked up messing around with Roxy, it wasn't like I had a real teacher to teach me any of the hardcore shit these guys could do.

"Uh, okay." I looked around, but no one seemed to be saying anything to me. "I guess I'll go back to my room, if you guys don't need me anymore."

"I'll accompany you back," said the Lady, to my disgust. What the hell did she see in me, anyways? I didn't dare say anything, of course. I might not have exactly raised in the highest social circles, but I still knew better then to outright insult someone of her social stature. At least, not insult her if I wasn't actively pissed off at her. Which I wasn't. She was the kind of person whom it was hard to remain angry at for long.

There was a faint muffled protest from the nameless Herald, who was quickly shushed by Alberich, I guess I was either more, or less, trusted then I thought I was. I didn't know what his problem was, really, it wasn't like I had a contract on Her Ladyship, and even if someone had offered I would have turned them down. Like I said, I didn't do government jobs, up until now, anyways.

Besides, Alberich took all my knives, the bastard. At some point I'm going to have to whine at him about that, and make him buy me new ones. Or give me a government-sanctioned project. One that won't get my head chopped off.

"So," I said as soon as we were out of range of the men. "You looked pretty disturbed when you were diving my memories, am I really that fucked up?"

She raised an eyebrow, "Do you really want to know?"

I shrugged, I knew there was no way in Hell that I was normal. Normal people have to get drunk and seriously pissed off before they kill people, and said victims are almost always someone they know and love. One more reason not to get too heavily involved with other humans. "Just making conversation."

"Hmmm," just that, nothing else. Made me feel that I was really that fucked up. "Well, that was certainly an interesting experience in your mind. I can't imagine you like killing, after that."

I looked blankly at her, and wondered where she got the idea that I liked killing. Unless I was far more fucked up then I thought I was (which was fast becoming a possibility), I was having to interact with more people one a personal level in one day then I had since I was stolen from my family, if then. I guess that's pretty fucked up, after all. "I don't like killing. I don't hate it, either. It's just... a part of life, you know? Some people kill cows and chickens for food, I kill people for money. Not really that much different, really, and you wouldn't ask a slaughterhouse worker whether he liked killing cattle."

She smiled grimly. "Human lives are worth more then a cow's."

I grunted. "Only to a human, I imagine a cow might see things differently."

She raised an eyebrow, but fortunately I was saved from her response by our arrival at Roxy's room. Much to my surprise, and somewhat to my dismay Healer Aviana was there, I could hear her soft mummer and very much to my surprise I realized that the pauses in her speech were due to what must be Roxy's responses. Responses that I couldn't hear, but Aviana clearly could. I pushed back a surge of jealousy, clenched my teeth, and forced a smile. A couple of baby Healers, in fact, the same pair that I had met the previous night, were in the room as well, looking more then a little nervous.

"Hi. How's everything going?" I asked the room as a whole. The two baby Healers started, and spun around like I was going to attack them, or something. Aviana just glared at me. I suppose she still hasn't forgiven me for the previous evening.

:Fine Boss, did you know that Aviana rescued an orphaned Companion foal once, before she was a Healer? His mother had lost her Herald, and wanted to die, but she forced her to live until all three got to Haven, and...:

"Uh, okay." I blinked and examined the Healer again. Very definitely a better person then I was. "I guess you were making friends."

:Yeah, I like her.:

:Only because she saved your life.:

:Well, there is that.:

"Um," I said brilliantly, changing the subject. "Do you think it would be okay if I took her outside? She needs as much sun as possible."

The Healer looked to The Lady. "Sounds good, I wanted to talk to you, and the Companion's Field is a good place for privacy," said Lady Talia.

She wants to talk to me. Great.

:I like her too, Boss.:

I ignored that, and gathered her up in a pile of blankets, due to her wound I didn't want to make her perch on my shoulder where I had some protection thanks to my leather padding, and her claws were rather sharp. Livid red scratches were a hazard of being her companion, something I had accepted long ago, but that didn't mean that I didn't try to avoid them.

"So," I said once we were outside, "what did you want to talk to me about?"

She nodded toward the Field, and I sighed, clearly she didn't want to say anything until we were out there. I blinked, the entire Field, or at least the section of it I could see, was surrounded by a fence. They didn't want to keep the Companions fenced in, did they? "What's the fence for?"

Talia held the gate open for me, as my arms were rather full at the moment. "To keep the foals in, mostly. Adult Companions can jump it easily, or open the gates if they don't want to jump. We don't want the little ones wandering the Palace Grounds unattended."

"Ah." Made sense.

She lead the way to a small grove of trees off in the distance, and with a start I realized that what I thought was the whole Field turned out to be just a small part of what was apparently a very large park. Interesting that so much of the palace grounds were taken up by this place. Tells you something about the priorities of those in charge, I guess.

As we entered the little grove a Companion ghosted up to us, so silently that for one moment I really did think that I was seeing an ghost. If Alberich and his Companion were shiny, this freaking bastard practically glowed. He nuzzled Lady Talia gently, and lay down. Talia sat down and leaned against his flank. I took that as a signal that I was to sit down. too. I spread Roxy's blanket out in the dappled sunlight filtered through the trees and let her stretch out to sun.

"So," I said, watching Roxy's sides rise and fall. "When are you guys going to arrest me?" I was only half-joking, if they were going to arrest me I suspect that they would have done it the moment I pulled the knife on the Healer. Since that hasn't occurred I was betting that they had another use for me, probably involving me risking my skin. Not that I was necessarily adverse to that, if I was paid well.

Talia, the Lady that she was, pretended to ignore my comment. "You do realize that you won't be able to continue... perusing your previous occupation."

"Uh, yeah." Honestly, I hadn't thought too much about it, but the bastards now knew my name, face, modus operati, strength (Roxy) and weakness (Roxy again). If I wanted to continue doing things the way I had been I would have to leave the kingdom, at the very least.

:She's got us there, Boss.:

:Yeah.:

"I suppose you wouldn't be bothering to tell me this unless you had an alternative." I was very proud of how not pissed off I sounded.

She nodded, and pulled an apple out of somewhere and began quartering it. "I was wondering if you would like to become one of the Lord Marshal's agents. Alberich says you have the skill for it."

"Uh." I stared at her. Okay, I hadn't expected that, although I should have, I guess.

:Agent for the Crown? Right on, Boss!: Roxy sat up excitedly and fanned her wings, hissing slightly as she tugged her wounded side.

I shook my head at them both. I don't do kids, I don't do windows, and I don't do government work. This, most definitely, was government.

But then, sometimes Government work does me.

I reached down and smoothed Roxy's wings back to her sides and shook my head slowly. "I'm going to have to think about it."

Talia shrugged, and handed the larger portion of her apple to the Companion before offering me a slice. I took it, it was nice and juicy, if a bit tart. Still a tad early for most of the apple harvest, but there were obviously a few early bloomers. She shrugged and stood, while her Companion floated to his feet. I have no idea how such a huge creature could look so...weightless.

"Someone will be here to escort you back to your rooms in an hour or so. You can walk around the Field until then, but I suggest you don't leave. If you get lost one of the Companions will help you back." She paused as a second Companion arrived, sans rider, arrived. It was the warrior stallion. She chuckled slightly, "Here's your warder, I think. This is Kantor."

"Uh, yeah. We've met." I saluted him, more then a little sarcastically, and he whickered at me. Maybe he did have a better sense of humor then his dour Herald.

Talia coughed politely to get my attention before smiling sweetly at me. I could almost feel the good feelings rolling off of her, but Roxy managed to deflect most of it. Not for the first time did I wonder just what the hell her Gift was. "I want to thank you for saving our Weapons-master. No matter what your original intentions were, you did save him when you didn't truly have to. That was an act of true nobility."

I shrugged uncomfortably while Roxy sniggered.

:An act of true stupidity, more like.:

I rolled my eyes. :You and me both.:

:True.:

Talia waited for a second, but there wasn't anything that I wanted to say to her, really. After all, what should I say? Thanks? I'm sorry that I was going to kill Alberich? I'm glad that I saved him? Both would be lies, really. So I shrugged, and waited for her to leave. Which she did after a moment, leaving us alone with the two Companions.

Suddenly the exhaustion of the last couple days hit me, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. My mind still felt disordered due to the very careful pilfering that had occurred earlier.

:Better get some sleep, Boss, you're about to collapse on me.:

:Are you sure, Sweetheart? You don't mind?:

Roxy stretched again, this time slowly and carefully. :I'm sure, besides, I think these to guys are going to be keeping us company for the time being.:

:Oh.: I remembered the revelation of a few days ago, when I found out she had been hanging around the Companion's Field. Given that we had already revealed ourselves there wasn't much point in having her avoid talking to them. She might as well make some friends. I tried to ignore the stab of jealously I felt at that thought, it wasn't like I owned her.

Rather then deal with the new complications to our relationship I spread out the remaining blanket and laid down. If Roxy was going to be spending her time talking with pretty white horses then I was going to do something more productive, like take nap.

No sooner were my eyes closed then I was away, and not even the murmer of distant coversation could keep me awake.

A/N

Well, I only got this up after about, oh, three years. Looks like I might be poking at this story some more. As always, I'm open to criticism, but don't be terribly shocked if it takes another three years to finish this thing! For bonus points, try to pick out the bits that were written three years ago from the bits that were written last night. Just for funnsies.