"Good. You have placed your trust well. He and I will not do anything to harm you; and we will keep you safe from harm. We will be with you, even though you cannot see us. You will believe this."
"I believe this," Jonny affirmed.
Peregrine gestured curtly. "Ask," he said. "You know more of this than I, and you know more of the world that spawns those who hire assassins than any gypsy. I would not know what questions are meaningful and what without meaning."
Talaysen leaned into the tiny circle of light cast on Jonny's face by the lantern Peregrine had used to place him in a trance. "Jonny-Kestrel-do you hear me?"
"Yes," the young man sighed.
"I want you to remember the first day you came to Kingsford, to the Guild Hall. Can you remember that?"
"Yes." Jonny's forehead wrinkled, and his voice took on the petulant quality of a sick child. "I'm cold. My head hurts. My eyes hurt. Master Darian says I'm going to get better but I don't, and I feel awful-"
"He relives this," Peregrine said with a bit of surprise. "This is useful, but it can be dangerous, if he believes himself trapped in his past. Have a care, Master Wren."
Talaysen swallowed, and wet his dry lips. "Jonny, can you remember farther back? Go back in time, go back to before you entered Kingsford. Can you remember before you were sick?"
Abruptly the young man began to scream.
Peregrine moved as quickly as a ferret, clamping his right hand over the young man's forehead, and his left on Jonny's wrist. The screaming stopped, as if cut off.
"Who are you?" Peregrine said, with no inflection in his voice whatsoever.
Who are you? Talaysen thought, bewildered. What kind of a question is that?
"I-I can't-" Jonny bucked and twisted in Peregrine's grip; the mage held fast, and repeated the question, with more force. The young musician wept in terror-Talaysen had heard that sort of weeping before, from the boys that had been ruined by their Guild Masters. . . .
Peregrine had no more pity than they had, but his harshness was for a far better cause. "Who are you?"
''Ah-" Jonny panted, like a frightened bird. "I-I-ah-Sional! I'm Sional! I have to run, please, let me go! Master Darian! Master Darian! They're killing my father! Help me! Ahhhhhhhhh-"
"Sleep-" Peregrine snapped, and abruptly the young man went limp. The mage sat back on the bunk, and wiped sweat from his brow. He looked to Talaysen as if he had been running for a league. He was silent for a moment, staring at the young musician as if he had never seen him before.
"So." Peregrine took a sip of water from the mug safely stored in a holder mounted on the wall just above him. "So, we know this 'Jonny Brede' is nothing of the kind, and that his true name is Sional, and that someone wished his father dead. Do you know of any Sionals? Especially ones who would have run to a Guild Bard for help?"
Talaysen shook his head. Rune and Gwyna both shrugged. Peregrine scratched his head and his eyes unfocused for a moment. "Well, whoever he is, he is important-and long ago, someone killed his father. I think we must find out who and what this father was."
"Are you going to hurt him?" Gwyna asked in a small voice.
Peregrine shook his head. "I can promise nothing. I can only say I will try not to hurt him. The alternative is to find out nothing-and one day there will be nothing to warn him of the assassin in the dark. I think this the lesser of two bad choices."
Gwyna nodded, unhappily. Peregrine touched Jonny's-Sional's-forehead again. "Sional, do you hear me?"
"I-hear you," said a small, young, and very frightened voice. It sounded nothing like Jonny; it sounded like a young child of about twelve.
"How old was he, when he came to you at the Guild?" Peregrine asked Talaysen. The Bard furrowed his brow and tried to remember what the nondescript child had looked like on the few occasions he had seen the boy. The memory was fuzzy, at best, and the child had been quite ordinary.