Foundation is a fantasy novel by American writer Mercedes Lackey, published in 2008. It is the first book in The Collegium Chronicles (followed by Intrigues (2010), Changes (2011), Redoubt (2013), and Bastion (2014). It is a depiction of the early history of Valdemar and its timeline is between The Last Herald Mage and Brightly Burning. The book details a change in the training of Heralds from essentially an apprenticeship such as experienced by Tylendel and Vanyel, to a school based system such as the one in Arrows of The Queen and Brightly Burning. Not all Heralds are in favor of this mainly citing lack of supervision as an objection. Plot Mag is an enslaved child working alongside other enslaved orphans in the bowels of a gemstone mine. The mine owner, Cole Peters, treats the children with casual brutality, and Mags, orphaned in his early childhood, has known no other life all the way up until a mysterious white horse stampedes into his life. This of course, is Dallen, his Companion, who assists Mags by bringing in another Herald to free him and the children. Their freedom comes on the heels of the arrest of Cole Peters, and Mags is flung into the fray of Haven as a Heraldic Trainee, with no notion of life outside of abject slavery. This, of course, left its scars, and Mags has both no idea of how to function in "normal" society, and no notion of why he so often winds up on the wrong end of trouble. His heavy accent and "stupidity" about such normal things leads to the King's Own taking him under his wing as a spy protégé, but Mags lives in perpetual fear of the bad old days. This fear isn't unjustified, for it seems all of the Heralds are experiencing their own tumultuous changes, as they slowly abandon the old system of apprenticeships which Vanyel learned in, for one of a collegiate style such as what Herald Talia and Herald Elspeth experienced in the time of Arrows of the Queen. This switch is due to a sudden surge in the numbers of people Chosen, and the accompanying tremendous burdening of the Heraldic, Bardic, and Healer Collegium resources. The crowding is so intense, that Mags is forced to take a room in the Companion's stable. This, on top of his painful social ineptness, sets the stage for a confrontation between Mags