Lorkin lay on the hard, cold floor of the cell and tried not to listen to the slave woman struggling to breathe. I don’t even know her name, he thought. Surely he should at least know the name of the woman who was suffering so much pain because of him. Because of the Traitors as much as me, he reminded himself. But he couldn’t bring himself to ask her. Not when he was deliberately avoiding Healing her.
If he did, the interrogator would hurt her all over again.
If he didn’t, she might die. Then the interrogator would find another slave to hurt. At first Lorkin had reasoned that it was better for fewer people to be hurt and killed than more, but she had hissed at him to stay away when he’d approached her, and again when he’d tried to explain that he could at least stop the pain. Though she could not have stopped him Healing her, if she wanted to escape her predicament by dying he felt he ought to respect her wishes. Or perhaps, eventually, the pain would be too much and she would ask him to help her.
It had been a very long day. One horrible moment was followed by another, and another. Time stretched out beyond his ability to judge its passing. At times he felt as if he was trapped in a nightmare that would never end. The interrogator didn’t appear to tire of his work, or run out of ways to cause a human as much pain as possible while causing minimal damage. Lorkin had seen things he would never forget. He had heard sounds that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He had smelled aromas no civilized person should ever smell.
He knew sleep was beyond possible, but he tried. When he gave up on trying, he pretended he was asleep.
A contorted hiss came from the slave and he was instantly alert, heart beating fast. He told himself she was just voicing the pain, not calling for attention, but the same pattern of sounds came again. Slowly, reluctantly, he turned to look at her.
She was lying on her side, curled up and cradling her broken arm. Her eyes were wide open and staring at him. As he met her gaze her lips moved and though no sound came the words were clear, as if she’d spoken in his mind. He went cold all over at their meaning.
Kill me.
He stared back at her in disbelief. No, not disbelief. Death is the only escape she is going to get. I can stop the pain, if she’ll let me, but that is only the physical part of torture. I can’t stop the horror, humiliation and fear.
But…
His insides twisted. I can’t kill her. He felt guilt deepen and turned away. It’s all my fault. He shook his head. No. It isn’t. But I can’t pretend I’m not partly responsible for what’s happening to her. If there’s anything I can do…
Anything? But I’ve never killed anybody. It’s not that I wouldn’t if I had to defend myself or someone else, but to kill someone who isn’t trying to hurt anyone is wrong.
Her lips shaped the plea again.
He remembered his mother’s words, from long ago: “ As Healers we can do much to prevent death, but the limits of what we can do sometimes clash with what we should do. When a person is beyond saving and only wishes to die, keeping them alive is a kind of cruelty.”
Listening to the slave’s shuddering breaths, he knew it was cruel to let her suffer with no hope of escape.
How would I even do it? The Ashaki guard was sitting outside the cell, watching them. Whatever Lorkin did, it would have to be gentle and subtle enough that it didn’t attract attention.
I can’t believe I am actually contemplating it.
Eventually the slave’s death would be noticed. What would they do once they knew Lorkin had killed her? He felt a traitorous relief as the answer came to him. She is the king’s property — or somebody’s. I don’t know how bad a crime it is to destroy someone’s property, but it would definitely be something they’d hold against me.
Perhaps they were hoping he’d kill her. Perhaps it would give them the excuse they needed to read his mind, or worse. Once he was officially a criminal they could do anything to him.
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that this was their plan. Why else were they locking her in the cell with him every night? If he went on Healing her he would soon use up all the power Tyvara had given him. But that couldn’t be their only aim. There were plenty of other ways they could sap his strength, if that was what they wanted. If they only intended to break his resolve by torturing others, why leave the slave woman in his cell? They could always lock her up close by, just out of reach, so he witnessed her suffering but couldn’t help her.
Suddenly he wanted to kill her, just to spite them.
No, I don’t, he told himself quickly, shuddering at the thought he might be turned into a murderer so easily.
“ Kill me,” came the whisper again. It sent a shiver down his spine.
Was there a way he could kill her that would leave no evidence he had done it? If the injuries the interrogator gave her are bad enough
… No, he would have made sure they weren’t. Yet from the sound of her breathing something inside her chest was damaged. Perhaps a rib was cracked or broken. If he could manipulate it…
But that would be using Healing power to kill. Healers were supposed to heal, not harm.
Well, that’s always been a complicated philosophy. Cutting open a body to remove a tumour involves harming in order to heal. And then there’s the argument for helping people die. And my mother used Healing in defence, to kill some of the Ichani invaders.
“Www…”
A soft scraping noise came from the girl, and he reluctantly turned his head to look at her again. She was reaching toward him. No, he corrected himself, she’s reaching toward my legs.
“Wwwater,” she gasped.
Relief came as he realised that now she was only asking for something to drink. He pushed himself up into a sitting position. The food-bearing slave had brought a meal. Lorkin had tried to share it with the slave woman but she’d refused to eat. He reached for the jar of water and froze, remembering the warning glyphs that had indicated it was unsafe.
I wonder how unsafe…
He shrank from the thought, but it sprang straight back into his mind. If the water was poisoned and she drank it, she might gain the death she wanted without anyone but him knowing it was his fault. Well, except for the Traitors who left the warning. He felt a shiver go up his spine.
If the slave woman was a Traitor, she might know about the warnings. She might know the water would kill her. He turned to look at her. She gazed back at him, her eyes seeming to say, Yes. Free me.
If she was a Traitor, they must know she was here. Had they provided her with a means to kill herself?
But would the water kill her? He dropped his arm. The Ashaki must be the one adulterating Lorkin’s food. Surely they weren’t trying to kill him? He was of no use to them dead. Most likely the poison in the water was meant to make him sick, or force him to use up more strength by Healing himself. Still, they might reason that the stronger the toxin, the more magic he would be forced to use. It could be a lethal dose.
The woman made a low noise and stretched her unbroken arm toward the bottle. Outside the cell, the watcher eyed them both.
Kill me. Free me.
Lorkin looked from her to the water. He had to make a choice. And there was no right one. No matter what he decided, the consequences would be shocking. No matter what he decided, afterwards he would never be the same person again.
By the way Lilia had admitted to telling Sonea’s aunt that Cery, Gol and Anyi were living under the Guild, it was clear she thought they would be angry. Which is amusing and endearing, considering that she is a magician and we are mere commoners, Cery thought. She had paced a little as she explained how the servant had followed her and the discussion it had led to. Now she looked surprised that nobody was concerned by the news.
“Better that Jonna knows, than anybody else up there,” Anyi said. “In fact, she could be useful.”
“Jonna never liked me,” Cery told them. “But that was back when I was a youngster and she thought I was leading Sonea astray. She knew I was slipping into Sonea’s room now and then these last twenty years, but she never told anybody about it. Good odds she can be trusted.”
“If Sonea trusts her, I reckon she’s all right,” Gol agreed.
Lilia’s eyes had lit up with a peculiar light. “You’ve been seeing Sonea for the last twenty years?” she asked Cery.
He shrugged. “Of course. You didn’t think some rule about associating with criminals would stop her talking to her old friends, did you?”
“No, I can’t see that stopping either of you. I wonder what people would say if they knew. It would be a scandal, I’m sure.” Lilia smiled and sat down next to Anyi. “They’d also finally know why Sonea never got married.”
Cery frowned as he realised she had assumed his visits had been romantic. “Wait. I didn’t… that’s not what I was visiting her for.”
Gol began to laugh. “You certainly made it sound like it was. For a moment there I thought you’d managed to hide something from me all this time.”
Anyi shook her finger at Lilia. “My father was happily married for most of the last twenty years,” she said indignantly. Then she grimaced. “Well, during the second marriage, anyway — but he was married to my mother before that, even if it wasn’t exactly what you’d call ‘happily’ married.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest he was unfaithful,” Lilia apologised.
Gol chuckled in a knowing way.
It was time to change the subject, Cery decided. “I’ve been thinking about what we should do next,” he said. Immediately all eyes turned to him. Anyi looked eager, Lilia relieved and Gol narrowed his eyes, no doubt ready to find the holes in whatever schemes Cery thought up. “What we should do is obvious, once I started thinking less about how we are stuck here and more about how we can turn being here to our advantage.”
Now Lilia was looking a little worried.
“We’re safe here — not because Skellin won’t have guessed we sought the Guild’s protection but because he won’t risk coming here,” he continued. “He’ll assume if we’re here we’re in one of the Guild buildings, under magical protection. If he learned that we were under the Guild, and that the magicians don’t know we’re here, he’d would slip in and kill us all — and feel smug that he did it without the Guild noticing.”
“But the Guild would notice,” Anyi pointed out. “Lilia knows we’re here and will stop him, or if she can’t then she’d get help.”
“Yes, but Skellin doesn’t know that,” Cery pointed out.
Gol gave a low growl. “No,” he said.
Cery turned to his friend, amused by the one-word disapproval. “Why not?”
“This is our last and only safe place,” Gol said. “We can’t risk losing it.”
“We do have one more safe place.” Cery pointed upwards. “The protection Skellin thinks we’re enjoying.” He gestured around them. “This, here, is our last and only chance to lure him into a trap.”
“A trap that, if it goes wrong, will see you dead,” Gol said.
“Lilia will protect him,” Anyi said, her eyes bright with the prospect of finally doing something.
Lilia nodded. “And Kallen. You are planning to tell Kallen, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Cery replied. “It’s a bit much to ask Lilia to shoulder all the burden of magical protection or to confront two rogue magicians, if Skellin brings his mother along.”
Anyi rubbed her hands together eagerly. “So what will we use as bait?”
Gol snorted. “It’s obvious. Your father intends to lure Skellin here with something he wants more than anything else.”
Lilia’s face went a little pale. “Black magic?”
“No,” Gol said. “Skellin wants to know he has full control of the entire underworld. If he finds out Cery is alive, he’ll know there’s always the danger Cery will try to get it back — with Guild help. He’ll risk a lot to kill him.”
Anyi’s eager grin vanished. She stared at Cery, searching his face as if hoping for a sign he was joking. When he nodded she scowled and crossed her arms. “Gol’s right. That is too much of a risk.”
“What else do you suggest? What else would tempt him to risk coming this close to the Guild?”
Anyi looked at Lilia. “Black magic-”
“He won’t risk trying to capture her. She could be many times stronger than him. In fact, for this to work it has to be obvious that Lilia isn’t here. He might believe the Guild doesn’t know I’m here, but he won’t as easily believe she doesn’t. Lilia will have to be seen somewhere else before he’ll come looking for me.”
“But you’ll need a magician here,” Lilia pointed out. “Or you won’t be able to stop him killing you all.”
He nodded. “Yes. Kallen. Tell him that we have a plan to trap Skellin and ask how we should contact him when we’re ready. Don’t tell him where the trap will be sprung of course. I have a feeling he’d decide keeping people out of these passages is more important than catching Skellin.”
Lilia nodded. Anyi was shaking her head. “I don’t like it,” she said.
Cery crossed his arms. “Why?”
“I…” She looked away and scowled. Abruptly she got up, grabbed a lamp and stalked out of the room.
The room was silent for several heartbeats. Lilia glanced at Cery and Gol, then hurried after her.
Cery stared at the empty doorway. His heart twisted in a way that was both painful and pleasant. He did not want to risk anybody’s life. Certainly not his own. But they could not stay here forever.
Thinking back, he remembered the angry, defiant young woman he had tried to keep in contact with after parting from her mother. Anyi had hated him — or at least she had behaved as if she did. Knowing that he had somehow won her over was a bittersweet pleasure. It had come at the price of her safety.
But then, being related to him was all it took to make life dangerous, especially while a rogue magician Thief ruled the underworld, and that rogue hated Cery.
“For once your daughter and I agree,” Gol said in a low voice. “It is too dangerous.”
“Let’s see what Kallen says to that,” Cery replied.
Within a few paces, Anyi slowed down to let Lilia catch up, but did not stop walking.
“Are you all right?” Lilia asked.
Anyi shook her head. “No. Yes. I… I need to think.”
Her tone suggested that she wasn’t in the mood for talking, so Lilia stayed silent. She drew magic to create a globe light, and Anyi wordlessly turned her lamp’s flame down low to conserve oil. They didn’t travel far. After a few hundred paces Anyi’s stride became purposeful and soon it became clear she was leading Lilia to some rooms nearer to the University that she’d recently discovered.
Anyi chose one room at random, then, since there were no chairs, sat down on the floor with her back to a wall. Lilia sat down beside her, disturbing a dust-covered broken plate. She wiped the surface clean, uncovering a Guild symbol imprinted into the underside. This isn’t very old. I wonder how it got here.
“I shouldn’t care,” Anyi said.
Lilia turned to look at her. “Of course you should. He’s your father.”
Anyi’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Not much of one. For most of my life he ignored me. It was only when his other family was murdered that he paid any attention to me.”
Not sure what to say, Lilia said nothing.
“That’s not really fair, though,” Anyi added, her voice quieter and softer. “Mother left him. She said it wasn’t safe being the wife of a Thief, and that she couldn’t stand being hidden away all the time. I don’t think two people should be forced to be together if they don’t want to be.”
“How did Cery come to marry again?” Lilia asked. Divorce was something only the king could grant. She couldn’t imagine a Thief asking the king to end his marriage.
Anyi shrugged. “He just did.”
“But that’s…”
“Bigamy?” Anyi looked at Lilia and shrugged. “Not really. Nobody in the underworld can afford a legal marriage. I suppose Cery could, but why pay attention to one of the king’s laws when you don’t pay much to the rest of them? We have our own ways of declaring ourselves married — or unmarried.”
Lilia shook her head in wonder. “It’s a whole other world.” She shrugged. “Though I could say that about the family my parents were servants for. We might have been a part of their world, but we weren’t in their world. It would have been nice to be that rich, and to be able to order people around, but sometimes they had even less choice about their lives than we did. They don’t get to decide who they marry, and they do have to ask the king for a divorce — and hope he grants it.”
“Perhaps that’s why Sonea never got married. She’s not from the Houses so she doesn’t have a family deciding who she marries, but she’d have to have a legal marriage if she did and then if she wanted to end it she’d have to hope the king let her.”
Lilia chuckled. “I can’t imagine some man ordering her about.”
Anyi grinned. “No. More likely it’d be the other way around.” But as she met Lilia’s gaze she grew serious again. She looked away and sighed.
“He’s going to get himself killed. He finally lets me into his world and now I’m going to lose him.”
“Only if things go wrong — and we’ll make sure that won’t happen.”
Anyi gave her an accusing look. “You think he’s right.”
“No.” Lilia shook her head. “But I suspect we won’t have much say in it.”
The other girl scowled, then her expression became thoughtful. “You could tell him Kallen doesn’t want to do it. Put Cery off for a while.”
Lilia nodded. “I could. But then he might try to do it without Kallen.” She thought back to what Cery had said. “I can’t help thinking he is right about one thing: Skellin will guess you all came here. Where else would you go? He probably knows there are tunnels. It’s not a secret in the Guild, so I doubt it is outside of it. He’ll come to have a look eventually. When he does, he’ll find you here. And if I’m away in lessons, I won’t be able to stop him killing you all.”
Anyi turned to look at Lilia, her brow creased with worry.
“Perhaps the only way you can be safe is under the Guild’s protection,” Lilia continued. “I know none of you like that idea, but if Cery’s trap fails, that’s where you’ll end up anyway. I suspect the Guild won’t like it either, but they’ll be more willing to protect you if there’s evidence Skellin actually entered the Guild’s underground passages.”
Anyi groaned and rubbed her face with her hands. “You’re making sense, and I don’t like it.”
“I don’t either,” Lilia admitted. “But I know I can’t be the protector you need. Mostly because I’m not here that much, but also because I don’t know how powerful Skellin is. If he comes here with Lorandra I doubt I’ll be able to protect myself, let alone the rest of you. Even if he doesn’t, how are you going to let me know you need my help? What if I don’t get here in time?”
“We’ll use an escape route.”
“What if you don’t make it? Even if you do, you’ll come up in the Guild’s grounds and if he’s still following you then you’ll have to seek the help of the Guild anyway.” Lilia sighed and felt the frustration and worry of the last few weeks gather up behind her words. “It’s not safe down here, and you could be living more comfortably, and it’s so hard getting food to you, and… I miss you.”
At that last admission, the flood of words that had been pouring out of her ran out. She felt her face heat and looked at Anyi sheepishly. The other girl had an odd, surprised expression.
“I mean I miss being alone with you. Maybe that’s a little selfish,” she began. “I-”
But she got no apology out, because Anyi leaned forward, caught hold of her jaw and kissed her.
“I miss you, too,” she said quietly and fiercely.
Then she drew Lilia into her arms. For a time they simply held each other, taking comfort in physical warmth and closeness. Too soon Anyi sighed and pulled away.
“Cery will be wondering where we’ve got to,” she murmured.
Standing up, she held out a hand to Lilia. As Lilia took it Anyi hauled her to her feet, but in the same movement she pulled Lilia close and kissed her again. This time it was a lingering kiss, as if she had forgotten her last words.
A footfall, followed by a sharply indrawn breath, jolted Lilia back to her surroundings. She and Anyi sprang apart and whirled towards the door, Anyi bracing in a fighting stance. Lilia had drawn magic and formed a shield before she saw that it was only Cery standing in the doorway.
His face was frozen in surprise. As Anyi uttered a curse, Cery’s expression changed to a mix of embarrassment and amusement.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said, taking a step backwards. “Come back when you’re ready.”
Then with a barely suppressed smile, he turned and hurried away.
Covering her face with her hands, Anyi groaned. Lilia placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder in sympathy. I wouldn’t want my father walking in on me kissing another woman. As Anyi’s shoulders started to shake and she began to make choking noises, she felt her heart twist, until she saw her friend’s hands shift to her mouth and she realised Anyi was laughing.
“Well,” Lilia said as she waited for Anyi to stop. “That’s not the reaction I was expecting.”
Anyi shook her head. “No. Guess it wouldn’t be.” She took a couple of deep breaths, only breaking into spluttering once. “I’ve been worrying about how to tell him for months. Now I don’t have to.”
“You were going to tell him about us?”
“Of course.”
“But… won’t he be angry?”
“No. A bit dismayed, maybe. Did I ever tell you where he was born and grew up?”
Lilia shook her head.
“Well, it’s really his story to tell — many stories, actually. It was a place you meet people with all kinds of tastes and ideas.” Anyi took Lilia’s hand. “Come on. We really should go back. He’ll be worrying that we’re too annoyed or embarrassed to return. And I want to make sure this fool’s plan is as foolproof as possible.”