“Do you think we should wait until Lilia is with us?” Anyi said as she eyed the roof of the tunnel. Cery lifted his lamp. “It doesn’t look like it’s about to cave in this very moment.” The tunnel was long and Anyi had set a brisk pace. Too brisk. He’d taken advantage of the sagging roof to pause and catch his breath, hoping the others would think he was being cautious. “But then, how do you tell?”
“I don’t know,” Anyi admitted. “I figure it won’t collapse so long as we don’t touch anything. But we shouldn’t hang about.”
Gol made a low noise that suggested they were both crazy. He was regarding the tree roots hanging from the ceiling and matted over the sides of the tunnel with a frown. As he took a step toward it, Cery realised it wasn’t a frown of disapproval but of interest.
Then he saw what Gol had noticed. Light didn’t penetrate beyond some of the roots as it should have. Behind lurked a stubborn darkness. He moved closer then hooked his fingers in the cascade of white roots and pulled gently. They swung forward with no resistance.
They’re not attached to anything. There’s a hole behind here.
“Remember what I said about not touching any…” Anyi began as he pulled the roots aside. “Oh.”
The entrance to another tunnel opened before them. The same deteriorated brickwork held back the earth and supported the roof. He glanced at her and smiled as she came closer and peered inside, eyes bright.
“Now that’s a bit of luck,” she remarked. “If we have to make a run for it, we can slip through here. So long as whoever was chasing us didn’t see us do it they’d never know where we’d gone.”
“Want to explore?” Cery asked.
“Of course.”
Cery looked back at Gol. “Stay here. You hear anything like a cave-in, go get Lilia.”
Gol looked like he was about to argue, but then heaved a heavy sigh and nodded. Cery held back the roots so that Anyi could slip through. She moved slowly, lifting her lamp to examine the walls, roof and floor. The passage was in no worse condition than the one they had been following. Parts had deteriorated, but most still looked solid.
As they made their way along it, Cery wondered how Lilia’s conversation with Kallen had gone. They wouldn’t hear from her until the morning. Cery had decided that they should spend the night exploring the passages and considering where they might set their trap for Skellin. Anyi believed they should lure Skellin to the underground rooms near the University, so they could escape to the building. The rooms were the ones Cery had found Anyi and Lilia in. He felt his face warm as he remembered. In the whorehouse he’d grown up in, he’d known women who sought other women’s affections, some forming bonds that lasted many years. It had been one more of many ways that he’d seen people seek pleasure, companionship and love. Yet he also came to realise that he was living in a particularly tolerant world. Outside it were people who did not approve of anything different from their own experience and tastes. And not just people from the higher classes. The underworld was no better or worse.
I wonder if her mother knows. Vesta always enjoyed feeling that she was better than others. She was always looking for something to disapprove of in other people. Sometimes I think the only reason she wanted me was because I was a Thief. It made her feel more important than most other people. Well, it did for a while.
The last thing he wanted Anyi to feel was disapproved of. He certainly didn’t mind her being with Lilia but… He felt a small pang of envy. I once loved a Guild magician, but the only kind of love I got in return was friendship. He shook his head. That sounds peevish. Sonea’s friendship is no small thing, and I did find love elsewhere.
He wondered if Anyi had had many previous lovers, then remembered her story of the one who had betrayed her. Aha. That must be why I never found him. It wasn’t a “him”, it was a “her ”.
Anyi gave a little gasp. “Look!” she whispered.
The tunnel ended at a brick wall, but it was no ordinary wall. A familiar mechanism had been attached to the brickwork — the workings of a hidden door. Cery located a brass spy hole cover. It was stiff and green with age, but he was able to force it open. Looking through, he saw only darkness.
“Can’t see anything,” he said.
“Do you want to try opening it?” Anyi asked.
Cery considered. If he let his imagination go where it pleased, it conjured up dangerous prisoners or incarcerated monsters waiting for the chance to be free — killing anything that stood in their path.
More likely it’s another old storeroom. Besides, there’s no lock preventing anyone opening the door from the other side, as far as I can see.
He nodded.
Anyi took the lever and hauled on it, but the door did not budge. Looking closely at the mechanism, Cery saw that it wasn’t rusted. There were black lumps around the joins. He poked at them. They were soft. Probably old oil or grease grown thick with time and dust. Cery took a turn pulling the lever, then they both put their strength into it, but with no effect.
“Go fetch Gol,” Cery said.
He peered through the spy hole again — even tried holding up the lamp and looking through at the same time, but saw nothing but darkness beyond the door. It occurred to him then that maybe the hole was blocked. Digging a pick out of his coat, he poked it through and confirmed there was a void on the other side.
Maybe it’s a trap, set up by Akkarin or someone else long ago. Perhaps for the same reason we want to set traps: to fool and stop pursuers. Who knows what reasons the Guild had, in the past, to dig these tunnels.
The sound of two sets of footsteps approached behind him and he turned. Gol rolled his eyes as he saw the door.
“Can’t leave a mystery unsolved, can you?” he rumbled.
Cery shrugged. With a roll of his eyes, Gol moved to the door and grasped the handle. He pulled once, paused to examine the mechanism, then took the handle again.
“Be careful: you don’t want to pull that wound open,” Anyi said.
Gol stepped back from the lever, then cast about. He moved back down the passage for a short distance and picked something up. As he returned, Cery saw that it was a brick.
“That’ll make a lot of-”
The clang that filled the passage as Gol struck the mechanism was painfully loud.
“-noise,” Anyi finished.
But the shock appeared to have done what Gol intended: break the seal of the old oil. The lever now flexed under his hand. Cery felt his heart beat a little faster as the door swung open. It was heavy: the other side was covered with thin bricks and mortar. The door formed the back of an alcove.
As the light of the lamps penetrated the darkness it illuminated old wooden cupboards and tables. Cery felt his heart sink with disappointment. He wasn’t sure what he had been hoping to see. Hidden treasure, maybe? A better place to hide?
They moved inside the room. As the light of all three lamps filled the space, Cery felt apprehension replace his earlier anticipation. The room was clean. There was no dust or rubble. He moved to one of the tables. It was covered in small pots. Each contained earth and a tiny plant.
“Are we at the fa-” Gol began.
“Quiet!” Anyi gasped.
Cery and Gol turned to see that she was peering up a narrow staircase, holding her lamp away from the well so that its light wouldn’t penetrate. They moved closer and, as they joined her, heard voices above. There was the creak of a handle being turned.
Without another word, they fled into the tunnel, Gol pulling the door closed behind him. Cery’s heart was beating so quickly his chest hurt. Anyi put her eye to the spy hole and Gol set his ear to the door. Amused, Cery gently pulled a silently protesting Anyi aside and took her place at the spy hole.
The room beyond was no longer dark. Something bright was moving down the stairwell. He felt a wry relief as he saw a magical globe of light appear, then two magicians descend into view. One was an old woman, the other a young man.
“What’s happening,” Anyi murmured.
“Magicians. They’re looking around the room. Can you hear them, Gol?”
“Faintly.” The big man replied. “One said he thought he heard something. The other agreed.”
The two magicians shook their heads and walked toward the tables. The male one picked up a plant, then put it down with obvious careless anger.
“The old woman asked something. The young one says he’s sure,” Gol reported. He paused, and Cery could hear the faint sound of voices. He signalled for silence, then pressed his ear to the door.
“So we’ve been tricked,” the woman said. She didn’t sound surprised.
“Yes, as you suspected we would be,” the younger magician replied. “If you smoked this… this common garden weed, you’d get nothing but a headache.”
“Well, we knew getting hold of roet would not be easy.”
Roet? Cery felt something hot race through his veins. The Guild wants to grow roet?
“We’ll just have to keep trying,” the woman continued. “Skellin must be growing it somewhere — and growing a lot. Eventually someone will betray him, if we offer enough money.”
“All we need are a few seeds.”
“I wish that we didn’t need any.”
The voices were growing quieter. Cery put his eye to the spy hole again and watched them ascend the stairs, the magic light rising ahead of them. When all light disappeared abruptly, he guessed that the door above the stairs had been closed. He pulled away from the spy hole, closing its cover, and described what he’d heard to Anyi and Gol.
“What does the Guild want roet for?” Anyi asked, scowling at the door.
“Maybe it has potential as a cure,” Gol suggested.
“Maybe,” Cery echoed. “Maybe more than a few Guild magicians are addicted to it now, and they want to take control of their supply out of Skellin’s hands.”
“Perhaps they want to put Skellin out of business,” Gol said. “Then when they control all trade, stop growing it.”
Anyi turned to stare at him, horrified. “What about all the common people who are addicted to it? It would be… people would go mad!”
“The Guild has never stopped the underworld acquiring anything it wanted,” Cery reminded her.
His daughter did not look reassured. “It’s never going away, is it?” she said, her eyes wide with realisation. “We’re stuck with roet forever.”
“Probably,” Cery agreed.
Gol nodded. “But maybe if the Guild gets hold of some, and studies it, they’ll find a way to stop it being so addictive.”
Anyi still looked glum. “I guess, as an escape route, this is no better than fleeing into the University”
Cery looked at the door. “We don’t know if whatever is above that cellar is occupied by magicians all the time. It will probably be guarded by someone, if they get more seeds and try again, but that could be just a servant or two.”
“Skellin is more likely to follow us through there than into the University,” Gol added. “So it might be a good play to lay our trap.”
“Might be. But let’s not tell the Guild we know they’re trying to grow rot until we have to.”
“Bad memories?”
Sonea looked at Regin in surprise. Was it that obvious? Since the carriage had begun its slow ascent into the mountains she had been pushing aside dark and gloomy feelings. At first she’d dismissed it as weariness and worry, but then she would see some feature — a tree or rock — and feel sure she’d noticed it the last time she had travelled this road. But surely her mind was playing tricks on her. My memory can’t be that good.
Not sure how to answer Regin’s question, she shrugged. He nodded and looked away. She’d thought at first that their conversations had dwindled to silence because he was distracted by the view outside. Unlike her, he had never travelled this road before. Now she wondered if the silence was her fault. She hadn’t felt like talking for some time now.
Is that the place we stopped? A gap had opened in the trees, revealing fields and roads stretching into the distance, divided by rivers, roads and other human-made boundaries. The trees seemed small, however. Surely they would have grown taller in the last twenty years. But objects tend to be larger in our memories. Though… I thought that only applied to objects remembered from childhood, because we were smaller then.
“What is it?” Regin asked.
She realised she had been leaning forward, craning her neck to better see the outside. Leaning back in her seat, she shrugged.
“I thought I recognised something.” She shook her head. “A place we stopped, last time.”
“Did… something happen there?”
“Not really. Nobody said much during that journey.” She couldn’t help a smile. “Akkarin wouldn’t talk to me.” But I kept finding him looking at me. “He was angry with me.”
Regin’s eyebrows rose. “For what?”
“For making sure they sent me into exile with him.”
“Why would he be angry at that?”
“His plan — or so I thought at the time — was to get himself captured by Ichani and communicate the result to all magicians.”
Regin’s eyes widened slightly. “A brave decision.”
“Oh, very honourable,” she said drily. “Shock the Guild into realising the danger it faced while sacrificing the only person who could do anything about it.”
His eyebrows rose. “But he wasn’t. There was you.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know enough. I didn’t even know how to make blood rings. We wouldn’t have beaten the Ichani if he hadn’t survived.” But that wasn’t why you followed him, she reminded herself. You did so because you couldn’t let Akkarin die. Love is selfish. “By forcing him to keep me alive, I forced him to keep himself alive.”
“Those weeks must have been terrifying.”
She nodded, but her thoughts suddenly shifted to the Traitors. She’d always suspected there was more to Akkarin’s time in Sachaka than he’d told her. Once, when checking facts for his book, Lord Dannyl had asked her if there was any truth to the rumour that Akkarin had been able to read a person’s surface thoughts, without touching them. She could not remember Akkarin speaking of it. People had believed Akkarin had all kinds of extraordinary abilities, even before it had been revealed that he’d learned black magic.
Perhaps he had been able to, but kept it a secret. Like his deal with the Traitors. Made with the Traitor Queen, no less, though maybe she hadn’t yet become queen. I’m sure he told me the person who taught him black magic was a man. Was it a deliberate lie, to help conceal the Traitors’ existence? I can’t help feeling a little hurt that he didn’t trust me with the truth, but then I wouldn’t have wanted him to break a promise made to somebody who saved his life.
Sighing, she looked out of the window at the sun, which hung low in the sky. Her memory of the end of the climb to the Fort was of exposed rock and little vegetation. While stretches of rock were visible here and there, the trees had not yet thinned to the degree she recalled. We’re going to arrive later than I planned — maybe even after dark.
A sharp turn to the side forced her to brace herself. Surprised, she leaned close to the window, wondering why the carriage had changed direction, and blinked at the unexpected brightness of a tall, curved wall blazing yellow in the late sun ahead of them.
Not late after all, she thought. Trees must have grown over all that bare land I remembered.
“We’re here,” she told Regin. He moved to sit beside her so that he could look out of the window on the other side.
She watched his face, glimpsing echoes of the awe she’d felt as a young woman on seeing the Fort for the first time. The building was a huge cylinder carved out of solid rock, encompassing the gap between two high, near-vertical rock walls. Turning back to the window, she saw that the facing wall was not the flawless smooth surface that she remembered. A different-colour stone had been used to fill large cracks and holes. They must be repairs of damage done during the Ichani Invasion. She shivered, remembering the battle here, seen by all magicians as the Warrior leading the Fort’s reinforcements, Lord Makin, had broadcast it mentally, until he died at the hands of the invaders.
The carriage rolled to a halt before the tower. A red-robed magician and the captain of the Fort’s unit of Guard walked forward to meet them. Sonea unlatched and opened the door with magic, then paused to look at Regin. The excitement in his face made him look younger — almost boyish. It brought a flash of memory of him as a smiling young man, but she didn’t entirely believe that memory was real. In her recollections of him at that age, his smile had been always full of malicious triumph or glee.
Not for a long time, though, she thought as she climbed out of the carriage. Actually, I don’t remember him smiling much this last year. Unless with forced politeness, or maybe in sympathy. To her surprise, she felt sad. He’s a very unhappy man, she realised.
“Greetings, Black Magician Sonea,” the red-robed magician said. “I am Watcher Orton. This is Captain Pettur.”
The captain bowed. “Welcome to the Fort.”
“Watcher Orton.” Sonea inclined her head. “Captain Pettur. Thank you for the warm welcome.”
“Are you still planning to stay for the night?” Orton asked.
“Yes.” The title of Watcher had been created for the leader of the magicians who now guarded the Fort along with their non-magician counterparts. The Guild had been worried that no magician would volunteer for the role, so they had given it extra benefits of both influence and wealth. They hadn’t needed to. Watcher Orton and his predecessor were both men who had fought the Sachakan invaders and were determined to ensure none would enter Kyralia again without a decent effort at resistance.
“Come this way,” Orton invited, waving toward the open gates at the base of the tower.
Sonea felt a shiver of recognition as she saw the tunnel beyond. They walked into the shadows of the interior. Lamps kept the way illuminated, revealing more repair work, and the traps and barriers that had been added.
“We have a memorial to those who died here at the beginning of the invasion,” Orton told her. He pointed to a section of wall ahead, and as they drew closer Sonea saw that it was a list of names.
Reaching them, she stopped to read. She saw Lord Makin’s name but the rest were unfamiliar. Many of the victims had been common Guard. At the top of the list were longer names that included House and family — men from the highest class who had sought a career in the Guard and were guaranteed a position of power and respect. The men working at the Fort in those days, however, had often been failures or troublemakers, sent to where it was believed they could do no harm — or, if they did, it was well out of the sight of anyone who cared.
Above those were the magicians. The family and House names were familiar, but she had been too young and new to the Guild to have known any of the magicians personally. Except one.
Fergun’s name drew her eyes. She felt an uncomfortable mix of dislike, pity and guilt. He had been a victim of the war. For all that he had done, he hadn’t deserved to die by having all the energy within him ripped out by a Sachakan magician.
But that still doesn’t change the fact that he wasn’t a good person.
At that thought, the conflicting emotions faded away. She understood it was possible to feel sadness at the injustice of a person’s death without having to convince herself that they were a better person than she’d known them to be.
And he got a Stayhouse named after him. She turned away. Which I’m sure would have appalled him for entirely different reasons than it appalled me.
Watcher Orton led them to a dark, narrow door. A complicated procedure followed, in which he identified himself, the captain and their visitors, and then all kinds of sounds followed as a locking mechanism was worked. When the door opened, she was amused to see it was a hand-span thick and made of iron. They entered a room, then went through the same procedure to pass through another, equally robust door. The occupants of the Fort were not taking any chances.
A narrow, curved passage with a sloped floor led steeply upwards. The ends of pipes protruding on either side suggested that something could be poured into the space. Water, or something less pleasant? Physical defences wouldn’t necessarily stop a magician, but they could use up power, trick a magician into lowering his guard, or surprise one before he or she could find an appropriate way to counter it. The passages were designed as a labyrinth to confuse and disorientate, and allow fleeing occupants time to escape.
When they had reached the end of the passage, Orton paused to look at her.
“I hope you weren’t relying on the Sachakans being unaware of your arrival here.”
She looked at him and felt a shiver run down her spine.
“Why?”
“We’re sure the road is being watched. Patrols have found tracks and other evidence on the Kyralian side of the mountains. Of course, we can only observe the Sachakan side from afar, but our watchers have seen small groups of men moving about.”
“Ichani?”
Orton frowned. “I suspect not. Ichani don’t carry good-quality rations. Whoever it is, they aren’t concerned about hiding their tracks when they do venture over our side. I suspect because they don’t realise they have. It’s not as though we have painted a line where the border lies.”
The thought that the Ichani made a habit of wandering into Kyralia was not a comforting one. But the outcasts who inhabited the mountains had always been a disorganised rabble, preying on each other more often than the occasional unfortunate traveller. The humbling fact was, the invaders who had nearly overtaken Kyralia had only done so because one of them had the strength of will to unite a handful of them — and it had taken him years to do so.
An organised Sachakan army would have been unstoppable. Might still be. And here she was, one of Kyralia’s few weapons of defence, heading into Sachaka itself to rescue her son. I have to hope that Kallen and Lilia are defence enough, if the Sachakans take advantage of my absence. One a roet addict. One a naive young woman. Suddenly she felt light-headed and nauseous.
Time to stop thinking about that, she told herself.
“Who do you think these people are, then?” she asked.
“Spies.”
“Of the Sachakan king?”
Orton nodded. “Who else could they be?”
Who else, indeed.
Several twisting passages later, they arrived at a dining room large enough to seat ten people. It was laid out with impressively fine tableware. Three women and two men stood waiting to be introduced. Two minor captains and their wives, and the wife of an absent captain. Orton invited them all to sit, took his place and asked a servant to bring the meal.
The food was surprisingly good. Orton explained that he believed good food did wonders for the morale of the people here, who must always live far from Imardin and with the threat of possible invasion. Local farmers and hunters benefited from the trade, too. Yet the meal was not an entirely relaxed one. They were interrupted several times by guards bringing messages or making reports. At first Sonea listened attentively, assuming that something important must have happened, but it became clear that this was simply a routine that was never abandoned — not even during dinner with a high-ranking magician.
The other guests were used to this, and barely paused in their conversation. Sonea only realised that she had stopped paying attention to the reports when Orton interrupted a conversation she was having with Captain Pettur.
“Black Magician Sonea,” he said, his tone grave and formal.
She turned to see that, despite his calm expression, his eyes betrayed anxiety.
“Yes, Watcher Orton?”
“A strange message just arrived.” He handed her a piece of paper, folded in odd, converging lines. “The guards on duty who received it said it glided through the air like a bird, and landed at their feet.”
She looked at the neat writing and her heart skipped a beat, though whether in excitement or trepidation she couldn’t decide.
We advise Black Magician Sonea to remain at the Fort until safe passage can be arranged. Instructions will follow soon.
A symbol had been drawn underneath the writing: a circle with a spiral scrawled within. Lorkin had described it to Administrator Osen, saying that it was one the Traitors had told him they would use to identify themselves. She felt a thrill of excitement. Soon she would be judging for herself the people who had impressed Lorkin so much, and who had helped Akkarin escape slavery all those years ago.
Sonea suspended the paper in the air with magic and set it alight. The other guests murmured in surprise as it quickly turned to ash. She turned to Orton and smiled. “I don’t think those spies are going to be a problem for much longer, Watcher Orton.”
After several nights lying on a cold stone floor I ought to have no trouble sleeping now that I’m in a proper bed. What is wrong with me?
Lorkin could feel that his body was tense. No matter how much he stretched, practised breathing exercises and tried to relax into the soft bedding, he could not settle. It did not help that every time his mind entered that period of wandering just before sleep, memories of the slave girl returned.
He did not want to think about her.
But he did.
She had taken the water so eagerly, as if she knew what it contained. Perhaps she had been a Traitor after all. She’d struggled to conceal the poison’s effects in the beginning. Surely that meant she’d known what she was taking. Eventually she hadn’t been able to stay quiet. If it had not been for the watcher intervening and dragging her out of the cell, Lorkin would have given in and Healed her. In an outburst of frustration and self-loathing, Lorkin had thrown the water jar at the man, but it had struck the bars and shattered.
Afterwards, the Ashaki interrogator had arrived. Lorkin had expected him to gloat and reveal that her death was his intention all long, but he examined the dead girl silently, said nothing to Lorkin and left wearing a frown of worry.
The next morning, men Lorkin had never seen before had taken him from the cell and to a small courtyard. When the carriage they put him in arrived at the Guild House, Lorkin had wondered if he was having a particularly vivid dream.
It wasn’t a dream. The king had released him. No explanation had been given. No apology for his imprisonment. Just the order for him to stay there.
Why?
Lorkin rolled onto his side. His globe light burned softly above, and he’d placed a barrier across the doorway, both slowly using up what was left of the magic that Tyvara had given him. Though he was now sleeping in a different room to the one in which Riva had died, the memory of someone crawling onto his bed in the darkness was surprisingly vivid and unpleasant, despite the fact that the original experience had been rather pleasant to begin with. He could not help imagining someone was lurking in the darkness, or that he was lying next to a corpse.
Eyes staring at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Like the slave in the prison.
He stared up at the glowing sphere and gave up on any hope of sleeping.
Then he opened his eyes and, though nothing had changed, knew that time had passed. He had fallen asleep after giving up on falling asleep. But why had he woken up? He could remember no dream or nightmare.
A thump from the central room sent a chill through his blood and he froze. Forcing his head to turn, he looked beyond the bedroom door and saw light in the room beyond.
Someone is in there…
He dropped the barrier over the doorway and created one around himself, then rose and approached the other room cautiously. Two slaves were in the centre of the room. A young man lay on the floor, a middle-aged woman crouched over him, one hand pressed to his head, the other holding a knife.
Oh, no. Not again.
But then the man blinked. He was alive. She’s reading his mind, Lorkin realised. She looked up at him and he recognised her as one of the kitchen slaves. “Lorkin,” she said. Removing her hands from the man’s brow, she rose to her feet. “I am Savi. The queen sends her regards.”
Lorkin nodded. “How is she?” he asked automatically, then realised he ought to thank her first, since the man she had tackled had probably meant to kill him.
“Dead.” She grimaced. “Two days ago.”
“Oh.” He thought of Zarala’s mischievous eyes and sense of humour and felt a wave of sadness. “I am sorry to hear that. She was nice.” Then something occurred to him. “She wasn’t…? How did she…?”
“She came to the natural end of a long life.” Savi straightened. “Savara was elected in her place.”
Lorkin nodded again, not sure if it was polite to express pleasure at the news of a new queen when the old one had so recently died. The spy had told him in a matter-of-fact way that suggested she didn’t expect him to comment. He was glad to hear Savara had been chosen as the new queen. Not just because she had helped him many times and was Tyvara’s superior, but because she was smart, open-minded and fair.
The spy turned to face the main door to the room. The reason for her distractedness came a moment later when Dannyl and another slave stepped into the room.
Dannyl looked at the man on the floor who, despite being awake and staring at them all, wasn’t moving, then at Savi and Lorkin.
“What happened?” he asked.
Lorkin shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure.” He turned to Savi.
“There have been some additions and removals of slaves here lately that were suspicious,” she told them. “This one,” she pointed to the man on the floor, “is no slave. He is a magician of low status. He was offered land and Ashaki status if he posed as a slave and helped abduct Lorkin.”
“Abduct him?” Dannyl repeated. “Again?”
Her eyes warmed with amusement. “Not by us. He received the offer through a friend. He believes it came from the king, though he has no proof of that.”
“Of course not.” Dannyl looked around the room, his gaze settling on the slave who had brought him to the room. “Is she…?”
“Trustworthy? Yes,” the Traitor replied.
“Good.” Dannyl looked at the younger woman. “Could you wake Ambassador Tayend and bring him here?”
The slave nodded and hurried away. She had not thrown herself to the floor, or even bowed, Lorkin realised. Dannyl was too lost in thought to notice. He walked over to the man and stared down at him. “Not restrained,” he murmured.
“I have taken his strength,” Savi replied. “Would you like me to kill him?”
“No. Not yet, anyway. We should not discuss anything within his hearing or sight, though.”
The woman shrugged. A dome of white light covered the man’s face. “He won’t hear or see you. I am Savi, by the way.”
“Thank you for intervening, Savi,” Dannyl said. “So he thinks the king is behind this?”
She nodded. “Amakira probably intended to blame Lorkin’s abduction on Traitors.”
“After which he’d read Lorkin’s mind-”
“Attempt to,” the spy corrected.
“-torture the information out of him, and then kill him and make it look like the Traitors did it.”
Lorkin felt a chill run down his spine. Images of the tortured slave flashed through his memory. I’m not sure I could endure as long as she did.
A movement in the doorway caught everyone’s attention. Tayend entered, the young slave woman following. He took in the prone man, Savi, Lorkin and Dannyl, then listened silently as all that had been discussed was repeated to him.
“What matters now is what the king will do when he realises his plan has failed,” he said. “We have no proof he arranged this. To suggest it would be an insult. He may also decide he must remove Lorkin from the Guild House for his own protection.” He looked at Lorkin. “Somewhere nobody will find him.”
Lorkin winced. “Can we pretend nothing happened?”
Dannyl and Tayend exchanged looks.
“We could,” Tayend said, “if it weren’t for this man. We can’t kill him. He’s meant to be the king’s property.”
Dannyl narrowed his eyes at the prone man. “Well, if we’re all pretending that he’s just a slave… we could say that we caught him using magic, and demand he be removed. We’d have to wait until he regained his strength, or they’ll have to wonder how any of us managed to strip him of power.”
“We can’t send him away. He knows Savi is a Traitor,” Lorkin protested. “If he tells the king that, she’ll be in danger.”
Dannyl looked at Savi. “Can you leave?”
She shook her head. “This House is being watched closely, day and night. Food and supplies are brought here. The slaves who attempted to go out for other items have been stopped.” She looked down at the spy. “The king may still use his presence here as reason to remove Lorkin to somewhere safer. I suspect there are other slaves here who may be Amakira’s spies, too.”
They exchanged silent, worried looks. Dannyl sighed and looked at Lorkin.
“We have got to get you out of Sachaka.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Tayend murmured. He looked at Savi. “I suppose this restriction of slave movement means your people can’t arrange that?”
“If we could have, we’d have done it already.”
Dannyl shook his head. “I wish I’d known about this. I don’t expect to know everything, but the more I do the easier it is to make decisions.”
“To tell you would reveal who I was,” Savi pointed out.
Dannyl turned to the Traitor woman. “Well, you have now and that could be to our advantage. Could you read the minds of all the slaves here? Find out which are Amakira’s spies — and if any are magicians?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said, but with reluctance.
Lorkin frowned. But that would reveal who she was to all the slaves. Yet how else do we find out which slaves are spies or potential abductors? A chill ran down his spine as another option came to him.
She was not the only person in the Guild House who could read minds.
But if he revealed that he could, he would reveal much, much more. I’m going to have to eventually, and I’m not letting another woman be tortured and killed because of me.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Dannyl and Tayend turned to stare at him.
“You know how to…?” Tayend’s eyebrows shot upward. “Oh!”
Lorkin saw Dannyl frown and braced himself for the man’s disapproval, but the man only shook his head.
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Tayend,” he said. “Sonea learned to read minds before she learned black magic.”
Tayend looked relieved. “Really? I thought reading the mind of an unwilling person was something only the black magicians could do.”
Dannyl’s lips pressed into a grim smile. “We let people believe that. Like black magic, it’s a skill that would be too easily abused.”
Tayend turned to regard Lorkin, his gaze sharp and thoughtful. He’s wondering what else I’ve learned. Should I tell them the truth now? It might be seen as suspicious if I conceal it too long.
“Another piece of information you didn’t tell me so I can’t reveal it if I’m interrogated?” Dannyl asked.
Lorkin nodded. He’s right. I can’t tell him yet.
“Well…” Dannyl turned to Savi. “I’ll block all of the House’s exits to make sure nobody attempts to leave. In the meantime, rouse the head slave and send him to the Master’s Room, where Lorkin will order him to bring all of the slaves to them to have their minds read.” He looked at the failed abductor. “We should lock him up somewhere out of sight, too.” He sighed. “This barely qualifies for the term ‘plan’, but it’ll gain us some time to think of a better one.”