The Rogue (21 page)

He considered his lists again. The idea behind writing them was to give him a clear idea of what he was looking for while visiting the Duna tribes or Sachakan country estates. While he had answered some questions he’d had about history, it was always better to have several sources to quote from when claiming that an event happened or went a certain way, so he would still have to look for references to Imardin surviving the Sachakan War and Narvelan stealing the storestone. As for information about storestones, he had only one source to draw upon: the Duna. He couldn’t ask the Traitors, so he had to rely on Lorkin recording what they knew and eventually getting the information to him.

The only worry he had about the coming journey was how the Duna would react to him and his questions. Unh had been friendly, but the tribesmen in the market had reacted badly to his mention of Unh.
But they were friendly before then. Maybe if I
don’t
mention him …

“Ambassador Dannyl?”

He looked up. The voice was Merria’s and came from the main room.

“Come in, Lady Merria,” he called. Footsteps drew closer and she stepped into the doorway of his office. He beckoned, gesturing for her to sit on the chair for visitors. “How are you doing?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Fine. I imagined there’d be a lot more paperwork and not very much interaction with the people, due to their customs in regard to women. It’s been very much the opposite.”

“You’ve been seeing a lot of the women Ashaki Achati introduced you to?”

“Yes, and their friends. They have quite a network. They never meet all at once, of course. The men would think they were forming a secret rebel society.” Her smile told him how much this amused her. “You’d think having all these women passing on messages to each other would make them suspicious, but …” She shrugged. “Maybe they don’t notice.”

Dannyl nodded. “I haven’t heard anything about it. Do you think they’re organising anything?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so, except that a few days after I commented that Lorkin’s mother would like to hear from him I got a message saying he is in the Traitor city and is fine. I was also invited to send him a message in return.”

Dannyl’s heart skipped. “Where is this message they gave you?”

Merria shook her head. “It was verbal. The women never write anything down.”

He considered what she had told him. “Do you think this came through the Traitors?”

She nodded. “I can’t see how else such messages would get to him, if he’s in the Traitor city and only Traitors ever go there. Unless there are spies among the spies.”

“It’s possible.”

She shook her head. “I think it’s more likely the women only say they hate the Traitors so that the men let them see each other.”

Dannyl nodded in agreement. “Don’t say that to anyone else,” he advised.

Any sort of communication with Lorkin was better than none. Though King Amakira had told him to contact Lorkin some other way than through the Traitors, Dannyl did not want to lose this opportunity. He had plenty of questions for Lorkin, though what he could ask was limited by the fact that others would hear or see the message.

He should also contact Administrator Osen through his blood ring and find out if Sonea wanted to send Lorkin a message, too. That would make Sonea very happy. And the more Higher Magicians who considered what message to send, the less chance they’d send one that would have political ramifications.

“Stay there,” he said to Merria. “I’ll see what the Guild has to say.”

Lilia woke to the sensation of pounding in her head. She groaned. Roet had left her feeling dull, low and tired before, but not this sick. Maybe the wine had been stronger than usual. She hadn’t drunk that much of it.

Then a different pounding started
outside
her head. Someone was knocking on the door. She forced open an eye, but naturally she couldn’t see through doors. It was probably the servants.

“Go away,” she said weakly, closing her eye again.

The knocking stopped. She frowned. Maybe the servants could give her something for the headache. She opened her mouth to call out.

The door opened. Both of her eyes sprang open as if by their own volition. She saw magicians entering the room instead of servants, and it took a moment for her mind to catch up and comprehend this.

She pushed herself up onto her elbows. At once she was aware that she was no longer dressed in her robes. When had she changed into bedclothes? She grabbed the sheets to pull them up and cover herself, and felt something dry and powdery on the skin of her palms. She turned over her hands. Something dark had dried onto them.

Wine? I don’t remember getting it on my hands. And it would be sticky …

The magicians surrounded the bed. She looked up at them, recognising one of Lord Leiden’s Healer friends and … her heart stopped … Black Magician Kallen.

“Lady Lilia?” Kallen asked.

“Y-yes?” Lilia’s heart began beating again, much too fast. “What’s going on?”

“Lord Leiden is dead,” the Healer said.

She stared at him in horror. “How?” Even as she asked, a shiver of guilt ran down her spine.
We tried to teach ourselves black magic last night? What were we thinking?
“Where’s Naki?”

“
HOW
COULD
YOU
DO IT?
” The voice was a shriek, but it was still recognisably Naki’s. Lilia winced. Her friend might have wished her father dead but she hadn’t … Someone pushed past the magicians and was grabbed by the Healer. Naki struggled to throw them off, while glaring at Lilia.

“You!” Naki growled.

“Me?” Lilia stared at her friend.

“You
killed
him!” Naki shouted. “My
father
!”

“I didn’t.” Lilia shook her head. “I fell asleep. Didn’t wake up.”

Naki shook her head in disbelief. “Who else
could
have? I shouldn’t have let you read that book. I just wanted to impress you.”

A chill ran down Lilia’s spine. Suddenly she was too conscious of Kallen’s gaze boring into her. “How did he die?” she asked weakly.

“Black magic,” Naki spat. Her gaze dropped. “What’s that? What’s on your hands?”

Lilia looked down at the dark stains. “I don’t know.”

“It’s blood, isn’t it?” Naki’s eyes widened in horror. “My father’s …” Then her eyes filled with tears, she spun about and ran from the room.

Lilia stared after her.
She thinks I killed her father. She hates me. I’ve lost her. But … I didn’t kill her father. Or did I?
Her memories of the night before were vague in places. That always happened when she drank too much wine or had too much roet. Her dreams – had they been dreams? – had included a fantasy where she’d got rid of Naki’s father, though they hadn’t dwelled on how.

“Did you kill Lord Leiden?” Black Magician Kallen asked.

She forced herself to look up at him. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Have you learned or attempted to learn black magic?”

How to answer that? She found she could not find the words. Her head was pounding so hard she thought it would split open at any moment.

“Lady Naki has confessed to an attempt to learn black magic from a book,” the Healer said. “She says that Lilia did as well.”

Lilia felt a traitorous relief. She nodded. “She has a book. Well, it is – was – her father’s. He keeps it in the library in a glass-topped table. She took it out and we read it – but it’s not supposed to be possible to learn black magic from a book.”

Kallen’s gaze was unwavering. “Yet it is still forbidden to try.”

She looked down. “I didn’t kill her father.” Again, doubt stirred and wound itself into her thoughts.

“Is this the accused?” a new voice said.

The magicians turned to look toward the door, allowing Lilia to see past them. She felt her stomach sink as she saw Black Magician Sonea approaching. Not that another black magician arriving made her situation any worse. She had always admired Sonea, though the thought of what she had done in her life made her very intimidating in person.

“Yes,” Kallen said, moving away from the bed. “I am going to the library to look for a book containing instructions on using black magic. They have both confessed to reading it. Could you read their minds?”

Sonea’s eyebrows rose, but she nodded. As Kallen left the room she turned to the other magicians.

“We should at least allow her to get dressed,” she said. “I’ll stay.”

“Find out what’s on her hands before she washes it off,” the Healer advised.

Lilia watched them go, then when the door was closed she slipped out of the bed.

“Let me see your hands,” Sonea said. She took them in her own hands, which seemed strangely small for a magician so powerful.
Not that magic makes your hands get bigger
, Lilia thought.
Now
that
would be unpleasant.
Lifting one of Lilia’s hands, Sonea sniffed, then drew Lilia over to the wash basin and poured some water in.

“Wash,” she ordered.

Lilia obeyed with some relief. The stain took some rubbing to come off, and coloured the water in swirls.

“We need more light,” Sonea muttered. She looked over to the screens covering the windows, which began to slide open. The room filled with morning light. Looking down, Lilia caught her breath.

The swirls of colour were red.

“But how …? I don’t remember …” she gasped.

Sonea was watching her thoughtfully. She stepped back. “Get changed,” she said, her tone somewhere between an order and a suggestion. “Then we’ll see what you remember.”

Lilia obeyed, changing into her novice’s robes as quickly as she could manage. When she’d finished tying the sash, she walked over to Sonea. The black magician reached out to touch the sides of Lilia’s head.

Lilia had never had her mind read by a black magician before. She’d never had it read by an ordinary magician either. Her lessons in the University had occasionally required a teacher to enter her mind, but novices were always taught to hide their thoughts behind imagined doors. In a cooperative mind-read, the subject was supposed to bring out the memories hidden behind the doors for the reader to see.

This was very different. At once Lilia was aware of the older woman’s presence in her mind. It was a distant thing, like hearing voices through a wall. Then she felt something influencing her thoughts. She could not sense the will behind it, so her instinctive effort to resist had no impact. Forcing herself to yield, she watched as memories of the night began to return.

Embarrassment and fear rose as she recalled Naki’s kiss, but she could detect no disapproval from Sonea. Her memories were a little less vague now that someone else was examining them, but with stretches of time that were indistinct.

One of those stretches was the time after Lilia had lain down next to Naki, after drinking the wine. Her thoughts
had
been murderous, she recalled with shame. But she did not remember actually
murdering
anybody. Except in her dreams.
But were they dreams?

What if she had murdered Naki’s father while caught up in a wine- and roet-induced walking dream?

What if their experiment had worked, and she had learned black magic from a book?

—
Oh, you most certainly did
, Sonea’s voice spoke into her mind.
It’s not supposed to be possible. Not even Akkarin believed it was. But there has been at least one other novice in history who learned it without the help of another magician, and the magicians of that time must have had reason to be so determined to destroy anything written about it. Unfortunately, being the one to prove we were wrong is not an achievement anybody is going to look favourably on. Why did you attempt it when you knew it was forbidden?

—
I don’t know. I just went along with Naki. She told me …
She’d told Lilia she trusted her. Would she ever again?
I love her and she hates me!

Suddenly the loss and shock welled up and she burst into tears. Sonea’s touch disappeared from her head and moved to her shoulders, rubbing them gently but firmly as Lilia struggled to regain control of herself.

“I won’t tell you everything will be fine,” Sonea said, sighing. “But I think I can persuade them that it wasn’t exactly deliberate, and to choose a more lenient punishment. That will depend on what Naki remembers, though.”

A more lenient punishment?
Lilia shivered as she remembered what she had been taught in history classes.
Akkarin was exiled only because the Guild didn’t know if it could defeat him. They would have executed him otherwise. But then, he had killed people with black magic. I haven’t … I hope.

If she hadn’t, Sonea would find no evidence in Naki’s mind. Suddenly Lilia badly wanted Sonea to go and find that out. The last urge to cry vanished.

“Are you all right now?” Sonea asked.

Lilia nodded.

“Stay here.”

The wait was torture. When Sonea finally returned, with Black Magician Kallen and the two other magicians following, her expression was grim.

“She did not witness the death of her father,” Sonea told her. “Nor is there any proof in her mind that you killed him, other than the manner of death and the blood on your hands. Either could be coincidence.”

Lilia sighed with relief.
I didn’t do it
, she told herself.

“Her memories of last night are very different to yours,” Sonea continued. “But not in ways that a misunderstanding would not explain.” She shook her head. “Despite what you recall sensing, she has not learned black magic.”

A bittersweet relief rose at that. At least Naki had not committed as great a crime as Lilia had, though she
had
tried to learn black magic, so Lilia doubted she would escape punishment completely.

Perhaps, now she knows I didn’t kill her father, we can face this together.

But when the magicians escorted Lilia out of the room, Naki was there, glaring at Lilia with an intensity that set her hopes withering.