The Traitor Queen (15 page)

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 naïve 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.

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.