Trudi Canavan - The Novice

Keep them separated , she thought, Yikmo would approve .

Moving into the inner passages, she hurried toward the nearest portal room. When she was in sight of it, she willed the door to open and close, then quickly retraced her steps.

Still alone , she thought. Slowing to quieten her footsteps, she took a winding path, finally coming to a door to the secret passages. Checking to make sure no one could see, she slipped a hand under a painting and felt the lever.

“She went this way,” a voice called.

Her heart skipped a beat. She yanked the lever down and stumbled through the opening, then pushed the door closed.

Surrounded by darkness, she peered through the peephole, breathing heavily. Through the little hole, she saw several novices pass. Counting them, she felt ill. Twenty novices.

But she had evaded them. Her heartbeat slowed and her breathing quietened. A little warm air touched her neck.

Sonea frowned. Warm air?

Then, beneath the sound of her own breathing, she heard another, softer, breath. She spun around and willed a light into existence... then choked down a cry of terror.

Dark eyes bore into hers. His arms were folded across his chest, the incal glinting gold against the black of his robes. His face was set in a disapproving scowl.

Swallowing hard, she edged sideways, but an arm rose to block her path.

“Get out,” he snarled.

She hesitated. Couldn’t he hear the novices? Didn’t he understand that she would be walking into a trap?

“Now!” he snapped. “And don’t enter these passages again.”

Turning, she fumbled with the lock, her hands shaking. Checking the peephole, she was relieved to see the passage outside was clear of witnesses. She stumbled through and felt a whisper of cold air on the back of her neck as the door closed behind her.

For several heartbeats she stood there, shivering. Then she thought of him watching her through the peephole and forced herself to move. As she rounded a corner twenty pairs of eyes turned to stare at her in surprise.

“Found her!” someone cried joyfully.

Sonea threw up a shield against the first strikes. She backed away and then, as Regin barked orders for half to circle around and block her escape, turned and ran.

As she fled past the hidden door, she felt shock fall away and anger rising.

Why doesn’t he stop them? Is this my punishment for going where I wasn’t supposed to go? She skidded to a halt as novices leapt out of a side passage and then, throwing up a barrier to hold them there, she dashed down the only other exit.

Won’t people question why he didn’t... but of course, nobody knows he was there but me . Feeling her barrier fail under the onslaught of the novices, she cursed. As she turned a corner she slammed into an invisible wall. She broke the barrier easily and hurried past only to meet another. This, too, fell quickly, but she found herself blocked by another, and another. Her heart sank as footsteps signalled the approach of novices in front and behind. In the next moment she was shielding a relentless shower of strikes.

What was he doing in the hidden passages, anyway? I never saw any sign of footprints... unless he has been smoothing the dust as he passed... but why would he do that when nobody else uses the passages?

Novices blocked her escape. Trapped, she could only wait as they wore her down. With so many attackers, her strength failed rapidly. As her shield began to waver, Regin stepped to the front and smiled broadly. He held a small bottle in his hand, filled with a dark liquid. At a signal from him the attack stopped.

“Sweet Sonea,” he said, sending a bolt of power at her shield. “How my heart lifts to see you.” Another strike. “It has been so long since we met.” Her shield began to crumble, but she drew up more power from somewhere. “Absence does nurture regard, as they say.” The next strike broke it easily. She braced, waiting for the stunstrikes to come.

“I have brought you a gift,” Regin continued. “A perfume of the most exotic variety.” He plucked the cork from the bottle. “Urgh! Such sweet fragrance. Would you like to try it?”

Even from a few steps away, she recognized the smell. Her class had extracted oil from the leaves of the kreppa bush for a medicine project. The remaining juice smelled like rotting vegetation and could cause stinging blisters.

Regin waved the unstoppered bottle carelessly. “But one tiny bottle is too small a token of my regard. Look, I have brought more!”

Bottles appeared in the other novices’ hands. They opened them gingerly and the corridor filled with the sickening odor.

“Tomorrow, we will know where you are by your sweet perfume.” Regin nodded to the others. “Now!” he barked.

Hands thrust forward, sending several streams of the vile juice toward her. She threw up her hands, closed her eyes and from somewhere managed to draw together a last surge of power.

No liquid touched her skin. Nothing. She heard someone cough, then another, then suddenly the passage was filled with curses and exclamations. Opening her eyes, she blinked in amazement. The walls, the ceiling, and the novices were splattered with fine brown droplets. The novices were wiping at their hands and faces frantically. Some were spitting on the floor. Others were rubbing their eyes and one had begun to wail with pain.

Looking at Regin she saw that, being the closest, he had suffered the worst. His eyes were streaming, and his face was raw with red spots.

A strange feeling was bubbling up inside her. Realizing she was going to laugh, she covered her mouth. Hauling herself away from the wall, she swayed, then made herself straighten.

Don’t let them see how tired I am, she thought. Don’t give them time to get ideas of revenge into their heads .

She started walking through the group of novices. Regin’s head snapped up. “Don’t let her get away,” he growled.

A few novices looked up, but the rest ignored him.

“Forget it. I’m getting these robes off now,” one novice said. Others nodded, and began to move away. Regin blinked at them, his face darkening with fury, but he did not argue.

Sonea turned her back and forced her tired legs to carry her past the novices and away.

Rothen yawned as he climbed the stairs of the Magicians’ Quarters. Even a cold bath hadn’t done much to wake him up. He found Tania waiting for him in his guestroom, laying out plates of cakes and buns.

“Good morning, Tania,” he said.

“You’re a little late this morning, my lord,” she replied.

“Yes.” He rubbed his face, then started making sumi. Realizing she was still watching him, he sighed. “I’ve cut down to a tenth of the dosage.”

She didn’t say anything, just nodded approvingly. “I have some news.” She paused, and when he gestured for her to continue, she grimaced apologetically. “You won’t like it.”

“Go on.”

The University cleaners were complaining this morning that some foul-smelling liquid was splattered all over one of the passages. I asked them what they thought had happened, and they started grumbling about novices fighting each other. They were a bit reluctant to say which novices—reluctant to say in front of me, that is. So I bribed it out of one of the serving girls who had already heard the story.

“Regin has been gathering together other novices and waylaying Sonea at night. I asked Viola about it, and she said she hadn’t seen anything to suggest that Sonea had been harmed at all.”

Rothen frowned. “It would take a lot to wear Sonea out.” He felt a spark of anger as he realized what this meant. “Once she had, though, Regin could do anything to her. She’d be too tired to even fight him off physically.”