Canavan Trudi - The Traitor Queen

“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.”