The High Lord (51 page)

“What about Akkarin?” another magician called. “Why not call him back?”

“The King considers this the wiser path,” Lorlen replied stiffly.

No more questions came. Lorlen nodded.

“You have half an hour to consider. If you wish to nominate someone, please speak to Lord Osen.”

He watched as magicians left their seats and gathered in small groups to discuss the King’s order. Some approached Lord Osen directly. The Higher Magicians were uncharacteristically silent. Time seemed to slow. When the half-hour had ended, Lorlen rose and struck the gong beside his seat.

“Please be seated.”

As the magicians returned to their places, Osen climbed the stairs to Lorlen.

“This will be interesting,” Director Jerrik murmured. “Who do they consider worthy of this dubious honor?”

Osen’s shoulders lifted. “No surprises. They suggest Lord Sarrin, Lord Balkan, Lady Vinara or,” he looked at Lorlen, “Administrator Lorlen.”

“Me?” Lorlen exclaimed, before he could stop himself.

“Yes.” Osen looked amused. “You’re very popular, you know. One magician suggested that a King’s Advisor should take on the burden.”

“Interesting idea.” Balkan chuckled, then quite deliber-ately looked up at the topmost row of chairs. Lord Mirkan blinked down at him, his face changing from watchfulness to sudden anxiety. “Let the King face whatever consequences this may lead to.”

“He would find himself a new Advisor within a day,” Vinara said flatly. She looked at Lorlen. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

Lorlen nodded and turned to the Hall. “Nominations for the role of… black magician are as follows: Lord Sarrin, Lord Balkan, Lady Vinara, and myself.”
Surely they won’t choose me,
he thought.
What if they do?
“Nominees will abstain from the vote. Please create your lights.”

Hundreds of globe lights floated up to the ceiling. Lorlen’s heart was beating too fast. He kept hearing Osen’s comment, repeating in his mind.
“You’re very popular, you know.”
The possibility that he might lose his position as Ambassador and force himself to learn what Akkarin had admitted was evil magic turned his blood to ice.

‘Those in favor of Lord Sarrin, change your lights to purple,” he ordered. “Those in favor of Lord Balkan, choose red. For Lady Vinara, choose green.” He paused and swallowed. “For myself, blue.”

Some of the globe lights had begun to take on color before he had finished, as magicians anticipated that Lorlen would suggest the color of each candidate’s robes. Slowly, the remaining white globe lights changed.

It’s close,
Lorlen thought. He started counting…

“Sarrin,” Balkan said.

“Yes, I get that result, too,” Vinara confirmed. “Though you were their second choice.”

Lorlen breathed a sigh of relief as he realized they were right. He looked down at Sarrin, then felt a pang of sympathy. The old magician looked pale and ill.

“Lord Sarrin will be our defender,” Lorlen announced. Looking closely at the audience, he saw reluctant acceptance on most faces. “He will relinquish his role as Head of Alchemy and begin learning black magic immediately. I now declare this Meet ended.”

“Wake up, little Sonea.”

Sonea grew aware of her surroundings with a start. She saw with surprise that her horse had stopped. Looking around, she found Dorrien watching her with an odd look on his face. They had pulled up by a road leading to a house, and Akkarin was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s gone to get us some food,” Dorrien explained.

She nodded, then yawned and rubbed her face. When she looked at Dorrien again, he was still watching her thoughtfully.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He looked away and smiled crookedly. “I was thinking that I should have kidnapped you from the Guild while I had the chance.”

She felt a familiar pang of guilt. “The Guild wouldn’t have let you. I wouldn’t have let you.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “No?”

“No.” She avoided his eyes. “It took a lot before I really decided I wanted to stay and learn magic. It would take a lot more to make me change my mind.”

He paused. “Do you… do you think you would have been tempted?”

She thought back to the day they went to the spring together, and his kiss, and she couldn’t help smiling. “A little. But I hardly knew you, Dorrien. A few weeks isn’t enough time to be sure about someone.”

His eyes flickered over her shoulder. She turned to see that Akkarin was riding toward them. With his short beard and simple clothing, she doubted he would be recognized. Anyone looking closely would notice he rode too well, however. She would have to point this out.

“And you’re sure now?”

She turned back to Dorrien. “Yes.”

He let out a long breath, then nodded. Sonea looked at Akkarin again. His expression was grim and hard.

“Though it took a lot to convince
him,”
she added.

Dorrien made a choking noise. She turned, cursing herself for making such a thoughtless comment, only to have him burst into laughter.

“Poor Akkarin!” he said, shaking his head. He looked at her sideways and shook his head. “You’re going to be a formidable woman one day.”

Sonea stared at him, then felt her face grow hot. She tried to think of a retort, but the words refused to come. Then Akkarin reached them and she gave up.

As he handed her a bread roll, Akkarin looked at her closely. She felt her face warming again. His eyebrows rose, and he looked at Dorrien speculatively. The Healer smiled, tapped his heels against his horse’s flank and started forward.

They moved on, eating as they rode. An hour later, they arrived at a small village. She and Akkarin dismounted and handed the reins of their horses to Dorrien, and the Healer left to find fresh mounts.

“So what were you and Dorrien discussing before?” Akkarin asked.

She turned to regard him. “Discussing?”

“Outside the farmhouse when I was buying the food.”

“Oh. Then. Nothing.”

He smiled and nodded. “Nothing. Amazing subject, that one. Produces such fascinating reactions in people.”

She regarded him coolly. “Perhaps it’s a polite way of saying it’s none of your business.”

“If you say so.”

She felt a flash of irritation at the knowing look on his face. Was she so easy to read?
But if I can guess his moods now, he can probably read mine just as easily.

He yawned, then closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked more alert.
When was the last time we slept?
she thought.
The morning after we slipped through the Pass. Before then? A few hours’ sleep each day. And for the first half of our journey, Akkarin hadn’t slept at all…

“You haven’t had any more nightmares,” she said suddenly.

Akkarin frowned. “No.”

“What did you dream about?”

He gave her a sharp look, and she instantly regretted the question.

“Sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Akkarin drew in a deep breath. “No, I should tell you. I dream of events that happened when I was a slave. Mostly events concerning one person.” He paused. “Dakova’s slave girl.”

“The one who helped you, in the beginning?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. He paused, and looked away. “I loved her.”

Sonea blinked in surprise. Akkarin and the slave girl? He had
loved
her? He had loved
another?
She felt a growing uncertainty and annoyance, then guilt. Was she jealous of a girl who had died years before? That was ridiculous.

“Dakova knew it,” Akkarin continued. “We dared not touch each other. He would have killed us if we had. As it was, he enjoyed tormenting us any way he could. She was his… his pleasure slave.”

Sonea shivered as she began to understand what that must have been like. To always see each other, yet never be able to touch. To watch as the other was tormented. She could not imagine what Akkarin had felt, knowing what the girl endured.

Akkarin sighed. “I used to dream about her death every night. In my dreams, I tell her that I’ll distract Dakova so she can get away. I tell her I’ll stop him finding her. But she always ignores me. She always goes to him.”

She reached out and touched the back of his hand. His fingers curled around hers.

“She explained to me that the slaves considered it an honor to serve a magician. She said the slaves’ sense of honor made their life easier to bear. I could understand that they might allow themselves to think that way when they had no choice, but not when they did have a choice—or when they knew their master intended to kill them.”

Sonea thought of Takan, of how he had called Akkarin “master,” and of the peculiar way he had handed the Ichani knife to Akkarin across his upturned wrists, as if he was offering something more than the blade. Perhaps he was.

“Takan has never stopped thinking that way, has he?” she asked quietly.

Akkarin glanced at her. “No,” he said. “He could not let go of a lifetime of habits.” He paused to chuckle. “I think in the last few years he persisted with the rituals just to infuriate me. I know he would never go back to that life willingly.”

“Yet he stayed with you, and would not let you teach him magic.”

“No, but there were practical reasons for that. Takan could not join the Guild. Too many questions would have been asked. Even if we invented a past for him, it would have been difficult for him to avoid those lessons that involve mind sharing. It would have been too risky to teach him magic secretly. If he had returned to Sachaka, he would not have survived unless he knew black magic. I don’t think he trusted himself with that knowledge, in that place. In Sachaka, there are only masters and slaves. To survive as a master, he would need his own slaves.”

Sonea shuddered. “It sounds like an evil place.”

Akkarin shrugged. “Not every master is cruel. The Ichani are outcasts. They are the magicians the King has banished from the city—and not just for being overly ambitious.”

“How did the King make them leave?”

“His own powers are considerable, and he has supporters.”

“The Sachakan King is a magician!”

“Yes.” Akkarin smiled. “Only the Allied Lands have laws preventing magicians from ruling, or having too much influence in politics.”

“Does our King know this?”

“Yes, though he does not understand how powerful the Sachakan magicians are. Well, he does now.”

“What does the Sachakan King think of the Ichani invading Kyralia?”

Akkarin frowned. “I don’t know. If he knew of Kariko’s plan, he would not have liked it, but he probably believed it would never work. The Ichani were always too busy fighting each other to think of forming an alliance. It will be interesting to see what the Sachakan King will do when he has a neighboring land ruled by Ichani.”

“He’ll help us?”

“Oh, no.” Akkarin laughed grimly. “You forget how much Sachakans hate the Guild.”

“Because of the war? But that was so long ago.”

“To the Guild it is. The Sachakans cannot forget, not with half their country a wasteland.” Akkarin shook his head. “The Guild should never have ignored Sachaka after it had won the war.”

“What should it have done?”

Akkarin turned his head and gazed at the mountains. Sonea followed his eyes. Only a few days before, they had been on the other side of that jagged line.

“It was a war between magicians,” Akkarin murmured. “There is never any point in sending armies of non-magicians against magicians, especially magicians who use black magic. Sachaka was conquered by Kyralian magicians, who promptly returned to their rich homes. They knew the Sachakan empire would eventually recover and become a danger again; so they created the wasteland to keep the country poor. If some of the Guild magicians had taken up residence in Sachaka instead, freed the slaves and shown that magicians can use their powers to help the people, the Sachakans might have been guided toward becoming a more peaceful, free society, and we might not be facing this situation today.”

“I see,” Sonea said slowly, “but I can also see why it never happened. Why would the Guild help ordinary Sachakans when they don’t help ordinary Kyralians?”

Akkarin regarded her speculatively. “Some do. Dorrien, for instance.”

Sonea held his gaze. “Dorrien is an exception. The Guild could do a lot more.”

“We can’t do anything if nobody volunteers to do it.”

“Of course you can.”

“Would you force magicians to work against their will?”

“Yes.”

His eyebrows rose. “I doubt they would cooperate.”

“Perhaps their income should be reduced if they don’t.”

Akkarin smiled. “They would feel they were being treated like servants. No one will want their children to join the Guild if it means they must work like commoners.”

“No one from the Houses,” Sonea corrected him.

Akkarin blinked, then chuckled. “I knew you’d be a disruptive influence the moment the Guild proposed teaching you. They ought to be grateful I took you away.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but stopped as she realized Dorrien was approaching. He was riding a new horse and was leading two others.

“They’re not the best,” he said, handing them the reins, “but they’ll have to do. Magicians all over the country are hurrying to Imardin, so the supply of fresh horses at rest-houses is dwindling fast.”

Akkarin nodded grimly. “Then we must hurry or the supply will run out.” He moved around to the side of a horse and swung up into the saddle. Sonea hauled herself up onto the other horse. As she slipped her other boot into the stirrup, she watched Akkarin closely. He had called her a disruptive influence, but that didn’t mean he disapproved. He might even agree with her.

Did it matter? In a few days there might not be a Guild, and the poor would discover there were worse things to endure than the Purge.

Sonea shivered and pushed that thought from her mind.

The corridor of the Magicians’ Quarters was almost as busy as the University at midbreak, Dannyl mused. He walked with Yaldin past knots of magicians, their wives, husbands and children. All were discussing the Meet.

As Yaldin reached the door to his rooms, the old magician looked up at him and sighed.