The Rogue

nearby small table. It rose in the air and floated toward them, settling before Lorkin.

She may be old and too tired for formality, Lorkin mused, but I can see why she is queen. And I’d wager she’s still as powerful and smart as the day she became one.

As Pelaya set the tray down and offered him a cake, he wondered how much the queen had guessed of his plans, because he doubted she believed he was content to settle into his place among the Traitors forever.

Perhaps she was telling him to hold off on them because he’d have a better chance of success after she died, if Savara succeeded her.

But having met her now, I really like her, and I hope that doesn’t happen very soon.

CHAPTER 5 QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS

As the lamps were lit around the courtyard, Sonea started toward the strangest of the Guild buildings. The Dome wasn’t really a dome, but a full sphere – a hollow ball of solid rock. Since half of it was buried in the ground it had a domelike appearance.

It was as old as the Guild itself. Before the Guild had built the Arena – a shield of magic supported by huge curved struts – the more dangerous fighting lessons had been held inside the Dome. There had been many disadvantages to using the structure for this purpose. Unlike with the Arena, spectators could not watch the lesson inside. The thick walls would never have survived a strong attack, so all practice strikes had to be restrained. The strikes that did hit the walls could heat the stone up, making the interior intolerably hot. And the only way to get fresh air inside was to open the plug-like door.

According to the old records that Akkarin had found, the plug had been knocked out during lessons many times over the years, and once even killed a passing servant. Now it was being held in place by magic. Twice a day it was removed and new air sent into the interior to replace the old. At the same time, food and water was taken in and the bucket that served as a toilet removed and emptied.

Sonea could not help thinking of her experience as a captive rogue. Rothen had kept her in his rooms, slowly gaining her trust with kindness and patience while teaching her about the Guild. But Lorandra was no ignorant young woman, come to magic by accident and of greater danger to herself than the Guild. She had her powers well in check and, with her son, had plotted against the Guild.

Yet I know what it’s like to be locked in the Dome. When the Higher Magicians had discovered that Sonea had learned black magic, they had imprisoned her here for a night, and Akkarin in the Arena, while they roused the Higher Magicians in preparation for their trial. It was stuffy and oppressive. I was in there for only a handful of hours. I can’t imagine what it’s been like to be stuck in there for months.

Sonea took a deep breath and resisted the urge to turn and walk in another direction. While she felt some sympathy toward Lorandra, she was always reluctant to visit the woman. Skellin’s mother had never spoken a word, and hate and fear had radiated from her. The woman’s hate she could live with. It was the uncompromising hate of a mother toward those who would harm her son, and having experienced that emotion herself Sonea figured that it was fair.

No, it was the fear that bothered Sonea. She was used to people being a little afraid of her because of what she had done in her youth and was capable of doing with black magic, but Lorandra’s fear was simple blind terror, and that made irrelevant all Sonea had done in her life to prove that she was an honourable and trustworthy person.

And Cery would have me lie to her.

The two guards standing on either side of the door looked bored and annoyed, but as they saw her approaching they straightened and nodded to her respectfully. Both were male and from the Houses, she noted. So far she hadn’t seen any magicians from the lower classes standing guard. Did Administrator Osen not trust that they would keep a Thief’s mother imprisoned? Surely he wasn’t naive enough to think that magicians from the higher class were immune from being blackmailed or bribed by the underworld. She stopped and nodded at the door.

“How long since it was last opened?”

“Three hours, Black Magician Sonea,” the taller of the magicians replied.

“Did you get Administrator Osen’s instructions?”

He nodded.

“Good. Let me in.”

The two magicians stared at the door in silent concentration. Instead of swivelling open, it slowly slid forwards, then rolled sideways to lean against the Dome wall. The interior was dark. Lorandra had plenty of power with which to keep her prison lit, but if she used it she always extinguished her light when she heard the door opening. Sonea took a deep breath, created a globe light and sent it before her as she entered.

As always, the woman was sitting on the narrow bed in the centre of the room. Sonea walked down the curved slope of the “floor” and stopped a few steps away. The woman stared back at her, her face expressionless but her eyes dark and unfriendly.

Sonea considered what to say. In the past she’d tried indirectly approaching the questions she most wanted to ask by mingling them with others. Where did roet come from? Was it a drug from their home country? How was it made? Why had Lorandra been buying books on magic? Had she managed to find many? Where were they now? Why did Skellin think the Guild would be fooled into believing Forlie, the hapless woman he had set up as a fake rogue to prevent the Guild capturing his mother, was a magician? Where was Forlie’s family?

Some of the questions were ones to which Sonea already knew the answers, some Sonea already knew Loranda didn’t know the answer to. Cery had recommended this, because it was important to avoid revealing how much the Guild didn’t know.

But Lorandra had said nothing.

So Sonea tried being more direct. Where was Skellin? How long had he lived in Imardin? Which Thieves were his allies? Which Houses were linked to him? Were any Guild magicians under his sway? Did he have allies in Elyne? Lonmar? Sachaka? How many Thieves had she killed? Had she tried to kill Cery? Had she tried to kill Cery’s family?

No shift of expression had betrayed Lorandra’s reaction to that last question. It was the one Sonea most wanted an answer to, aside from the whereabouts of Skellin.

If only Osen had chosen me to read Lorandra’s mind at the Hearing, not Kallen. I could have sought the answer there and nobody would have known I had done so but Lorandra. But that would have meant Forlie’s mind would have been read by Kallen, and Sonea would not have wished that on the poor, frightened woman.

Sonea remembered Lorandra’s dismay and surprise that she could not stop Kallen reading her mind. Hopefully that meant the magicians of Lorandra’s homeland did not know black magic – possibly did not even know of it. From what Kallen had described, Lorandra’s people forbade all magic, though those who imposed the ban were magicians themselves. Lorandra had broken the law and learned magic in secret. It was likely she did not know how powerful the law keepers were.

The Guild is so worried about offending the people of her land if they block her powers, but if what Kallen says is true, the Guild’s very existence would offend them. Lorandra is a criminal there as well as here. They would want not just her, but all of us, executed.

Igra was far away, with a reassuringly big desert between it and the Allied Lands. Chances were nobody there remembered Lorandra, since she had left many years ago, and if they did they probably thought she was dead. It was a pity she hadn’t approached the Guild from the start. They might have taken her in, or allowed her to