The Rogue

her arms around Lilia and hugged her.

Lilia hugged her friend back. The simple warmth of the embrace filled her with happiness. As Naki began to pull away, she let go, but the other girl only leaned back a little. Lilia looked up to find Naki staring at her intently, her expression thoughtful.

Then Naki leaned in and kissed her.

Once again, all the sorts of hopes and ideas that the other novices disapproved of came rushing into Lilia’s mind, and her heart began beating very fast. She kissed back, not daring to think what might happen next, and not wanting to risk spoiling the moment.

Inevitably, Naki broke the kiss. Her eyes were dark and her expression impossible to read. Lilia wanted to tell her she loved her, but she hesitated, afraid that she was wrong and Naki would be repelled.

Suddenly Naki grinned and leapt off the bed.

“Let’s go to the library,” she said. “I have some roet stowed there.”

Can’t we do anything without roet? Lilia pushed the sullen thought aside and stood up. “All right …”

Naki grew even more fey and restless as they crept quietly to the library, her movements all agitation and excitement. Once she had a brazier burning, she urged Lilia to breath in the smoke deeply. They settled into two large chairs.

“Your father won’t come in here?” Lilia asked, before the drug stopped her caring enough to worry about it.

“He’ll be asleep,” Naki replied. “He was complaining, before you arrived, about how it had been a long day and he was so tired.”

They relaxed for a while, enjoying the roet, then Naki got up and moved over to the glass-topped table. She leaned on it, gazing down at the contents, then straightened as if coming to a decision and opened the side. Reaching inside, she took something out, and as she started back toward the chairs Lilia saw that it was the book Naki had shown her previously. The one that contained instructions on using black magic.

A faint unease stirred within Lilia, but she was feeling too lazy to even frown.

Naki dropped back into her chair with a sigh. She lifted the book and regarded it thoughtfully. Opening it, she gently turned the pages.

“I could probably quote whole sections of this.”

“How often have you looked at it?” Lilia asked.

“More times than I can remember.” Naki shrugged. “My father should know that if he says I’m not to do something I’ll take it as a challenge.”

“Have you read the whole thing?”

Naki looked up at Lilia and smiled. “Of course. It’s not a big book.”

“So you’ve read the bit … the part …”

Naki’s smile widened. “The part about black magic. Yes. I have.” She looked down. “It’s amazingly straightforward. I’ve often wondered if I could do it, using these instructions.”

“But you can’t learn black magic from a book,” Lilia reminded her. “It has to be taught mind to mind.”

“That’s true. I wonder why they bothered writing it down, then.” Naki flicked through the pages, then held the open book out to Lilia. “What do you think?”

Despite the roet, Lilia hesitated. Even to read about black magic was forbidden.

“Go on,” Naki said. “I’ve always wanted to show someone and get their opinion, but I never trusted anybody enough.”

Lilia’s heart lifted and she smiled at Naki as she reached out to take the book. She trusts me. She thinks my opinion is worth something. Looking down at the open page, she started to read.

… means by which the body achieves this are not so much understood as sensed. So it is, too, with the higher magics. In early training, an apprentice is taught to imagine his magic as a vessel – perhaps a box or a bottle. As he learns more he comes to understand what his senses tell him: that his body is the vessel, and that the natural barrier of magic at the skin contains his power within. And so it is that if he should happen to encounter a breach of another person’s barrier (as in the ritual of higher magic) he can extend his senses into the other’s body in a quite different way to Healing, detecting the power within, not the physical body. He can also influence this power, removing or adding to it. While it is possible to sense how much power a person contains, it is not possible to judge how strong he is. You may sense the physical exhaustion of a man who has been stripped of his magic, which suggests that once the magical energy is removed the physical energy is tapped, but if not depleted to the point of physical impact you cannot sense if magic has been removed at all. It is also difficult to sense and manipulate magic simultaneously with sensing and manipulating the physical body through Healing …

The author rambled on about Healing from that point. His writing is terrible, Lilia mused. It just goes on and on and never comes to the point. There are no paragraph breaks. She flicked through the pages. None in the entire book.

“Well? What do you think?” Naki asked, slipping some more roet into the burner.

Lilia turned back to the page on black magic and made herself read it again. “There’s not much.”

“More than anyone’s told us before,” Naki pointed out. “I’ve tried sensing my magic the way it describes.”

Lilia looked up. “And?”

Naki smiled. “I think I’ve got the knack of it.” She leaned forward. “Try it.”

“Now?” Lilia protested weakly. She felt too lazy to be attempting any mind tricks.

“Yes. It’s easy once you have the right idea. And it’s a real head-spinner when you’ve got a bit of smoke in you.” Naki’s eyes sparkled.

Shrugging, Lilia closed her eyes. She struggled against lethargy, then brought up an image in her mind of the door she had been taught to see as the entry point to her magic. She opened it and felt her senses tingle and the effect of roet subside a little.

As always, she imagined a room inside herself, small and sparsely furnished, which reminded her both of the tiny bedroom she had shared with her siblings and of her room in the Novices’ Quarters. It was filled with a warm light.

But the book says this is just a way to visualise my power. The real walls are the barrier at my skin. So I should be able to …

She let the walls go, and they faded into darkness. The warmth and glow of the light slowly faded from her sense of touch or sight, leaving only an awareness of another kind. She reached out and felt the boundaries of it. They weren’t leg and arm shaped, she found, and yet … she had a sense of her physical form as if a faint outline of herself was imposed over the magic within her.

For a measure of time she pondered this, then she remembered Naki and drew her awareness back out of herself.

“That’s … amazing,” she breathed.

Naki smiled. “You got it? I knew you would. You’re too clever.” She got up and came closer, leaning on the arm of the chair, reaching out and turning Lilia’s hands so she could read the book. “Let’s try something else. Let’s see if you can sense my magic.”

“But … you’d have to cut yourself for me to be able to do that.”

Naki leaned close. Her breath smelled of roet. Her lips curled in an inviting way. “I’ll do that for you. I’d do anything for you.”

Lilia stared at her friend, feeling her heart warm and expand. “I’d do anything for you,” she replied with feeling.

Naki’s smile widened with delight. “Let’s do it,” she said. She cast about, then danced over to the glass- covered table and reached inside again. Whatever she’d taken was small and hidden in her palm. “It’s old, so I don’t