The Magicians' Guild

the Purge, her dark hair had grown a little longer, but her skin was pale and clung to the bones of her face. Remembering how light she had been to carry, Rothen shook his head. Her time with the Thieves had not improved her health. Sighing, he turned his attention to the book again.

After managing to read another page, he looked up. Dark eyes stared back at him.

The eyes dropped to his robes. In a flurry of movement, the girl struggled from the clinging sheets of the bed. Once free, she looked down in dismay at the heavy cotton nightrobe she wore.

Putting the book on the table beside the bed, Rothen stood up, taking care to keep his movements slow. She pressed her back against the far wall, eyes wide. Moving away, he opened the doors of a cupboard at the back of the room and took out a thick leisure coat.

'Here,' he said, taking it down and holding it out to her. 'This is for you.'

She stared at the coat as if it were a wild animal.

'Take it,' he urged, taking a few steps toward her. 'You must be cold.'

Frowning, she edged forward and snatched the coat from his hands. Without taking her eyes from him, she shrugged her arms into the garment and pulled it close around her thin body, backing away to the wall again.

'My name is Rothen,' he told her.

She continued to stare at him, saying nothing.

'We do not intend to harm you, Sonea,' he told her. 'You have nothing to fear.'

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened into a thin line.

'You don't believe me.' He shrugged. 'Nor would I in your position. Did you get our letter, Sonea?'

She frowned, then a look of contempt crossed her face. He smothered the urge to smile.

'Of course, you wouldn't believe that, either, would you? Tell me, what do you find hardest to believe?'

Crossing her arms, she looked out the window and did not answer. He pushed aside a mild annoyance. Resistance, even this ridiculous refusal to answer, was to be expected.

'Sonea, we must talk to each other,' he said gently. 'There is a power in you that, whether you want it or not, you must learn to control. If you do not, it will kill you. I know you understand this.'

Her brows knitted together, but she continued staring silently out of the window. Rothen allowed himself to sigh.

'Whatever reasons you have to dislike us, you must realize that to refuse our help is foolish. Yesterday we did no more than use up the store of power inside you. It will not be long before your powers grow strong and dangerous again. Think on that,' he paused, 'but not for too long.'

Turning toward the door, he reached for the handle.

'What do I have to do?'

Her voice was high and faint. He felt a thrill of triumph, but quickly schooled his expression. Turning back, he felt his heart twist as he saw the fear in her eyes.

'You have to learn to trust me,' he told her.

The magician - Rothen - had returned to his chair. Sonea's heart was still pounding, but not as quickly now. The coat made her feel less vulnerable. She knew it was no protection against magic, it covered the ridiculous thing they had dressed her in.

The room she was in was not large. A tall cupboard stood at one end, the bed filled the other, and a small table fit in the middle. The furniture was made of expensive polished wood. On the table lay small combs and writing implements made of silver. A mirror hung on the wall above it and a painting graced the wall behind the magician.

'Control is a subtle skill,' Rothen told her. 'To show you I must enter your mind, but I can't if you resist me.'

The memory of Guild novices standing in a room, one of each pair pressing hands against his fellow's temples, rose in Sonea's mind. The teacher instructing them had said much the same. Sonea felt an uneasy satisfaction that she knew this magician was telling the truth. No magician could enter her mind uninvited.

Then she frowned, remembering the presence that had shown her the source of her magic, and how to use it.

'You did yesterday.'

He shook his head. 'No, I pointed you toward your own power, then demonstrated how to use it with my own. This is quite different. To teach you how to control your power, I must go to the place within you where your power resides, and to get there, I must enter your mind.'

Sonea looked away. Let a magician into her mind? What would he see? Everything or only what she let him?

Did she have any choice?

'Talk to me,' the magician urged. 'Ask me any questions you wish. If you learn more about me, you will find that I am a trustworthy person. You don't have to like the entire Guild, you don't even have to like me. You just have to know me well enough to trust that I will teach you what must be taught and do nothing to harm you.'

Sonea looked at him closely. He was middle aged or older. Though his dark hair was streaked with gray, his eyes were blue and lively. Wrinkles around his eyes and mouth gave him a good-humored expression. He looked like a gentle, fatherly man - but she was no fool. Tricksters always looked honest and appealing. If they didn't, they failed to make a living. The Guild would have arranged for her to meet their most appealing magician first.

She had to look deeper. As she stared into his eyes, he returned her gaze steadily. His confidence disturbed her. Either he was certain that there was nothing she would find objectionable about him, or he believed he could trick her into thinking so.

Either way, he had a difficult task ahead of him, she decided.

'Why should I believe anything you say?'

He lifted his shoulders. 'Why would I lie to you?'

'To get what you want. Why else?'

'And what do I want?'

She hesitated. 'I don't know yet.'

'I only want to help you, Sonea.' He sounded genuinely concerned.

'I don't believe you,' she told him.

'Why not?'

'You're a magician. They say you vow to protect people, but I've seen you kill.'

The wrinkles between his brows deepened, and he nodded slowly. 'Indeed you have. As we said in our letter to you, we did not intend to harm anybody that day - you or the boy.' He sighed. 'It was a terrible mistake. If I'd known what was going to happen I would never have pointed you out.

'There are many different ways to project magic, and the most common is the strike. The weakest of those is the stun-strike, which is designed to paralyze - to freeze up a person's muscles so they cannot move. The magicians who struck the youth all used stunstrike. Do you remember the color of the strikes?'

Sonea shook her head. 'I wasn't watching.' Too busy running away, she thought, but she wasn't going to say it aloud.

He frowned. 'Then you'll have to believe me when I say that they were red. A stunstrike is red. But with so many magicians responding, some of the strikes met and combined to form a stronger firestrike. Those magicians never intended to harm anyone, only to stop the boy running away. I assure you, our mistake has caused us much anguish, and a great deal of disapproval from the King and the Houses.'

Sonea sniffed. 'Like they care.'

His eyebrows rose. 'Ah, but they do. I'll admit their reasons have more to do with keeping the Guild in line than sympathy for the boy or his family, but we were chastised for our mistake.'

'How?'

He smiled crookedly. 'Letters of protest. Public speeches. A warning from the King. It doesn't sound like much, but in the world of politics, words are much more dangerous than whipping sticks or magic.'

Sonea shook her head. 'Using magic is what you do. It's what you're supposed to be best at. One magician might make a mistake, but not as many as were there.'

His shoulders lifted. 'Do you think we spend our days preparing for a poor girl to attack us with magically