The High Lord

Sonea watched the faces of the few novices who noticed her. None glared or looked down their noses. Some of the first years stared at the incal on her sleeve - the symbol that declared her the favorite novice of the High Lord - then quickly looked away.

Reaching the end of the corridor, she started down the delicate, magically-fashioned staircase of the Entrance Hall. Her boots made a soft, bell-like sound on the treads. The hall echoed as more ringing steps joined hers. Looking up, she saw that three novices were ascending toward her, and she felt a chill run down her back.

The novice at the center of the trio was Regin. His two closest friends, Kano and Alend, were by his side. Keeping her expression neutral, she continued her descent. As Regin noticed her, his smile vanished. His gaze met hers, then moved away again as they passed each other.

She glanced back and let out a small sigh of relief. Every encounter since the Challenge had been like this. Regin had adopted the demeanor of a gracious and dignified loser, and she let him. Rubbing in his defeat would have been satisfying, but she was sure he would come up with anonymous and subtle ways of getting his revenge if she did. Better they ignored each other.

Beating Regin in a public fight had done more than stop his harassment of her, though. It appeared to have won her the respect of other novices and most of the teachers. She wasn't just the slum girl now, whose powers had first manifested in an attack on the Guild during the yearly Purge of vagrants and miscreants from the city. Remembering that day, she smiled ruefully. I was just as surprised that I had used magic as they were.

Nor was she remembered for being the 'rogue' who had evaded capture by making a deal with the Thieves. It seemed like a good idea at the time, she thought. I believed the Guild wanted to kill me. After all, they have never trained anyone outside the Houses before. It didn't do the Thieves any good, though. I was never able to control my powers well enough to be of use.

Though some still resented it, she was no longer thought of as the outsider who brought about Lord Fergun's downfall, either. Well, he shouldn't have locked Cery up and threatened to kill him to force me into cooperating with his schemes. He wanted to convince the Guild that lower class people couldn't be trusted with magic, but instead he proved that some magicians can't be.

Thinking back to the novices in the corridor, Sonea smiled. From their wary curiosity she guessed the first thing they remembered about her was how easily she had won the Challenge. They wondered just how powerful she was going to become. She suspected that even some of the teachers were a little frightened of her.

At the bottom of the stairs Sonea crossed the Entrance Hall to the open University doors. Standing on the threshold, she looked at the gray, two-story building at the edge of the garden and felt her smile fade.

A year since the Challenge, but some things haven't changed.

Despite winning the novices' respect, she still had no close friends. It wasn't that they were all intimidated by her - or her guardian. Several novices had made an effort to include her in their conversations since the Challenge. But while she was happy to talk to them during lessons or midbreak, she always refused invitations to join them outside class.

She sighed and started down the University steps. Every friend she made was another tool the High Lord could use against her. If she ever found the opportunity to reveal his crimes to the Guild, everyone she cared about would be in danger. There was no sense in giving Akkarin a larger selection of victims to choose from.

Sonea thought back to the night, now over two and a half years ago, when she had slipped into the Guild with her friend Cery. Though she had believed the Guild wanted her dead, the risk seemed worth taking. She had not been able to control her powers, making her useless to the Thieves, and Cery had hoped that she might learn how to do so by watching magicians.

Late that night, after seeing much that fascinated her, she had approached a gray building set apart from the rest. Peering through a ventilation grille into an underground room, she had witnessed a black-robed magician performing strange magic...

The magician took the glittering dagger and looked up at the servant.

'The fight has weakened me. I need your strength.'

The servant dropped to one knee and offered his arm. The magician ran the blade over the man's skin, then placed a hand over the wound...

... then she felt a strange sensation, like a fluttering of insects in her ears.

Sonea shivered as she remembered. She hadn't understood what she'd seen that night, and so much happened afterward, she had tried to forget. Her powers had grown so dangerous that the Thieves had turned her over to the Guild and she discovered that the magicians did not want to kill her; they decided she could join them. Then Lord Fergun had captured Cery and blackmailed her into cooperating with him. The Warrior's plans had failed, however, when Cery was found imprisoned under the University, and Sonea consented to a truth-read by Administrator Lorlen to prove that Fergun had manipulated her. It was only during this mind-reading that her memory of the black-robed magician in that underground room had returned in full.

Lorlen had recognized the magician as his friend Akkarin, the High Lord of the Guild. He had also recognized the forbidden ritual of black magic.

From Lorlen's mind, Sonea had gleaned an understanding of what a black magician was capable of. By using the forbidden art, Akkarin would have gained strength beyond his natural limit. The High Lord was known to be unusually powerful as it was, but as a black magician he would be so powerful that Lorlen did not think even the combined strength of the Guild could defeat him.

Lorlen had therefore decided that a confrontation with the High Lord was out of the question. The crime must remain a secret until a way to deal with Akkarin safely was found. Only Rothen, the magician who was to be Sonea's guardian, was allowed to know the truth - in the course of teaching her he was likely to see her memory of Akkarin and learn the truth for himself anyway.

At the thought of Rothen she felt a pang of sadness, followed by a dull anger. Rothen had been more than a guardian and teacher; he had been like a father. She was not sure she could have endured Regin's harassment without Rothen's support and help. For his trouble, he had endured the effects of the malicious rumors that Regin had started suggesting that Rothen's guardianship was gained in exchange for bedroom favors.

And then, just as it seemed the gossip and suspicion had passed, everything had changed. Akkarin had come to Rothen's room to tell them that he had discovered that they knew of his secret. He had read Lorlen's mind, and wanted to read theirs. Knowing that Akkarin was too powerful to fight, they dared not refuse. Afterward, she remembered, Akkarin had paced the room.

'You would both expose me if you could,' he said. 'I will claim Sonea's guardianship. She will ensure your silence. You will never cause anyone to know that I practice black magic while she is mine.' His eyes shifted to Sonea's. 'And Rothen's wellbeing will be my guarantee that you will cooperate.'

Sonea set her feet on the path to the High Lord's Residence. That confrontation had taken place so long ago, it felt as if it had happened to someone else, or to a character in a story she had heard. She had been Akkarin's favorite for a year and a half now and it was not as bad as she'd feared. He hadn't used her as a source of extra power, or tried to involve her in his evil practices. Aside from the sumptuous dinners she attended with him every Firstday evening, she rarely saw him at all. When they did speak, it was only of her training in the University.

Except for that one night, she thought.

She slowed as she remembered. Many months ago, returning after classes, she had heard loud noises and shouting from below the residence. Descending the stairs to the underground room, she had witnessed Akkarin kill a man with black magic. He had claimed the man was a Sachakan assassin, sent to murder him.

'Why did you kill him?' she asked. 'Why not hand him over to the Guild?'

'Because, as you've no doubt guessed, he and his kind know things about me that I'd rather the Guild did not. You must be wondering who these people are, and why they want me dead. I can tell you only this: the Sachakans still hate the Guild, but they also fear us. From time to time they send one of these, to test me.'

Sonea knew as much about Kyralia's neighbor as any other third-year novice. All novices studied the war between the Sachakan Empire and the Kyralian magicians. They were taught that the Kyralians had won the war by forming the Guild and sharing magical knowledge. Seven centuries later, the Sachakan Empire was all but gone and much of Sachaka remained a wasteland.

When she thought about it, it was not hard to believe that the Sachakans still hated the Guild. This was