The High Lord

Lorlen glanced toward the High Lord's Residence.

- Osen is a sensible man.

- Sensible men can become quite irrational when their suspicions get the better of them.

- Should he be suspicious? What happened last night?

- A lot of drunk dwells witnessed the Thieves' failed attempt to catch a killer.

- Is that really what happened?

'Administrator?'

Lorlen blinked, then realized he was standing by the open door of the carriage. Barran was regarding him questioningly.

'Excuse me.' Lorlen smiled. 'Just consulting with a colleague.'

Barran's eyes widened slightly as he realized what Lorlen meant. 'Must be a handy skill, that.'

'It is,' Lorlen agreed. He stepped up into the carriage. 'But it does have its limitations.'

Or it ought to, he added silently.

Sonea's stomach fluttered as she entered the underground room; it had been doing this whenever she thought of the coming lesson in black magic - which had been every few minutes. Doubts had worked their way into her thoughts, and a few times she had almost decided to tell Akkarin she had changed her mind. But if she sat calmly and thought it through, her resolve remained strong. Learning it was a risk to herself, but the alternative was to put the Guild and Kyralia at greater risk.

As Akkarin turned to regard her, she bowed.

'Take a seat, Sonea.'

'Yes, High Lord.'

She sat down, then glanced at the table. It was covered in a strange collection of items: a bowl of water, a common plant in a small pot, a cage with a harrel nosing about within, small towels, books, and a polished and unadorned wooden box. Akkarin was reading one of the books.

'What is all this for?' she asked.

'Your training,' he said, closing the book. 'I have not taught another what I will teach you tonight. My own learning did not come with an explanation. I discovered more only when I found the old books that Lord Coren had reburied under the Guild.'

She nodded. 'How did you find them?'

'Coren knew that the magicians who originally buried the trunk had been right to preserve the knowledge of black magic in case the Guild faced a stronger enemy one day. But it was of no use to anyone if it could not be found again. He wrote a letter to the High Lord, to be delivered only after his death, explaining that he had buried a secret store of knowledge under the University that might save the Guild if it faced a terrible enemy.' Akkarin glanced up at the ceiling. 'I found the letter wedged in a record book when the library here was moved after the renovations I had done. Coren's instructions for finding this secret were so obscure none of my predecessors had had the patience to decipher them. Eventually the letter's existence was forgotten. I guessed what Coren's secret was, however.'

'And you worked out the instructions?'

'No.' Akkarin chuckled. 'I spent every night for five months exploring the underground passages until I found the chest.'

Sonea smiled. 'Too bad if the Guild had faced a terrible enemy.' She sobered. 'Well, now it does.'

Akkarin's expression became serious. He glanced down at the items on the table.

'Much of what I will tell you, you already know. You have been taught that all living things contain energy, and that each of us has a barrier at the skin protecting us from external magical influences. If we did not, a magician could kill you from a distance by, say, reaching into your body with his mind and crushing your heart. This barrier will allow certain kinds of magic to penetrate, such as Healing magic, but only via skin-to-skin contact.'

He pushed himself away from the table and took a step closer. 'If you break the skin, you break the barrier. Drawing energy through this gap can be slow. In Alchemy classes you will have learned that magic travels faster through water than air or stone. In Healing classes you have learned that the blood system reaches every part of the body. When you cut deep enough to draw blood, you can draw energy from all parts of the body quite rapidly.

'The skill of drawing is not a difficult one to learn,' Akkarin continued. 'I could explain it to you as it is described in these books, then leave you to experiment on animals, but it would take many days, even weeks, before you learned to draw with any control.' He smiled. 'And smuggling in all the animals could be more trouble than it's worth.'

He sobered again. 'But there is another reason. The night you observed me drawing power from Takan, you sensed something. I had read that, as with ordinary magic, the use of black magic can be sensed by other magicians, particularly those close by. As with ordinary magic, this effect can be hidden. I did not know I was detectable until I read your mind. Afterward I experimented until I was sure I was undetectable. I will need to teach you this quickly, to reduce the risk of discovery.'

He looked up toward the ceiling. 'I will guide you mentally, and we will use Takan as our first source. When he arrives, take care what you speak of. He does not want to learn these things, for reasons too complicated and personal to explain.'

Muffled footsteps came from the stairwell, then the door opened and Takan stepped into the room. He bowed.

'You called, master?'

'It is time to teach Sonea black magic,' Akkarin said.

Takan nodded. He moved to the table and opened the box. Inside, nestled in a bed of fine black cloth, lay the knife Akkarin had used to kill the Sachakan spy. Takan took it carefully, handling it with reverence.

Then, in a smooth, practiced movement, Takan placed the knife across his wrists and approached Sonea, his head bowed. Akkarin's eyes narrowed.

'Enough of that, Takan - and no kneeling.' Akkarin shook his head. 'We are a civilized people. We don't enslave others.'

A faint smile played at Takan's mouth. He looked at Akkarin, his eyes bright. Akkarin snorted softly, then nodded at Sonea.

'This is a Sachakan blade, worn only by magicians,' he said. 'Their knives are forged and sharpened with magic. It is many centuries old and was passed down from father to son. Its last owner was Dakova. I would have left it behind, but Takan salvaged it and brought it with him. Take the knife, Sonea.'

Sonea accepted the blade gingerly. How many people had been killed with this knife? Hundreds? Thousands? She shivered.

'Takan will be needing that chair, too.'

She rose. Takan took her place, then began rolling up his sleeve.

'Make a shallow cut. Press lightly. It is very sharp.'

She looked down at the servant and felt her mouth go dry. The servant smiled at her and lifted his arm. His skin was crisscrossed with scars. Like Akkarin's.

'See,' Takan said. 'Done this before.'

The blade shook a little as she pressed it against Takan's skin. Lifting it away, she saw beads of red form along the cut. She swallowed hard. I'm really doing this. She looked up and found Akkarin watching her closely.

'You don't have to learn this, Sonea,' he said, taking the blade from her.

She took a deep breath. 'Yes I do,' she replied. 'What next?'

'Place your hand over the wound.'

Takan was still smiling. She gently pressed her palm over the cut. Akkarin reached out and placed his hands on her temples.

- Focus as you once did when you learned Control. Visualization will help, to begin with. Show me the room of your mind.

She closed her eyes and drew up an image of the room and placed herself in it. The walls were covered in