The Traitor Queen

“It must always be considered.” Tayend smiled grimly. “What doesn’t make sense is: if they are, it could have the opposite effect. They’re gambling that we don’t agree to something like that in order to free Lorkin.” He took a sip of the wine, his expression serious. “If it came to civil war, who do you think would win?”

“I have no idea.” Dannyl shook his head. “We don’t know enough about the Traitors.”

“Then I hope Lorkin does know more than he claims, because if the Allied Lands do get dragged into a war we could easily end up picking the losing side – or find we can only win by doing the majority of the fighting, and suffering the greater casualties.”

A knot of cold had formed in Dannyl’s stomach. Lorkin will have told Osen all he knows about the Traitors, so if Lorkin knows they’re planning a civil war then Osen does too. As Dannyl considered all Osen’s instructions so far the knot tightened. When slaves began to file into the room carrying platters of food he felt too sick to eat, but he made himself select from the plates, put food in his mouth and chew. Why? Because slaves made it. People who have no choice about their life put effort into this, and it seems thoughtless and wasteful to let that go to waste. Then he felt the knot loosen a little. The Traitors don’t approve of slavery. Civil war might bring freedom.

But it would come at a cost. It always did.

* * *

As Gol walked back into the room, Cery breathed a silent sigh of relief. His friend’s movements were careful and he grimaced with pain as he sat down, but otherwise he was looking much better than he had two days ago.

“It’s going to get nasty in there soon,” Gol muttered.

“I know,” Cery agreed. “But it’ll have to do for now.”

They’d chosen another room to relieve themselves in. The roof and walls looked stable enough, and Cery had brought in a pile of dirt with which to cover their leavings, but it was only going to be a temporary solution.

Asking Anyi to stay and watch over Gol for a while, Cery had explored the small network of rooms and passages nearby. It had been a long time since they’d been occupied. He knew that the late High Lord Akkarin had used them to store things, but the only items there now that were old enough to be from that time weren’t valuable: mostly empty boxes like the ones they were using as furniture. He’d found lamps of a style that would have suited the oldest houses in Imardin, if they hadn’t been distorted with rust, and broken shards of pottery from vessels that would have been worth a fortune for their age and rarity if they’d been whole.

The walls of these rooms were a combination of brick and stone. There were patches of brick filling in gaps between the stone, and brick walls dividing up larger stone-walled rooms, suggesting that perhaps the rooms had been originally all stone, and the brickwork had been added to repair and adapt the spaces.

In one room someone had scratched words on the wall. “Tagin must die”, he’d made out easily, as the letters were large and deep. “Indria must be won”, was smaller. A broken patch began with: “Higher magic is the ca... and must b...” In another, larger room with a collapsed ceiling at one end, a list of names had been carefully carved into a stone slab leaning out from a wall. He didn’t recognise any of the names, but they were preceded by the titles “Lord” and “Magician”. Odd that they used both. He thought he could make out a date at the base, but he could not get the candlelight to reach that far and there was no way he was going to stretch under a large and heavy slab that looked as if it might fall at any moment.

Returning to their refuge, Cery had let a restless, pacing Anyi continue her explorations of the passages. He remained with Gol, and they talked about what Cery had found and of the past until Gol grew sleepy. Sitting in silence didn’t bother Cery as much as he’d thought it would, so long as he didn’t let his mind fix on unpleasant memories. It was restful and quiet, and for once he wasn’t worried about assassins creeping up on them.

Well, not completely unworried, he amended.

As if challenging his shaky belief in their safety, soft footsteps came from the passage outside. He rose to his feet, and felt a rush of relief when Anyi appeared in the doorway.

She was grinning widely, and stooped to pick up their nearly-empty water bucket.

“I’ve found a leaky freshwater pipe under the University,” she told him. “It’s closer than the one you knew about, but just as slow. It’ll take a while to fill this. Be better if we had two buckets – one to leave there while it fills. Or I could try to make the leak worse.”

Cery shook his head. “They might notice and investigate. Let’s see if Lilia can get us another bucket. Or something less leaky.”

She nodded, then tucked the bucket under her arm and walked away.

He sat down again and felt his mood lighten a little. At times he doubted that they could live here at all, let alone comfortably. There was so much they had no access to. They relied entirely on Lilia for food – but thankfully not for water. They had nothing but a pile of old pillows, a few boxes and the cold floor to sleep and sit on. It wasn’t too cold, and the air didn’t appear to be getting stale.

The tap of footsteps reached him again, but whoever was approaching made no effort to be quiet. They were wearing boots or some other kind of sturdy shoe, but walked lightly.

Lilia. He smiled to himself. Helping her had proven to be very beneficial. He would never have left her floundering out in the city’s underworld on her own anyway, but not handing her over to the Guild straightaway had gained him a very useful ally. And Anyi likes her a lot.

A bright floating globe of light preceded Lilia into the room. She was carrying a bundle and a large glass flask, and smiled as she saw Cery. But as she looked around the room her cheerful expression faltered.

“Anyi?”

“Collecting some water,” he told her. “She found a leaky pipe.”

“Not a drainpipe, I hope.” She carefully set the bundle on an upended box and began to unwrap it.

“She says it’s clean,” he replied. He blinked in surprise at the amount of food she’d brought. Bread, a lacquered box of two layers, the lower portion filled with slow-cooked meat and the top one with seasoned vegetables. Since servants had to transport food to the magicians in their Quarters, they always used practical, tightly lidded heat-retaining containers. Though this would feed no more than three people, it was more than one person ought to have needed. “That’s... that’s your dinner?”

“And Sonea’s,” she told him. “Lord Rothen asked her over for a last meal together, and it was too late to tell Jonna.”

“What smells delicious?” another voice asked.

Lilia grinned as Anyi entered the room. “Dinner. I brought some lamp oil and candles, too.”

“Ooh!” Anyi drew a box closer and grabbed a chunk of bread. Somehow Gol had woken up and got to his feet without groaning, and was leaning over the food.

“Won’t the servants notice if you eat enough for two people?” Cery asked, helping himself.

Lilia shrugged. “Jonna is always trying to get me to eat more, and she’s used to Anyi dropping by and eating everything in sight.”

“Hai!” Anyi protested.

Lilia chuckled. “She doesn’t mind.”

“What about you?” Gol asked, looking up at Lilia and gesturing at the food.

“I ate extra at the midday meal,” the girl replied. “And snuck some bread and fruit into my bag to eat later.”

“This last meal Sonea and Rothen are having. Just how ‘last’ is it?”

Lilia’s expression became serious. “She’s leaving tomorrow night. It’s official, too. She’s going because Lord Lorkin returned to Arvice, and the Sachakan king put him in prison when he refused to betray the Traitors.”

Cery felt his stomach sink. To learn your child was in prison... Still, at least he’s alive and no longer trapped in a secret city of rebels. That’s one step closer to home. After all these years of maintaining peace and benefiting from new avenues of trade, surely the Sachakans won’t endanger it all by killing a Guild magician.

He had to admit, he didn’t know enough about Sachaka to be sure.

“I’m glad we didn’t tell her we were here,” he said. “She doesn’t need to be worrying about us as well.”

Anyi nodded. “It’ll be easier for Lilia to help us now she doesn’t have to worry about Sonea finding out.”