The High Lord (12 page)

But had she been aware, all along, of the secret battle taking place in the darkest parts of Imardin? Was she being readied to join the fight?

He had to know. Turning on his heel, he strode toward the door.

“Gol. Send the High Lord a message. We need to talk.”

Lorlen stepped into the Entrance Hall of the University and stopped as he saw Akkarin pass between the enormous doors.

“Lorlen,” Akkarin said, “are you busy?”

“I’m always busy,” Lorlen replied.

Akkarin’s mouth curled into a wry smile. “This should take only a few minutes.”

“Very well.”

Akkarin gestured toward Lorlen’s office.
Something private, then,
Lorlen mused. He moved out of the Hall back into the corridor, but was only a few steps away from his office when a voice called out.

“High Lord.”

An Alchemist stood just outside the door of a classroom farther down the corridor.

Akkarin stopped. “Yes, Lord Halvin?”

The teacher hurried forward. “Sonea has not appeared for class this morning. Is she unwell?”

Lorlen saw a look of concern cross Akkarin’s face, but he could not tell if it was for Sonea’s wellbeing, or that she was not where she was supposed to be.

“Her servant has not informed me of any sickness,” Akkarin replied.

“I’m sure there is a good reason. I just thought it unusual. She is normally so punctual.” Halvin glanced back at the classroom he had left. “I’d best get back, before they turn into wild animals.”

“Thank you for informing me,” Akkarin said. Halvin nodded again, then hurried away. Akkarin turned to regard Lorlen. “This other issue will have to wait. I had best find out what my novice is up to.”

Watching him stalk away, Lorlen struggled to hold back a growing feeling of foreboding. Surely if she was sick her servant would have informed Akkarin. Why would she deliberately neglect to attend classes? His blood turned cold. Had she and Rothen decided to move against Akkarin? Surely, if they had, they would have told him first.

Wouldn’t they?

Returning to the Entrance Hall, he looked up the stairs. If they had planned something together, they would both be missing. He had only to check Rothen’s classroom.

Moving to the stairs, he hurried upward.

The noon sun streaked through the forest, touching the bright green of new leaves. Its warmth still radiated from the large rock shelf Sonea was sitting on, and lingered in the boulder she had set her back against.

In the distance a gong sounded. Novices would be hurrying out to enjoy the early autumn weather. She should go back, and pretend her absence was due to a sudden headache or other minor illness.

But she couldn’t get herself to move.

She had climbed up to the spring in the early morning, hoping that the walk would clear her head. It hadn’t, though. All that she had learned kept turning through her mind in a jumbled mess. Perhaps this was because she hadn’t slept at all. She was too weary to make sense of everything—and too tired to face returning to classes and behaving as if nothing had changed.

But everything has changed. I have to take time to think about what I have learned,
she told herself.
I have to sort out what it means before I face Akkarin again.

She closed her eyes and drew on a little Healing power to chase away the weariness.

What have I learned?

The Guild, and all of Kyralia, were in danger of being invaded by Sachakan black magicians.

Why hadn’t Akkarin told anyone? If the Guild knew it faced a possible invasion, it could prepare for it. It couldn’t defend itself if it didn’t know of the threat.

Yet, if Akkarin told them, he would have to admit to learning black magic. Was the reason for his silence as simple and selfish as that? Maybe there was another reason.

She still didn’t know how he had learned to use black magic. Tavaka had believed that only Ichani possessed that knowledge. He had only been taught it so that he could kill Akkarin.

And Akkarin had been a slave.

It was impossible to imagine the aloof, dignified, powerful High Lord living as, of all things, a
slave.

But he had been one, of that she was sure. He had escaped somehow and returned to Kyralia. He had become High Lord. Now he was secretly and single-handedly keeping these Ichani at bay by killing off their spies.

He was not the person she had thought he was.

He might even be a good person.

She frowned.
Let’s not go that far. He learned black magic somehow, and I’m still a hostage.

Without black magic, however, how could he defeat these spies? And if there was a good reason for keeping all this a secret, he’d had no choice but to ensure she, Rothen and Lorlen remained silent.

“Sonea.”

She jumped, then turned toward the voice. Akkarin stood in the shadow of a large tree, his arms crossed. She rose hastily and bowed.

“High Lord.”

He stood regarding her for a moment, then he uncrossed his arms and started toward her. As he stepped up onto the rock shelf, his gaze shifted to the boulder she had been resting against. He dropped into a crouch and examined its surface carefully. She heard the scrape of stone against stone and blinked in surprise as a section slid outward, revealing an irregularly shaped hole.

“Ah, it’s still here,” he said quietly. Putting down the slab of rock that he had removed, he reached inside the hole and drew out a small, battered wooden box. Several holes had been drilled into the lid in grid pattern. The lid sprang open. He tilted the box so Sonea could see the contents clearly.

Inside lay a set of game pieces, each with a small peg to fit into the holes in the lid.

“Lorlen and I used to come here to escape Lord Margen’s lessons.” He plucked out one of the pieces and examined it.

Sonea blinked in surprise. “Lord Margen? Rothen’s mentor?”

“Yes. He was a strict teacher. We called him ‘the monster.’ Rothen took over his classes the year after I graduated.”

It was as hard to picture Akkarin as a young novice as it was to imagine him as a slave. She knew he was only a few years older than Dannyl, yet Dannyl seemed much younger. It was not that Akkarin
looked
older, she mused, it was simply his manner and position that added an impression of greater maturity.

Replacing the game pieces, Akkarin closed the box and returned it to its hiding place. He sat down, bracing his back against the boulder. Sonea felt a strange discomfort. Gone was the dignified, threatening High Lord who had taken her guardianship from Rothen to ensure his crimes remained undiscovered. She wasn’t sure how to react to this casualness. Sitting down a few steps away, she watched him looking around the spring as if checking that it was still the same as he remembered.

“I was not much older than you when I left the Guild,” he said. “I was twenty, and I’d chosen the Warrior Skills discipline out of a hunger for challenge and excitement. But there was no adventure to be found here in the Guild. I had to escape it for a while. So I decided to write a book on ancient magic as an excuse to travel and see the world.”

She stared at him in surprise. His gaze had become distant, as if he were seeing an old memory rather than the trees around the spring. It seemed he intended to tell her his story.

“During my research I found some strange references to old magic that intrigued me. Those references led me into Sachaka.” He shook his head. “If I’d kept to the main road, I might have been safe. The occasional Kyralian trader enters Sachaka in search of exotic goods. The King sends diplomats there every few years, in the company of magicians. But Sachaka is a big country, and a secretive one. The Guild knows there are magicians there, but understands little about them.

“I entered from Elyne, however. Straight into the wastes. I was there for a month before I encountered one of the Ichani. I saw tents and animals and thought to introduce myself to this wealthy and important traveller. He welcomed me warmly enough, and introduced himself as Dakova. I sensed that he was a magician and was intrigued. He pointed at my robes and asked if I was of the Guild. I said I was.”

Akkarin paused. “I thought that, being one of the strongest magicians of the Guild, I would be able to defend myself against anything. The Sachakans I’d encountered were poor farmers, frightened by visitors. I should have taken that as a warning. When Dakova attacked me I was surprised. I asked if I had offended him, but he didn’t reply. His strikes were incredibly powerful and I barely had time to realize I was going to lose before I neared the end of my strength. I told him that stronger magicians would come looking for me if I did not return to the Guild. That must have worried him. He stopped. I was so exhausted, I could barely stand and I thought that was the reason he managed to read my mind so effectively. For a few days, I thought I’d betrayed the Guild. But later, when I spoke to Dakova’s slaves, I learned that the Ichani were able to get past the mind’s barriers at any time.”

As he paused, Sonea held her breath. Would he relate to her what it had been like to be a slave? She felt a mingled dread and anticipation.

Akkarin looked down at the pool below them. “Dakova learned from my mind that the Guild had banned black magic, and was much weaker than the Sachakans believed. He was so amused by what he saw in my mind, he decided that other Ichani had to see it. I was too exhausted to resist. Slaves took my robes and gave me old rags to wear. At first I couldn’t grasp that these people were slaves and that I was now one as well. Then, when I understood, I would not accept it. I tried to escape, but Dakova found me easily. He seemed to enjoy the hunt—and the punishment he dealt out afterward.”

Akkarin’s eyes narrowed. He turned his head a little toward her and she dropped her eyes, afraid to meet them.

“I was appalled by my situation,” he continued quietly. “Dakova called me his ‘pet Guild magician.’ I was a trophy, kept to entertain his guests. Keeping me was a risk, though. Unlike his other slaves, I was a trained magician. So every night he read my mind and, to keep me from becoming dangerous, took from me the strength I had regained that day.”

Akkarin pulled up a sleeve. Hundreds of thin, shiny lines covered his arm. Scars. Sonea felt a chill run down her spine. This evidence of his past had been in front of her so many times, hidden by a mere layer of cloth.

“The rest of his slaves were made up of those he had taken from Ichani he had fought and defeated, and young men and women with latent magical potential that he had found among the Sachakan farmers and miners in the region. Every day he would take magical strength from them. He was powerful, but also strangely isolated. I eventually understood that Dakova, and the other Ichani that live in the wastes, were outcasts. For one reason or another—failed involvement in plots, inability to pay bribes or taxes or committing crimes—they had fallen out of favor with the Sachakan King. He had ordered them confined to the wastes, and forbidden others to contact them.

“You might think they would band together in this situation, but they nursed too much resentment and ambition for that. They constantly plotted against each other, hoping to increase their wealth and strength or take revenge for past insults, or simply steal supplies of food. An outcast Ichani can only feed so many slaves. The wastes yield little food, and terrorizing and killing farmers certainly doesn’t help increase productivity.”

He paused then to take a deep breath. “The woman who explained everything to me at the beginning was a strong potential magician. She might have been a powerful Healer if she had been born Kyralian. Instead, Dakova kept her as a bed slave.” Akkarin grimaced.

“Dakova attacked another Ichani one day, and found himself losing. In desperation, he took all the strength of each of his slaves, killing them. He left the strongest of us to last, and managed to overcome his adversary before killing us all. Only myself and Takan survived.”

Sonea blinked.
Takan? Akkarin’s servant?

“Dakova was vulnerable for several weeks while he recovered the strength he’d lost,” Akkarin continued. “He was less worried that another would take advantage of this than he might have been, however. All Ichani knew he had a brother, Kariko. The pair had made it known that if one should be killed, the other would avenge his death. No Ichani in the wastes could defeat one of the brothers and regain their strength in time to survive an attack by the other. Soon after Dakova’s near defeat, Kariko arrived and gave Dakova several slaves to help him regain his strength.

“Most of the slaves I encountered dreamed that Dakova or one of his enemies would release their powers and teach them how to use black magic, so they could be free. They would look at me with envy; I had only to learn black magic to be able to escape. They didn’t know that the Guild forbade black magic.

“But as I witnessed what Dakova was capable of, I cared less about what the Guild did and didn’t allow. He did not need black magic to perform evil. I saw him do things with his bare hands that I will never forget.”

Akkarin’s gaze was haunted. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again they were hard and cold.

“For five years I was trapped in Sachaka. Then one day, not long after receiving his brother’s gift of new slaves, Dakova heard that an Ichani he despised was hiding in a mine after exhausting himself in a fight. He decided that he would find and kill this man.

“When Dakova arrived, the mine appeared to be deserted. He, myself and the other slaves entered the tunnels in search of his enemy. After several hundred paces the floor collapsed under me. I felt myself caught by magic and set down on a hard surface.”

Akkarin smiled grimly. “I had been saved by another Ichani. I thought he would kill me or take me as his own. Instead, he took me through the tunnels to a small hidden room. There, he made me an offer. He would teach me black magic if I would return to Dakova and kill him.

“I saw that it was an arrangement that would probably end in my death. I would fail and die, or succeed and be hunted down by Kariko. By then I cared little for my life, or for the Guild’s ban on black magic, so I agreed.