The Ambassador's Mission

CHAPTER 23

NEW HELPERS



Healer Nikea stepped into the examination room as the last patient Sonea had seen left – a woman who was trying, unsuccessfully, to give up roet. Sonea had Healed the woman, but it had made no difference to the cravings.

“There’s something I need to show you,” Nikea said.

“Oh?” Sonea looked up from the notes she had been taking. “What is that?”

“Something,” Nikea said. She smiled, and her eyes widened meaningfully.

Somehow Sonea’s heart managed to skip a beat and then, straight after, sink to her stomach. If Cery had merely sent a message, Nikea would have delivered it. This meaningful look suggested that more than a note had arrived, and Sonea suspected that “something” was Cery.

He knew she didn’t like him coming here. Still, there had to be a good reason for him doing so.

Rising, she stepped out of the room and followed Nikea down the corridor. They entered the non-public part of the hospice. A pair of Healers stood in the hallway, heads close as they talked in whispers. Their eyes were on a storeroom door, but shifted to Sonea as she appeared. They immediately straightened and inclined their heads politely.

“Black Magician Sonea,” they murmured, then hurried away.

Nikea led Sonea to the door they’d found so interesting and opened it. Inside, a familiar figure sat on a short ladder, between rows of shelving filled with bandages and other hospice supplies. He stood up. Sighing, Sonea stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind her.

“Cery,” she said. “Is it good news or bad?”

His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I’m good, thanks for asking. How are you?”

She crossed her arms. “Fine.”

“You seem a bit cranky.”

“It’s the middle of the night, yet for some reason we have as many patients as we get during the day, nothing I try cures roet addiction, there’s a rogue magician loose in the city, and instead of telling the Guild about it I’m risking the little freedom I have by working with a Thief who insists on visiting me in a public place, and my son is still missing in Sachaka. I’m supposed to be in a good mood?”

Cery grimaced. “I guess not. So … no news on Lorkin?”

“No.” She sighed again. “I know you wouldn’t have come here if there wasn’t a good reason, Cery. Just don’t expect me to be all calm and relaxed about it. What’s the news?”

He sat down again. “How do you feel about another Thief helping us find the rogue?”

Sonea stared at him in surprise. “Is it anyone I know?”

“I doubt it. He’s one of the new lot. Faren’s successor. Name is Skellin.”

“He’d have to have a lot to offer, for you to consider it.”

Cery nodded. “He does. He’s one of the most powerful Thieves in the city. He has a particular interest in the Thief Hunter. Asked me a while back if I’d keep him informed if I picked up anything. He knows the rogue may not be the Thief Hunter, but feels it’s worth tracking her down to find out.”

“What does he get out of it?”

He smiled. “He’d like to meet you. Sounds like Faren told him stories, so he’s got a hankering to meet the legend.”

Sonea made a rude noise. “So long as he doesn’t have the same ideas Faren had about how useful I could be to him.”

“I’m sure he does, but he’ll not be expecting you to have them, too.”

“Does he have a better chance of finding the rogue than you?”

Cery grew serious. “She did a favour for a rot-seller that set up shop in my area until I put a stop to it. Skellin controls most of the trade, so I’m hoping that he can trace the—”

“The Thief we’re working with is the main source of roet?” Sonea interrupted.

Cery nodded, his nose wrinkling in distaste. “Yes.”

She turned away. “Oh, that’s just wonderful.”

“Will you accept his help?”

She looked at him. His gaze was hard and challenging. Yet what had he said? “… set up shop in my area until I put a stop to it.” Perhaps he did not like what roet did to people any more than she did. But he had no choice but to work with people like Skellin. “He’s one of the most powerful Thieves in the city.” If the rogue was working for a roet seller then it made sense for her and Cery to trace her through the contacts of the Thief importing it. Then something else occurred to her. Perhaps the rogue was addicted to the drug, and the seller was forcing her to use her magic in support of his criminal activities in order to get it.

Sonea rubbed her temples as she considered. I’m already breaking a whole lot of rules and restrictions. Ironically, this will not make things any worse, as far as the Guild is concerned. It will only feel worse to me.

“Go ahead and recruit him. So long as he realises that meeting the legend does not involve anything more than us both being in the same place once and having a nice chat for a reasonable length of time – and so long as you feel it is necessary to involve him – then I have no argument against it.”

Cery nodded. “I do think we need him. And I’ll make sure he understands you’re not for hire.”


Climbing out of the carriage, Dannyl and Achati turned to take in their surroundings. The road they had been travelling northwards along ended where it met an east- to west-running thoroughfare. A stream ran alongside the new road. Hills surrounded them, rocks jutting out from wild vegetation.

“We’ll wait here,” Achati said.

“How long, do you think?” Dannyl asked.

“An hour, maybe two.”

Achati had arranged for the group of local magicians, who would provide magical support, to meet them at the junction. They were bringing a tracker. He’d explained that, if they got as far as the mountains and had to leave the road, the risk of being attacked by the Traitors would increase dramatically.

The Sachakan turned and spoke to his slaves, instructing them to bring out food for him, Dannyl and themselves. As the two young men obeyed, Dannyl found himself thinking, not for the first time, that Achati treated his slaves well. He almost seemed fond of them.

As they ate the small, flat pastries that they’d been given at the last estate, Dannyl looked at the hills again. His gaze was drawn to the rocky outcrops. He frowned as he noticed how some were more like piles of boulders. In places, these boulders fitted together much too well to be natural.

“Is that a ruin up there?” he asked, turning to Achati.

The man looked where Dannyl was pointing, and nodded.

“Probably. There are a few in this area.”

“How old are they?”

Achati shrugged. “Old.”

“Do you mind if I have a look?”

“Of course not.” Achati smiled. “I’ll signal to you if the others arrive.”

Finishing the pastry, Dannyl crossed the road and set off up the slope. The hill was steeper than it had looked from the carriage, and by the time Dannyl reached the first pile of boulders he was breathing hard. Examining the pile, he decided it was part of a wall. For a while he moved across the slope, finding more sections of wall and resting to catch his breath. When he had recovered he decided to see what this fortification surrounded, and headed uphill.

The vegetation grew thicker and taller the closer he got to the summit. He caught his sleeve on a prickly shrub, managing to tear the material, after which he gave such plants a wide berth. It was easy enough to dry cloth with magic, and even remove some stains, but mending tears was beyond him. It might be possible to re-join the fine threads somehow, but it would take time and concentration.

He realised with dismay that while he could see remnants of more walls ahead, they peeked out of a mass of tangled, prickly bushes. He created a magical shield so he could push past them. There was a flat section at the top, within the low walls that were all that was left of a building, but other than that there was nothing to see but weathered stones.

I’m not going to learn anything here, he decided. Not without digging all this up. He looked out over the fields below, noting the mountains in the distance. To the west dark clouds lurked, suggesting a break in the dry, sunny weather they’d enjoyed since leaving Arvice. He could not guess how long it would take for the rain to reach them. Leaving the building, he headed back to the road.

A little way down the slope the vegetation parted and he had a clear view of the carriage and road below. Achati was sitting in the narrow doorway of the vehicle. As Dannyl watched, the handsome slave called Varn knelt before the magician and held out his hands, palm upward. Something in Achati’s hand caught the light.

A knife.

Dannyl’s heart lurched and he stopped. Achati lifted the highly decorated blade that usually sat in its sheath at his side and lightly touched the slave’s wrists. He sheathed the knife and grasped the man’s wrists with both hands. Dannyl watched, his heart racing. After only a short pause, Achati let the slave go.

I guess this means Varn is Achati’s source slave, Dannyl thought. He realised his heart was not racing with fear. More like excitement. I just witnessed an ancient ritual of black magic. Magic had passed from slave to master. And it hadn’t involved anyone being slaughtered. It had been remarkably serene and dignified.

The young man did not stand up, but drew closer to his master. Instead of keeping his gaze lowered as he usually did, he looked up at Achati. Dannyl stared, fascinated by the man’s expression. If I’m not imagining things at this distance, I’d say it was adoring. He smiled to himself. I guess it would be easy to love a master that treated you well.

Then the slave smiled and stepped very close to Achati. The magician placed a hand on the young man’s cheek and shook his head. He leaned forward and kissed Varn on the lips. The slave moved away again, still smiling.

Dannyl realised several things at once. Firstly, that the next thing both of the men were likely to do was glance around themselves to see if anyone had seen them. He looked away so that they didn’t catch him watching them and continued down the slope. Secondly, that the slave didn’t just love his master – he loved his master. And thirdly, that the way Achati had caressed the young man’s face suggested there was more to his ownership of Varn than having a slave for pleasure.

Is this the only way it works here? he wondered. What of men of similar rank?

But he did not have time to consider it. As he broke free from the dense vegetation, he stopped to look down the road toward the west, and saw five men and a cart not far along it. They would reach the junction soon. Dannyl hurried down the hill and stopped on the road, beckoning as Achati saw him. The Sachakan rose to his feet and walked over to join him.

“Excellent timing, Ambassador Dannyl,” he said, squinting at the figures in the distance. “Did you find anything up there?”

“Lots of thorny plants,” Dannyl replied ruefully. “I’m afraid your friends are about to meet a shabby Kyralian.”

Achati looked down at Dannyl’s torn robe. “Ah, yes. Sachakan vegetation can be as prickly as its people. I’ll get Varn to mend it for you.”

Dannyl nodded in gratitude. “Thank you. Now, is there anything in particular I should say or do in greeting our new companions?”

Achati shook his head. “When in doubt, let me do the talking.”


The farm cart was big and moved slowly. It was piled high with bales of stock feed, its load strapped down securely with many ropes. Four gorin hauled it – the first Lorkin had seen of the big animals in Sachaka. The driver was a short, silent male slave who occupied the only seat on the vehicle.

The other three passengers rode in a cave within the bales. Gaps between the bales that formed the roof allowed some air to get into the narrow space, but the walls were tightly packed. Three small packs were stowed at one end, which Lorkin assumed were full of food and supplies for the journey into the mountains. Chari and Tyvara were sitting either side of him on a seat of bales running along the gap, which meant he had to turn his back on Chari to look at Tyvara, and vice versa.

Chari nudged his arm with her elbow. “More comfortable than walking, right?”

“Definitely. Was this your idea?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “No, we’ve been doing this for centuries. Got to move slaves about somehow.”

He frowned. “Won’t any Traitors seeing a cart like this suspect there’s someone travelling inside, then?”

Chari shrugged. “Yes, but unless they’ve got a good reason, they won’t approach us. Especially not during the day. Slaves don’t stop other estate’s carts. None of their business. If an Ashaki saw them doing it, they’d think it odd and investigate.” She frowned. “Keeping you hidden has the added benefit of preventing confrontations like the one you had with Rasha. I have the authority to stop Traitors like her – don’t worry, not all of us want you dead – but dealing with it would delay us. If other Traitors do suspect you’re in here, they’ll rightly assume it wouldn’t be without the knowledge of other Traitors. This is not something you could ever arrange on your own.”

“And let’s not forget the people searching for Lorkin,” Tyvara added. “Ambassador Dannyl and the king’s representative, Ashaki Achati.”

“Those two?” Chari waved a hand dismissively. “We’ve arranged for them to be sent off track, next time they go snooping around an estate.” She smiled. “They could ride past us and never know we’re here.” She looked up at the bales above them. “Though, it can get a bit stuffy on hot days. Good thing you two had a bath last night, eh?”

Lorkin nodded and looked down at himself. The last of the dye had washed off his skin. He patted the clean slave wrap. “Thank you for the new clothes, too.”

She looked at him and grimaced. “We’ll have you out of them and into proper clothes soon.”

“I never thought I’d say it, but I miss my Guild robes,” he lamented.

“Why didn’t you like them before?”

“Because every magician wears them. It gets a bit boring. The only change you get is when you graduate from a novice to a magician – unless you become one of the Higher Magicians, and most of them only wear a different colour sash.”

“A novice is a student, right? How long do they stay novices for?”

“All new entrants to the Guild are novices. They spend about five years in the University before they graduate.”

“So what sorts of magic do you learn at the University?”

“At first a range of things,” he told her. “Magic, of course, but also non-magical studies like history and strategy. Most of us turn out to be better at something, and eventually we get to choose which of the three disciplines we’ll follow: Healing, Warrior Studies or Alchemy.”

“What did you choose?”

“Alchemy. You can tell which of us are Alchemists because we wear purple. Healers wear green and Warriors wear red.”

Chari frowned. “What do Alchemists do?”

“Everything that Healers and Warriors don’t do,” Lorkin explained. “Mainly it involves magic but sometimes not. Ambassador Dannyl, the magician I came here with and am supposed to be assisting, is a historian, which doesn’t involve magic at all.”

“Can you choose two disciplines? Be an Alchemist and a Warrior – or an Alchemist and a Healer? Or—”

“We already know this, Chari,” Tyvara interrupted.

Lorkin turned to regard her. She looked at him apologetically. “We’re taught about the Guild along with the culture of many other lands during our training,” she told him.

“Yes, but I didn’t pay much attention at the time,” Chari replied. “It’s so much more interesting when it comes from an actual Kyralian magician.”

Lorkin turned back to find her looking at him expectantly. “You were saying?” she prompted.

He shook his head. “No, we can’t choose more than one discipline, but we all get a basic education in the three.”

“So you can Heal?”

“Yes, but not with the skill and knowledge of a fully trained Healer.”

Chari opened her mouth to ask another question, but Tyvara cut in before she could speak.

“You can ask questions in return,” she told Lorkin. “Chari may not be able to answer some of them, but if you let her do all the asking she’ll interrogate you all the way to the mountains.”

He looked at Tyvara in surprise. Throughout their journey from Arvice she had been reluctant to answer his questions. At his stare, her lips pressed into a thin line and she shifted her gaze to Chari. He turned to look at the other woman. Chari was regarding Tyvara with amusement.

“Well, then,” she said, turning to Lorkin. “What would you like to know?”

Though there were hundreds of things he wanted to know about the Traitors and their secret home, and Chari seemed much more receptive to questions, he suspected that Tyvara’s habit of secrecy would soon have her stopping him and Chari talking at all. Was there anything he could safely ask about the Traitors, when so much information about them was secret?

I definitely shouldn’t ask how they block mind-reading. Though I still suspect it involves a process similar to making a blood gem. Suddenly he remembered the references to a storestone in the records he’d read for Dannyl.

Was there any risk in mentioning the storestone? It wasn’t as if he knew where to find it, or how to make one, so he wouldn’t be putting a weapon into the Traitor’s hands if he talked about it.

“Remember how I said that Ambassador Dannyl is a historian?” he asked.

Chari nodded.

“He’s writing a history of magic. We’ve both done a bit of research here in Sachaka. Dannyl is more interested in filling the gaps of our history – how the wasteland was created, or when and how Imardin was destroyed and rebuilt. I’m more interested in how old kinds of magic worked.”

He paused to gauge their reaction. Chari was watching him intently, while Tyvara regarded him with one eyebrow raised, which he took to indicate interest and a little surprise.

“When I was taking notes for Dannyl I found a reference to an object called a storestone,” he continued, “that was kept in Arvice after the Sachakan War. It was clearly a thing of great power. It was lost a few years after the war – apparently stolen by a Kyralian magician. Do you know anything about it?”

Chari looked at Tyvara, who shrugged and shook her head.

“I don’t know about that one, but I know a bit about storestones,” Chari told him. “Anyone would guess from the name that they are stones that store power. Which would be very useful. But they’re rare. So rare that individual stones were once given names and their histories recorded as if they were people. All the ones we’ve heard of were destroyed long ago. It’s probably over a thousand years, probably more, since the last one existed. If this storestone existed just after the Sachakan War, it is the most recent record of one. So you didn’t know about it until recently?”

He shook his head.

She looked thoughtful. “Then either the thief hid it much too effectively, or it was broken. You said Imardin was destroyed and rebuilt?”

“Yes.”

“Breaking a storestone is supposed to be dangerous. It releases the power within it in an uncontrolled way. Maybe that’s what destroyed Imardin.”

Lorkin frowned. “I suppose that’s possible.” He considered the idea. I’ve always doubted that the Mad Apprentice could have been powerful enough to cause that much devastation, but what if he had the storestone?

“We could ask the record keepers at Sanctuary,” Chari said. “About older storestones, that is. I doubt they know anything about Imardin’s history.”

“Queen Zarala might,” Tyvara said.

Chari’s eyebrows rose. “I suppose if she lets him into the city, she’ll want to check him out.”

“She will.” Tyvara eyed him with a strange, smug amusement. “Definitely.”

Chari chuckled and turned to Lorkin. “Are you sure you want to come to Sanctuary?”

“Of course.”

“Tyvara has told you that it’s run by women, hasn’t she? Men can’t go bossing people about. Even magicians like you.”

He shrugged. “I have no desire to boss anyone about.”

She smiled. “You’re such a reasonable man. I always thought Kyralians were arrogant and dishonest. I guess you can’t all be the same. Tyvara wouldn’t be taking you there if you were. And it’s so sweet of you to come all this way and risk your life for Tyvara.”

“Well, she did save my life.”

“That’s true.” Chari reached out and patted his arm lightly. “Honourable and good-looking. I reckon you’ll do well. My people will change their minds about Kyralians once they meet you.”

“Yes, in no time we’ll be exchanging gifts and swapping recipes,” Tyvara muttered dryly.

Lorkin turned to look at her. She met his eyes briefly, then looked away, frowning. She’s not happy about something, he thought. His heart skipped a beat. Does she think Chari is going to betray us?

“So tell me more about the Guild,” Chari said behind him.

Tyvara rolled her eyes and sighed. Relief and amusement replaced apprehension. She was simply irritated by Chari’s chatter. Well, I hope that’s it. I wish I could talk to her. They’d not had a private moment together since Chari had found them.

He felt a stab of frustration. I wish I could talk to many people. Mother and Dannyl for a start. He thought of the blood gem still hidden in the spine of his notebook, tucked into his clothing. He’d had no chance to use it without revealing it to Tyvara. And now Chari was with them, there would be even less opportunity to use it. Perhaps he should have let Tyvara know he had it. But it is my only link to the Guild. If I’m going to chance losing it, I must wait until the risk is unavoidable. And if I’m going to negotiate any sort of trade or alliance between the Guild and Traitors, I’ll need a way to communicate between them.

In the meantime, he might as well do his best to establish good relations between his country and the Traitors. Turning back to Chari, he smiled.

“More about the Guild? What would you like to know?”