The Magicians' Guild (27 page)

Frowning, she edged forward and snatched the coat from his hands. Without taking her eyes from him, she shrugged her arms into the garment and pulled it close around her thin body, backing away to the wall again.

“My name is Rothen,” he told her.

She continued to stare at him, saying nothing.

“We do not intend to harm you, Sonea,” he told her. “You have nothing to fear.”

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened into a thin line.

“You don’t believe me.” He shrugged. “Nor would I in your position. Did you get our letter, Sonea?”

She frowned, then a look of contempt crossed her face. He smothered the urge to smile.

“Of course, you wouldn’t believe that, either, would you? Tell me, what do you find hardest to believe?”

Crossing her arms, she looked out the window and did not answer. He pushed aside a mild annoyance. Resistance, even this ridiculous refusal to answer, was to be expected.

“Sonea, we
must
talk to each other,” he said gently. “There is a power in you that, whether you want it or not, you must learn to control. If you do not, it will kill you. I know you understand this.”

Her brows knitted together, but she continued staring silently out of the window. Rothen allowed himself to sigh.

“Whatever reasons you have to dislike us, you must realize that to refuse our help is foolish. Yesterday we did no more than use up the store of power inside you. It will not be long before your powers grow strong and dangerous again. Think on that,” he paused, “but not for too long.”

Turning toward the door, he reached for the handle.

“What do I have to do?”

Her voice was high and faint. He felt a thrill of triumph, but quickly schooled his expression. Turning back, he felt his heart twist as he saw the fear in her eyes.

“You have to learn to trust me,” he told her.

The magician—Rothen—had returned to his chair. Sonea’s heart was still pounding, but not as quickly now. The coat made her feel less vulnerable. She knew it was no protection against magic, it covered the ridiculous
thing
they had dressed her in.

The room she was in was not large. A tall cupboard stood at one end, the bed filled the other, and a small table fit in the middle. The furniture was made of expensive polished wood. On the table lay small combs and writing implements made of silver. A mirror hung on the wall above it and a painting graced the wall behind the magician.

“Control is a subtle skill,” Rothen told her. “To show you I must enter your mind, but I can’t if you resist me.”

The memory of Guild novices standing in a room, one of each pair pressing hands against his fellow’s temples, rose in Sonea’s mind. The teacher instructing them had said much the same. Sonea felt an uneasy satisfaction that she knew this magician was telling the truth. No magician could enter her mind uninvited.

Then she frowned, remembering the presence that had shown her the source of her magic, and how to use it.

“You did yesterday.”

He shook his head. “No, I pointed you toward your own power, then demonstrated how to use it with my own. This is quite different. To teach you how to control your power, I must go to the place within you where your power resides, and to get there, I must enter your mind.”

Sonea looked away. Let a magician into her mind? What would he see? Everything or only what she let him?

Did she have any choice?

“Talk to me,” the magician urged. “Ask me any questions you wish. If you learn more about me, you will find that I am a trustworthy person. You don’t have to like the entire Guild, you don’t even have to like me. You just have to know me well enough to trust that I will teach you what must be taught and do nothing to harm you.”

Sonea looked at him closely. He was middle aged or older. Though his dark hair was streaked with gray, his eyes were blue and lively. Wrinkles around his eyes and mouth gave him a good-humored expression. He looked like a gentle, fatherly man—but she was no fool. Tricksters always looked honest and appealing. If they didn’t, they failed to make a living. The Guild would have arranged for her to meet their most appealing magician first.

She had to look deeper. As she stared into his eyes, he returned her gaze steadily. His confidence disturbed her. Either he was certain that there was nothing she would find objectionable about him, or he believed he could trick her into thinking so.

Either way, he had a difficult task ahead of him, she decided.

“Why should I believe anything you say?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Why would I lie to you?”

“To get what you want. Why else?”

“And what do I want?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know yet.”

“I only want to help you, Sonea.” He sounded genuinely concerned.

“I don’t believe you,” she told him.

“Why not?”

“You’re a magician. They say you vow to protect people, but I’ve seen you kill.”

The wrinkles between his brows deepened, and he nodded slowly. “Indeed you have. As we said in our letter to you, we did not intend to harm anybody that day—you or the boy.” He sighed. “It was a terrible mistake. If I’d known what was going to happen I would never have pointed you out.

“There are many different ways to project magic, and the most common is the strike. The weakest of those is the stun-strike, which is designed to paralyze—to freeze up a person’s muscles so they cannot move. The magicians who struck the youth all used stunstrike. Do you remember the color of the strikes?”

Sonea shook her head. “I wasn’t watching.”
Too busy running away,
she thought, but she wasn’t going to say it aloud.

He frowned. “Then you’ll have to believe me when I say that they were red. A stunstrike is red. But with so many magicians responding, some of the strikes met and combined to form a stronger firestrike. Those magicians never intended to harm anyone, only to stop the boy running away. I assure you, our mistake has caused us much anguish, and a great deal of disapproval from the King and the Houses.”

Sonea sniffed. “Like they care.”

His eyebrows rose. “Ah, but they do. I’ll admit their reasons have more to do with keeping the Guild in line than sympathy for the boy or his family, but we
were
chastised for our mistake.”

“How?”

He smiled crookedly. “Letters of protest. Public speeches. A warning from the King. It doesn’t sound like much, but in the world of politics, words are much more dangerous than whipping sticks or magic.”

Sonea shook her head. “Using magic is what you do. It’s what you’re supposed to be best at. One magician might make a mistake, but not as many as were there.”

His shoulders lifted. “Do you think we spend our days preparing for a poor girl to attack us with magically directed stones? Our Warriors are trained in the most subtle maneuvers and strategies of war but no situation in the Arena could have prepared them for an attack from their own people—people who they believed were harmless.”

Sonea snorted loudly. Harmless. She saw Rothen’s lips tighten at the noise.
I probably disgust him,
she mused. To the magicians, the slum dwellers were dirty, ugly and a nuisance. Did they have any idea how much the dwells hated them?

“But you’ve done almost as bad before,” she told him. “I’ve seen people with burns they got from magicians. Then there’re those who get crushed when you frighten the crowd into running. But mostly they die from cold afterward, in the slums.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “‘But you wouldn’t see that as being the Guild’s fault, would you?”

“Accidents have happened in the past,” he admitted. “Magicians who were careless. Where possible, those who were harmed were Healed and compensated. As for the Purge itself …” He shook his head. “Many of us think it is no longer needed. Do you know why it began?”

Sonea opened her mouth to give a tart reply, then hesitated. It wouldn’t hurt to know how
he
believed the Purge started. “Tell me, then.”

Rothen’s gaze became distant. “Over thirty years ago a mountain in the far north exploded. Soot filled the sky and blocked some of the warmth of the sun. The winter that followed was so long and cold that we had no true summer before the next winter began. All over Kyralia and in Elyne, crops failed and stock died. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of farmers and their families came to the city, but there wasn’t enough work or housing for them all.

“The city filled with starving people. The King handed out food and arranged for places like the Racing Arena to be used as shelters. He sent some farmers back to their homes with enough food to last them until the next summer. There wasn’t enough to feed everyone, however.

“We told people that the next winter wouldn’t be so bad, but many didn’t believe us. Some even thought that the world was going to freeze completely, and we would all die. They cast aside all decency and preyed on others in the belief that nobody would be alive to punish them. It became dangerous to walk the streets, even in daylight. Gangs broke into houses, and people were murdered in their beds. It was a terrible time.” He shook his head. “One I will never forget.

“The King sent the Guard to drive these gangs from the city. When it was clear that it couldn’t be done without bloodshed, he asked the Guild to help. The next winter was also harsh and when the King saw signs of similar trouble rising, he decided to clear the streets again before the situation became dangerous. So it has been ever since.”

Rothen sighed. “Many say that the Purge should have stopped years ago, but memories are long and the slums have grown many times larger than they were during that terrible winter. Many fear what will happen if the city isn’t cleared every winter, particularly now that the Thieves exist. They fear that the Thieves would use such a situation to take control of the city.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Sonea exclaimed. Rothen’s version of the story was predictably one-sided, but some of the reasons he gave for the first Purge were new and strange. Mountains exploding? There was no point arguing. He would just point out her ignorance of such things. But she knew something he didn’t.

“It was the Purge that started the Thieves,” she told him. “Do you think all the people you drove out were muggers and gangs? You drove out those starving farmers and their families, and people like beggars and scavengers who needed to be in the city to survive. Those people got together so they could help each other. They survived by joining the lawless ones, because they saw no reason to live by the King’s laws anymore. He’d driven them out when he should have helped them.”

“He helped as many as he could.”

“Not all, and not now. Do you think he’s clearing the streets of muggers and gangs? No, they’re good people who make a living from what rich people waste, or have a trade in the city but live in the slums. The lawless ones are the Thieves—and the Thieves aren’t bothered by the Purge at all because they can get in and out of the city whenever they want.”

Rothen nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. “I suspected as much.” He leaned forward. “Sonea, I don’t like the Purge any more than you do—and I’m not the only magician who feels that way.”

“Why do
you
do it?”

“Because when the King asks us to do something we are bound by our oath to obey.”

Sonea snorted again. “So you can blame the King for anything you do.”

“We are all subjects of the King,” he reminded her. “The Guild must be seen to obey him because the people need to be reassured that we will not seek to rule Kyralia ourselves.” He leaned back in his chair. “If we are the remorseless murderers you believe us to be, why haven’t we done that, Sonea? Why haven’t magicians taken over all the lands?”

Sonea shrugged. “I don’t know, but it would make no difference to the dwells. When have you ever done anything good for us?”

Rothen’s eyes narrowed. “There is much that you would not see.”

“Like what?”

“We keep the Marina clear of silt, for example. Without us, Imardin could not receive ships, and trade would move elsewhere.”

“How is that good for the dwells?”

“It creates work for Imardians of all classes. Ships bring sailors who buy board, food and goods. Workers pack and carry goods. Crafters make the goods.” He considered her, then shook his head. “Perhaps our work is too far removed from your own life for you to see its value. If you would see us helping people directly, consider the work of our Healers. They work hard to—”

“Healers!” Sonea rolled her eyes. “Who’s got coin to spare for a Healer? The fee is ten times as much as a good Thief earns in his life!”

Rothen paused. “Of course, you are right,” he said quietly. “There are only so many Healers—barely enough to keep up with the number of sick who come to us for help. The high fees discourage those with minor ailments from overusing the Healers’ time, and go toward teaching non-magicians about medicines that can treat those minor ailments. These medics treat the rest of Imardin’s citizens.”

“Not the dwells,” Sonea retorted. “We have curies, but they’re just as likely to kill you as cure you. I only heard of a few medics when I was living in the North Quarter and they cost a cap of gold.”

Rothen looked out of the window and sighed. “Sonea, if I could solve the problem of class and poverty in the city, I would do so without a moment’s hesitation. But there is little that we—even as magicians—can do.”

“No? If you really don’t like the Purge, then refuse to go. Tell the King you’ll do anything else he says but that. It’s happened before.”

He frowned, obviously puzzled.

“Back when King Palen refused to sign the Alliance.” She suppressed a smile at his expression of surprise. “Then get the King to build proper sewers and the like in the slums. His great-grandfather did it for the rest of the city, why shouldn’t he do it for us too?”

His brows rose. “You wouldn’t want to move the slum people into the city?”

Sonea shook her head. “Parts of the Outer Circle are good. The city won’t stop growing. Perhaps the King should build another wall, too.”

“Walls are obsolete. We have no enemies. But the rest is … interesting.” He regarded her appraisingly. “And what else would you have us do?”