The Traitor Queen

by Trudi Canavan

  “Of course,” Cery rolled his eyes. “King of the Underworld. What do people on the street think?”

  “That they’ve all got big-headed. But nobody says it aloud. They’re scared. They know Skellin is a rogue magician and his mother is the Thief Hunter. Both have done nasty things to people who wouldn’t do what they wanted.” Gol grimaced. “Good thing is, everyone hates him now.”

  “What do they think of me?”

  Gol shrugged. “They think you’re dead.”

  “And if they knew I was hiding?”

  “I suggested it, and a few said they hoped so. They said they hoped you were working out a way to get rid of Skellin.”

  “No one thought I’d abandoned my workers?”

  “No one said as much to me. Interesting thing is, in one bolhouse the people I got chatting to had an argument about whether you were hiding in the Guild or not. The one who doubted it said you couldn’t be, because the Guild is working with Skellin.”

  Cery frowned. “That could just be a rumour.”

  “One that would help keep people scared of Skellin.”

  “If they knew it wasn’t true, they wouldn’t be as scared.”

  Gol shook his head. “They’d still be too scared to do anything.”

  Hooking his fingers around the edge of his seat, Cery drummed his fingers on the underside. “What about the supplier?”

  “Saski’s still there. Still got the minefire. He’s been trying to sell a new tool that uses it. Some sort of blowpipe that people warned me was as likely to blow up as work. His most popular product is little packets that people throw into the fire to make a bang and a flash of light. People liked the bangers, but they couldn’t see much other use for minefire when magicians can do the same things it can do.”

  “They don’t see that it could let ordinary people do things magicians can do?”

  “Not the sort of things they want to do, like Heal or levitate or move things at a distance. Who needs to explode things here in the city? And Saski puts customers off with all his warnings about how dangerous and unpredictable it is. Magic sounds a lot safer.”

  Cery nodded. “It does. It’s not just that minefire might explode when we don’t want it to, but that it might not when we need it to. Are you sure this trap will work?”

  “Mostly. Before, when I got friendly with Saski, he often described how minefire was used in the mines of the far north. We’ll be using the same method.”

  “How are we going to buy it? Could we get a street kid to buy some of these bangers for us?”

  Gol nodded. “That’d be wise. Saski doesn’t seem the type to run off and sell us to Skellin, but who knows? It’d be tempting. He can’t be making much money.”

  “But we do need Skellin to find out where we are.”

  “Not through Saski. Then Skellin would know that we’d bought minefire, and wonder what we were up to down here. Wouldn’t take much thinking to work out we were setting a trap.”

  “True.” Cery looked around the room. “Well, you’re going to have to set things up here without Anyi suspecting something odd is going on.”

  “Once I get the tubes into the walls, they won’t be all that noticeable, especially if we put them in the holes and hollows in the mortar.”

  “But you’ll have to do it while she’s not here.”

  “You don’t want to wait until they’re sure the plants are roet? Once we have the trap set up, there’s always going to be a danger it’ll go off before we’re ready.”

  Cery shook his head. “Not after what Lilia said about the Higher Magicians being prepared to let us live in the Guild in the meantime. Anyi was too keen to do it. Too ready to argue with me about it.” He shook his head. “Something tells me her patience is running out. Or that she knows something that we don’t.”

  “Like that the plants aren’t roet?”

  “Maybe.”

  Gol shrugged. “She’s right though. There’s no need for us to be uncomfortable or risk getting Lilia into trouble for hiding us here.”

  “But if the rumours you heard were right and someone in the Guild is working with Skellin we could put ourselves right in their hands. They’ll make sure the Guild doesn’t work with us to catch Skellin, or make sure something goes wrong and we’re all killed. Otherwise we may expose their dirty little secret.”

  Gol looked up at the roof. “Well, if Anyi is right and we’re under the gardens between the University and Magicians’ Quarters, our trap will definitely expose Skellin to the Guild.”

  Cery smiled. “Yes. But let’s make sure it doesn’t kill us all in the process.”

  CHAPTER 20

  FIRST ENCOUNTER

  From high above, the sun poured heat and brightness down onto the wasteland, which threw it back up again in protest. Assailed from the sky and ground, Lorkin trudged along with the Traitors and tried not to imagine facing an Ashaki in battle.

  Instead, he thought about the gemstone in his pocket. He had tried last night, after everyone was asleep or on watch, to see if he could sense other stones buried in the area, but his mental search had detected nothing. Yet that was no proof his mother was wrong. She had said he would only find them because he knew black magic, and there had been nothing of black magic in his method of searching.

  I should have asked her to explain. But he’d only had one last moment with her, the morning of the previous day, and he’d used the opportunity to question her about another magical puzzle. Her gaze had grown keener as he’d asked if she’d heard of magicians able to read surface thoughts.

  “Your father was supposed to have been able to,” she’d told him. “I always assumed he encouraged the rumour in order to maintain the fear or awe people regarded him with – and if questions were raised about other abilities he shouldn’t have, he could point to that rumour as an example of the silly things people thought about him.”

  “It might not have been a lie,” Lorkin had told her.

  Her surprise had, as always, turned to thoughtful calculation. What she’d said next he hadn’t expected. “Best keep that to yourself,” she’d advised. “It will make even those closest to you uncomfortable. Be careful you don’t learn more about others than you really want to.”

  She has a point. He could imagine many situations where hearing someone’s stray thoughts might be embarrassing. Fortunately, it was only the clearest surface thoughts that he could hear, and only when he was concentrating hard.

  “Lorkin.”

  Tyvara had returned to his side. She had been called over by Savara and the pair had been chatting for some time.

  “Yes?”

  She smiled. “Tell me more about Lord Regin. Is he particularly important to the Guild? Why do you think he was with your mother?”

  Lorkin frowned. “He’s not important. Well, he’s from an important House, but he doesn’t hold a position within the Guild.”

  “So is he just a source of magic for your mother?”

  He tried to imagine that scenario, and failed. But then, he’d pictured Regin behaving like a Sachakan source slave, when the man didn’t have to. All he has to do is send power out and Mother will take and store it. It would involve touching, of course, but nothing more than clasping hands.

  “Maybe,” Lorkin replied. “Well … probably.”

  “So how are they related? Friends? Lovers?”

  “No. In fact, he and Mother hated each other as novices. He bullied her until she challenged him to a duel. She thrashed him, and after that he left her alone.”

  “A duel?” Tyvara’s eyebrows rose and her smile widened. “Interesting custom.”

  Lorkin narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you mocking my people’s ways?”

  “Not at all.” She tried to look serious.

  “You are,” he accused her. Then he grinned. “It is a silly custom. As far as I know, nobody had challenged anyone to a duel for years before, and nobody has since.”

  “It must have been her last resort, then.” Tyv
ara looked thoughtful. “So, did they become good friends after their big confrontation, as so often is the case?”

  “No. Mother hasn’t forgiven him.” Though Lorkin could not remember her saying so. If anything, she always pointed out how brave Regin had been during the invasion. Grudgingly.

  Tyvara said nothing to that, and he turned to see she was frowning.

  “Why do you ask?”

  She looked up. “Well … Savara and I both thought that it was odd that the Guild would send two people with such obvious regard for each other on such a mission. If they were captured it would be harder on them, if one was threatened to blackmail the other.”

  “My mother and Regin?” Lorkin shook his head. “Impossible. You’ve got the wrong idea.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. Or maybe the seeming impossibility of it led to the Guild not realising what a bad choice Regin is. Or maybe Sonea and Regin don’t realise it either.”

  Lorkin shook his head and sighed.

  “What?”

  “The most powerful women in Sachaka, and all you do is waste time gossiping and matchmaking. Ow!” He rubbed her arm where she’d hit him.

  “Men gossip more,” she said. “And it’s not a waste of time, when it has political and martial consequences.”

  “It does?”

  “It will.” Her head lifted and her eyes narrowed. “Ah.”

  He turned to stare ahead. Past Savara and the Traitors walking ahead, he saw that they were cresting the top of a dune. Ahead lay a flat plain covered in sparse vegetation and, a few hours walk away, a sprawl of buildings.

  “You can still change your mind,” she told him. “Nobody will stop you going back to Kyralia. There are no Ichani around the Pass to fear.”

  Am I really brave enough – foolish enough – to join a people I have no ties of blood with and dare to wage war on the legendary black magicians my people have feared for centuries?

  He looked at Tyvara and smiled. “Where you go, I go.”

  She gazed at him and shook her head. “Whenever I find myself thinking I don’t deserve someone as good as you, Lorkin, I remind myself that, if you’re willing to come with me, you may be a little bit mad.”

  “You think my mother and Lord Regin are in love. It’s not my sanity in question here.”

  She smirked and looked away. “We’ll see.”

  As they walked on in silence, her words repeated in his mind – “… someone as good as you, Lorkin” – and he felt his smile fade. Would she still think of him as good if she knew what he’d done to the slave girl? He hadn’t told her yet. So far there had been no reason to. No, that’s not entirely true. There have been opportunities. Every time, I decided it would spoil the moment, or sour the conversation. But I shouldn’t put it off. The Traitors might need to know what happened to the girl. If she was a Traitor.

  But what if she wasn’t? That was what he was most afraid of: to discover that the girl hadn’t known the water was poisoned. It was much easier to live with his decision, believing that she had deliberately taken her own life.

  If this is what it feels like to have killed someone when they wanted it, what is it going to be like when the war starts and I kill people who don’t want it? Maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult, given that they had enslaved, tortured and killed others. Maybe it will be easier.

  He looked around at the Traitors. Their expressions were grim and determined. Talk had ceased but for the occasional low murmur. Slowly they made their way down the last dune and onto the plain, then toward the sprawling buildings. The first people they encountered were two slaves, watching over a small herd of reber. Both young boys, the pair rushed over to throw themselves on the ground before Savara. She told them to stand, and never to lower themselves before another man or woman again.

  “It’s time?” one of them asked, gazing up at her eagerly.

  “Yes,” she said, then nodded toward the buildings. “You know what to do?”

  “Stay out of reach,” he replied. “Move away from the city. But we can’t get much further away than here.”

  “No. Just stay away from the house until we are done.”

  He frowned. “If I go back I can tell the others to get out.”

  “That would be very brave. You must not let the Ashaki suspect we’re coming, though.”

  “We won’t. We’ve all been planning for this for years.”

  “Go, then.”

  As the boy ran toward the buildings, Savara straightened and beckoned to the Traitors. They continued on, quickening their pace. A thrill of excitement and fear ran down Lorkin’s spine. Some of these outer estates were run by trusted slave masters, so they might not encounter an Ashaki. Or the Ashaki could be out visiting or tending to business. But the boy would have told Savara if that was so.

  There’s little chance we’re not heading toward our first fight.

  All too soon they were within a few hundred paces of the buildings. Then they were stepping through a gate in the low wall that surrounded them. As the Traitors spread out, in twos and threes, to approach the building from different sides, slaves emerged. They hurried, some running, past the invaders and the low wall, and out onto the plain in all directions.

  Spreading out, so that even if the Ashaki used magic to drag them back, he’d have to use more magic and time collecting all of them. Some might still escape.

  The Traitors split into smaller groups so that they could enter the buildings from different directions. Tyvara grabbed Lorkin’s hand and drew him toward what looked like a stable.

  “Stay with me.” She plucked at her vest. “I’m carrying plenty of stones, but we’re supposed to avoid using them until the battle. Our own power can be replaced, but most stones are single-use.” She glanced at him. “I’ll make sure you have your own set, for the final battle.”

  Once in the stable he saw the stalls were furnished with benches covered in blankets. He realised with a shock that this was where the slaves lived. Several were hiding there now, looking confused. Tyvara ordered them out, telling them to run away and come back in a few hours. One very pregnant woman shrank back into her stall, shaking her head.

  “Come on,” Tyvara said, extending her hand and smiling. “We’ll protect you. It won’t be for long.”

  “What’s going on?” a voice demanded.

  They turned to see a slave with a red cloth wrapped around his brow emerge from another building. Judging from the smoke wafting up from a chimney pipe, it contained the kitchen and perhaps other domestic rooms. Lorkin’s stomach turned as he saw the man was carrying a short whip.

  From somewhere beyond the building the man had emerged from came a boom. They all jumped and looked up to see fragments of what might be roof tiles flying into the air.

  The man turned back and stared at Lorkin and Tyvara, his eyes widening. “It’s time?” he asked.

  “It is,” Tyvara replied.

  He grinned and tossed the whip onto a pile of firewood. “At last.” Turning from them, he strode away from the buildings.

  Lorkin looked at Tyvara, expecting her to stop him, but she only smiled.

  “Wherever we could, we let the slave masters know that if they weren’t unnecessarily cruel, we’d consider giving them some of their Ashaki’s estate when we took over.”

  More slaves darted from the buildings, some looking terrified. Tyvara glanced back to the pregnant woman, then turned to Lorkin. “We’ll stay here and keep watch in case the Ashaki comes after them.”

  Lorkin did as she asked, but the next person to emerge was a Traitor, Adiya. The woman looked around and, seeing Lorkin and Tyvara, walked over to meet them.

  “It’s done,” she said.

  Tyvara nodded and looked over her shoulder at the pregnant slave. “You’re free now. Our work here is finished. Soon the others will come back and join you. They’ll keep you safe.”

  The woman stared at her and said nothing, but she seemed a little less afraid now. Tyvara started toward t
he building Adiya had emerged from. Lorkin followed her inside. They wound through the familiar layout of passages and emerged at what must have once been the Master’s Room. The roof had been blasted away, and the walls bulged outwards or had toppled into rubble.

  A middle-aged Sachakan man lay slumped on the floor, blood seeping from a shallow cut on his arm.

  Dead? Yes. Lorkin stared at the corpse and remembered the Ashaki who he and Dannyl had stayed with, when they’d first entered Sachaka. The man had been friendly and generous. Perhaps this dead man had been kind too. Perhaps he had kept slaves only because it was what powerful Sachakans like him had always done. Perhaps he would have surrendered if given the chance. Surely he didn’t deserve to die like this?

  It was impossible to know. The Traitors couldn’t imprison all Ashaki and put them on trial to decide if death was an appropriate punishment. To imprison them would take too much of the Traitors’ time and energy.

  The Traitors are at war with a way of life, not the individual people, but individuals will pay the price. He suspected, though, that many of the Ashaki would refuse to change their ways, even if they were given a choice.

  He looked around and saw that Tyvara had picked her way across the room to one of the collapsed walls. Making his way to her, they helped each other over a pile of rubble into a courtyard. There, a richly dressed woman stood glaring at Savara, her face streaked with tears.

  “The Ashaki’s wife,” Tyvara murmured. “We’re hoping it won’t be necessary to kill the women and children.”

  “They won’t obey you,” the queen was saying to the woman. “You had better get used to that. My people will do what they can to protect you, but they won’t guard you day and night. The rest is up to you.”

  Two Traitors stood behind the queen. As Savara turned away they moved to stand beside her. Tyvara and Lorkin walked over to join her.

  “We’re done here,” the queen said. “Time to gather everyone together and move on.” She looked over her shoulder at the broken building, her expression grim. “It’s too much to hope all estates will be this trouble-free.”