The Ambassador's Mission полностью

Sonea considered his story. There’s nobody of that description in the Guild. Cery might have been mistaken, and the woman was a Lonmar. The Lonmars were dark-skinned, and kept their women hidden away, so a Lonmar woman might be so unusual a sight as to seem like she was of a different race. The Lonmars didn’t allow their women to be taught magic, however. If she was a natural, and her power had developed spontaneously, the Lonmars would have been forced to teach her to control it. But after that … we’re not sure what the Lonmars do with female magicians. We assume they simply forbid the woman to use magic, but it’s possible they block her powers. This rogue might have run away in order to escape that fate.

If that was true, it was strange that she had come to Imardin. Surely she knew that the Guild was bound by the terms of alliance to respect Lonmar’s laws regarding female magicians. If they found her they had to send her home.

But perhaps Cery had guessed why she had: books. If she had run away in order to be free to learn and use magic, then Imardin was the place she’d most likely get hold of magical information. But books on magic can’t be cheap. Is she stealing money from the Thieves she kills, or hiring herself out as a killer of Thieves?

Yet while Cery had said the lock to his hideout was opened with magic, he had not said that his family were killed with it. Perhaps she was only offering magical services, not those of an assassin. Sonea frowned. “How can you be sure this woman and the Thief Hunter are the same person?”

“Either she is, or she’s working for the Thief Hunter, or there are two rogues out there. Once you catch her you can read her mind and find out.”

“Did you question the seller afterwards?”

He shook his head. “We need him and his shop for another trap.” His eyes gleamed. “Only next time you’ll be with me and we’ll catch ourselves a rogue.”

Sonea frowned. “I wish that were possible, but I’m not free to go running around the city these days, Cery. I must ask permission, if I am not going to the hospices.”

His shoulders sagged in almost childlike disappointment. He looked thoughtful. “Perhaps if I lured her here somehow.”

“I doubt she’ll go anywhere near Guild magicians, and hospices are always full of them.”

“Unless you arrange for everyone to leave one night, and we put about a rumour that there are books on Healing lying around here.”

“I’d have to tell them why, and if I do that I may as well just tell the Guild about the rogue and leave it to them to find her.”

“Can’t you come up with another reason?”

Sonea sighed. She doubted that Cery cared if he wasn’t credited with finding a rogue and helping the Guild to catch her. He only wanted revenge – and no doubt to save himself from being the Thief Hunter’s next victim.

I’d like to help him. But the Guild will expect me to pass news about the rogue on to them, and if it is discovered that I didn’t it’ll be yet another reason for people to distrust me. Her flawless record of trustworthiness since the Ichani Invasion would be tainted by the lie, and people were already so touchy about her past and knowledge of black magic. They would curb her freedom to run the hospices. They’d restrict her to the Guild grounds.

I’m better off passing the information on to the Higher Magicians and letting them deal with it. It doesn’t matter if it’s me or someone else who finds the rogue, only that she is found. Either way, Cery will have both revenge and safety.

“Do you know where the woman is now?” she asked.

Cery shook his head. “But I know what she looks like, and her appearance is strange enough that I can set others looking for her too.”

“Don’t let anyone approach her,” she warned. “She’s clearly in control of her powers, and old enough to have some skill in using them.”

“Oh, she’s nothing like you were,” Cery agreed, his lips stretching into a humourless grin. “You might’ve wanted to kill a Thief or two all those years ago, but you never got to the point of hunting them down and … or …” He looked away, his expression suddenly grim.