“No,” Osen replied, falling into step beside Lorlen, “but he seemed agitated.”
They stepped through the door to the roof and made their way through the University. As Lorlen stepped out of the Entrance Hall he saw Barran standing by his office door. The guard looked relieved when he saw Lorlen approaching.
“Good afternoon, Captain,” Lorlen said.
Barran bowed. “Administrator.”
“Come into my office.” Lorlen held the door open for Barran and Osen, then ushered his guest to a seat. Settling down behind his desk, he regarded the Captain soberly.
“So what brings you to the Guild? Not another murder, I hope.”
“I’m afraid so. And not just one murder.” Barran’s voice was strained. “There has been what I can only call a massacre.”
Lorlen felt his blood turn cold. “Go on.”
“Fourteen victims, all killed in the same manner, found in Northside last night. Most were found on the street, a few in houses.” Barran shook his head. “It’s as if some madman roamed the slums, killing anyone he saw.”
“Surely there’d be witnesses, in that case.”
Barran shook his head. “Nothing useful. A few people said they thought they saw a woman, others said it was a man. None saw the killer’s face. Too dark.”
“And the manner of death?” Lorlen forced himself to ask.
“Shallow cuts. None that ought to have been fatal. No sign of poison. Fingerprints on the wounds. That is why I came to you. It is the only similarity to the previous cases we’ve discussed.” He paused. “There is one other thing.”
“Yes?”
“One of my investigators was told by the husband of a victim that stories were going around about a fight in a bolhouse last night. A fight between magicians.”
Lorlen managed to look skeptical. “Magicians?”
“Yes. One apparently floated to the ground from a third-story window. I thought it was probably a fancy invented in the dark, except that the murders all occurred in a line pointing directly to this bolhouse. Or away from it.”
“And did you investigate the bolhouse?”
“Yes. One of the rooms was smashed up quite badly, so something did happen there last night. Whether it was magic...” He shrugged. “Who can tell?”
“We can tell,” Osen said.
Lorlen looked up at his assistant. Osen was right; someone from the Guild should examine the bolhouse. Akkarin will want me to do it, Lorlen thought.
“I would like to see this room.”
Barran nodded. “I can take you there now. I have a Guard carriage waiting outside.”
“I could go instead,” Osen offered.
“No,” Lorlen replied. “I will do it. I know more about these cases than you. Stay here and keep an eye on things.”
“Other magicians may hear about this,” Osen said. “They’ll be concerned. What should I tell them?”
“Just that there has been another disturbing set of murders and that the bolhouse story is probably an exaggeration. We don’t want people jumping to conclusions or causing a panic.” He stood, and Barran followed suit.
“And if you do find evidence of magic?” Osen added.
“We’ll deal with that if it happens.”
Osen remained standing by the desk as Lorlen and Barran moved to the door. Looking back, Lorlen saw that his assistant was frowning with concern.
“Don’t worry,” Lorlen assured him. He managed a wry smile. “This is probably only as sinister as all the other murder cases.”
Osen smiled thinly and nodded.
Closing the door to his office, Lorlen strode into the Entrance Hall, then out of the University doors.
— You should interview Captain Barran alone, my friend.
Lorlen glanced toward the High Lord’s Residence.
— Osen is a sensible man.
— Sensible men can become quite irrational when their suspicions get the better of them.
— Should he be suspicious? What happened last night?
— A lot of drunk dwells witnessed the Thieves’ failed attempt to catch a killer.
— Is that really what happened?
“Administrator?”
Lorlen blinked, then realized he was standing by the open door of the carriage. Barran was regarding him questioningly.
“Excuse me.” Lorlen smiled. “Just consulting with a colleague.”
Barran’s eyes widened slightly as he realized what Lorlen meant. “Must be a handy skill, that.”
“It is,” Lorlen agreed. He stepped up into the carriage. “But it does have its limitations.”
Or it ought to, he added silently.
Sonea’s stomach fluttered as she entered the underground room; it had been doing this whenever she thought of the coming lesson in black magic—which had been every few minutes. Doubts had worked their way into her thoughts, and a few times she had almost decided to tell Akkarin she had changed her mind. But if she sat calmly and thought it through, her resolve remained strong. Learning it was a risk to herself, but the alternative was to put the Guild and Kyralia at greater risk.
As Akkarin turned to regard her, she bowed.
“Take a seat, Sonea.”
“Yes, High Lord.”
She sat down, then glanced at the table. It was covered in a strange collection of items: a bowl of water, a common plant in a small pot, a cage with a harrel nosing about within, small towels, books, and a polished and unadorned wooden box. Akkarin was reading one of the books.
“What is all this for?” she asked.
“Your training,” he said, closing the book. “I have not taught another what I will teach you tonight. My own learning did not come with an explanation. I discovered more only when I found the old books that Lord Coren had reburied under the Guild.”
She nodded. “How did you find them?”
“Coren knew that the magicians who originally buried the trunk had been right to preserve the knowledge of black magic in case the Guild faced a stronger enemy one day. But it was of no use to anyone if it could not be found again. He wrote a letter to the High Lord, to be delivered only after his death, explaining that he had buried a secret store of knowledge under the University that might save the Guild if it faced a terrible enemy.” Akkarin glanced up at the ceiling. “I found the letter wedged in a record book when the library here was moved after the renovations I had done. Coren’s instructions for finding this secret were so obscure none of my predecessors had had the patience to decipher them. Eventually the letter’s existence was forgotten. I guessed what Coren’s secret was, however.”
“And you worked out the instructions?”
“No.” Akkarin chuckled. “I spent every night for five months exploring the underground passages until I found the chest.”
Sonea smiled. “Too bad if the Guild had faced a terrible enemy.” She sobered. “Well, now it does.”
Akkarin’s expression became serious. He glanced down at the items on the table.
“Much of what I will tell you, you already know. You have been taught that all living things contain energy, and that each of us has a barrier at the skin protecting us from external magical influences. If we did not, a magician could kill you from a distance by, say, reaching into your body with his mind and crushing your heart. This barrier will allow certain kinds of magic to penetrate, such as Healing magic, but only via skin-to-skin contact.”
He pushed himself away from the table and took a step closer. “If you break the skin, you break the barrier. Drawing energy through this gap can be slow. In Alchemy classes you will have learned that magic travels faster through water than air or stone. In Healing classes you have learned that the blood system reaches every part of the body. When you cut deep enough to draw blood, you can draw energy from all parts of the body quite rapidly.
“The skill of drawing is not a difficult one to learn,” Akkarin continued. “I could explain it to you as it is described in these books, then leave you to experiment on animals, but it would take many days, even weeks, before you learned to draw with any control.” He smiled. “And smuggling in all the animals could be more trouble than it’s worth.”