The Traitor Queen (The Traitor Spy Trilogy #3)(71)

Perhaps a Traitor came by just before we arrived and drew all the energy out. The smaller and less sophisticated a living thing was, the weaker the natural barrier against magical interference. Even trees could be drained of magic without their bark being cut, though the magic came slowly and there was never as much as in an animal or person.

Killing the little life forms makes the existing water safe to drink, but the fresh water should quickly add more tiny life forms. She reached up to the trickle that fed the pool. Cupping her hand to collect some water, she concentrated again.

There. Like tiny pinpoints of light.

She let the gathered water drop into the pool. There could be only one explanation. Something was killing off all life once it entered the pool.

Her stomach clenched in sudden apprehension. Was the pool poisoned? They had been drinking from it for a few days. What could kill off small life forms instantly but not affect people?

The bowl was smooth. It could have been shaped by time or man or magic. Reaching into the water again, she ran her hand slowly over the surface of the stone. She did not expect to sense anything. Detecting a poison within a body was more a matter of detecting its effect. Her fingers encountered a bump in the surface. She explored it with her fingertips, then sent her mind out.

Something tugged at her senses. She drew a little magic and let it seep from her fingers. It was drawn away immediately.

Her blood went cold.

Sitting up, she stared at the little bump in the bowl’s otherwise smooth surface. It is not a part of the rock. If it does what I think it does, it has been placed there to clean the water. But if it does what I think it does …

“Regin.”

She felt the coolness of his shadow on her back.

“Yes?”

“Could you get me a knife or something good for gouging?”

“Why not use magic? Oh … of course. You won’t want to use it up.”

He moved to the packs. While he was busy, she drew magic and used it to channel the trickle of water away from the pool. Then she emptied the pool with a sweep of force. The surface began to dry immediately and by the time Regin returned the bump was visible as a darker patch in the stone.

He held out a silver pen.

“Is that all we have?”

“I’m afraid so. Nobody expects magicians to need knives.”

Sonea sighed as she took the pen. “I suppose we asked for supplies to last a few days, not a picnic. Let’s hope this works.”

She began to dig around the bump with the tapered end of the pen. To her relief, whatever was keeping it in place was softer than stone – more like wax. Soon she had gouged out a channel around it. She wedged her fingertips around the bump and pulled. It would not budge, so she got to work again.

“Can I ask what you’re doing?”

“Yes.”

The lump shifted and Sonea tried to pull it free in vain. Gritting her teeth, she returned to digging waxy lumps from the pool.

“So. What are you doing?”

“Digging out this thing.”

“I can see that.” He sounded more amused than annoyed. “Why?”

The pen wasn’t narrow enough to fit between the hard bump and the edges of the hole it was crammed into. She seized it with her fingertips again. “It’s … strange … ah!” The bump – now a stone – came free. She held it up into the light, working the remains of wax off the surface.

Regin bent over to look at it. “Is it a crystal?”

She nodded. Smooth, flat areas reflected the sunlight. “A natural one. Though by that I only mean uncut.”

“And otherwise unnatural?” Regin looked down at the hole it had come out of. “What sort of gemstone is it?”

“Gemstone!” Sonea exclaimed. She sucked in a breath and looked up at Regin, then climbed to her feet. “One of the Traitors’ magical gemstones, most likely. I doubt the Duna come this far south, and if the Ichani know about them they’d have used them on us twenty years ago.” She considered the way it had drawn in her magic, and her blood went cold again. She looked at Regin and held back the words. Could she tell him her suspicions? What if his mind was read? What if he told somebody? What if …?

When – if – the Traitors arrived, she would need to have already considered all the implications of her discovery. She might not need to tell Regin, to seek his opinion, but she wanted to.

Regin was staring back at her, bemused and worried. She drew in a deep breath.

“It is, I suspect, a black magic gemstone,” she said, keeping her voice low in case someone, somehow, was watching and listening to them.

He drew in a sharp breath and stared at her in horror. Then he looked down at the stone and his eyes narrowed.

“So that’s why the wasteland never recovered.”

She shivered despite the growing heat and looked around them. It makes sense. If they can make one stone like this they can make hundreds. Thousands. Strewn across the land, they must slowly but relentlessly suck away life. The soil becomes too infertile for plants. Larger, more sophisticated living things like animals starve or move away.

Which meant the Traitors had been deliberately keeping the wasteland a wasteland.

For centuries.

“All this time it was thought the Guild created this to keep Sachaka weak. Instead it was the Traitors.”