Disclaimer – I do not own BMT world, it belongs to Trudi Canavan

A Puzzle to Solve

Shock stilled Sonea's usually impulsive tongue and she looked helplessly at Akkarin, her son's words leaving her frozen, unable to think clearly. Akkarin, well-schooled at keeping his facial expression under control, spoke calmly, "That is a big challenge, Justen. Many have tried before, but few have prospered."

"Yes, I know that you failed," Justen said flatly. "I shall not fail."

Sonea opened her mouth to speak, indignant that the child should speak to his father in such a way, but Akkarin's mental voice slid into her mind, Say nothing, so she closed her mouth abruptly.

"You have given us much to think about," Akkarin said smoothly. "We need to think carefully about your future, so we will talk over what you have said and then we will visit you again, if you permit us to."

Justen smiled in satisfaction, "Yes, I look forward to discussing our future together soon."

Akkarin reached for Sonea's hand and almost instantly they were outside Justen's mind. Sonea glanced at the boy and was relieved to find his face was as boyish as she remembered and his smile was open and warm. The inner Justen, with his knowing gaze and arrogant expression, remained hidden.

Did you see? Justen's mental voice was young and cheerful once more with no hidden meanings.

Yes, we saw, Akkarin sent. Now it is time for you to sleep. We will talk again in the morning.

After Justen was safely in bed, Akkarin and Sonea sat in the huge library, each nursing a glass of wine, each immersed in their own thoughts. For Sonea, the revelation of the inner Justen had proved unsettling. She had been so proud of her son's ability to teach himself how to use his magic, but now she realised, it was that other Justen, the one hidden inside, who had been so precocious. As always, when thinking about Justen's differences, her thoughts turned to that battle when the Ichani strikes had caused her so much damage. I should not have gone, she thought. But despite her later knowledge, she knew, deep down inside, that she would have stood by Akkarin in any battle, regardless of the cost to herself or her unborn child. However, that understanding hadn't prevented the huge burden of guilt she had carried ever since.

"Why so pensive, Sonea?" Akkarin asked.

"I am trying to understand."

Akkarin reached for the bottle and poured more wine. He stared at Sonea for a moment, "There's something more, I think," he said quietly.

She felt the colour flood into her face and worked hard to conceal it. How could she tell him now, after all this time, that she was responsible for whatever Justen was? It was another of her damned secrets she dared not reveal. She remembered the broken promises which had littered her life for so many years. She had overcome the damage that they had done to her relationship with her lover. They had finally reached an understanding; she would do nothing which would put that understanding at risk. No, she would continue to keep this secret, rather than confess she had not told the truth so many years ago. She took refuge in sipping her wine for a moment, before she felt able to face Akkarin.

"It will be difficult to talk freely," she said after she explained Justen's ability to 'see' them.

"Hmmm, we will have to try something else." Akkarin held out his hand, "Come into my mind."

Sonea grasped his hand and found herself on a grassy path. She followed it into a large garden, with a tinkling fountain surrounded by many trees and gaudy flowers. She saw Akkarin standing, staring into the water, and went to join him.

It was a long time since she had walked in Akkarin's mind. Two magicians living intimately together, with the ability to enter minds at will, had had to develop agreements about invading one another's privacy. Although it was a convention of the Guild that no magician should enter a mind uninvited, this principle was often breached when circumstances demanded it. Black magicians had an extra ability to read minds easily and delve more deeply into thoughts. Both Sonea and Akkarin had an unspoken understanding that their own minds were off limits to the other without a clear invitation. That invitation was rarely offered.

She gazed at her surroundings. This mind was so different from Justen's. It was all light and space and there was no sense of foreboding. It felt calm and tranquil which served to make her feel calm and almost untroubled. Sonea, on those rare occasions when she had visited, had noticed there were several areas where she could not go. Akkarin, like his son, had his own secrets. She had never attempted to discover what these were, even when she was at her most despairing about her relationship with her lover.

"I think it unlikely that Justen can find us here. He will know what we have done, but he cannot hear us speak."

"He will think it very strange."

"Yes, he will, but we will say there are things which lovers need to say in private. That will satisfy him for a while, at least. By then, hopefully we will have worked out how to proceed."

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"It is a piece of good luck that Justen doesn't want to enter the Guild. It would have been almost impossible to control either his learning or his actions if he had become a novice. As it is, we will return home, and manage his learning ourselves. That way we can monitor what he learns and when. There will be no other magicians around him, only us, and we are strong enough to keep him away from our minds."

Sonea shook her head, "I'm not sure that will be possible. Look at what Justen has managed to do with very little help from us. He has taught himself control over his magic. He can 'see' people, it appears at will. That means distance is no problem. He told me you were on your way back to Imardin a good while before anyone else in the city would have been aware of it. He could watch any magician in the Allied Lands, with that sort of skill. You know what that means? It means he could oversee lessons in the Guild, if he wished or any other magic taking place anywhere, even among the Ichani."

"We must find some way to limit his ability to do that," Akkarin said. "I am not sure how, yet, but I intend to find out. Luckily the king has been generous, and I have a lot of money available, so we need to think carefully about the books we will need to take home. It will be a completely new area of study for both of us. I can't believe that Justen is the first magician to have this ability, so there must be some record of it somewhere."

Sonea could hear the barely supressed excitement in his voice. Akkarin's desire to discover and investigate new forms of magic had never dimmed. She could easily see how he came to travel to Sachaka all those years ago, simply to find new magic to understand and master. His enthusiasm then had led to all the suffering since. She wondered if there would be other unforeseen consequences flowing from the study of Justen's magic. But she could not dwell that now. It was urgent that they begin to understand what had happened.

"We don't have much time, the election for the new High Lord is only days away and I agree with you that we should be gone from Imardin before then," she said.

Akkarin laughed, "You have forgotten the passages, Sonea! We can make a start tonight by going to the Library and searching its older manuscripts. It may even be possible to take some of the ancient texts with us. No one will miss them, and if they do, they won't connect their disappearance with us, they will merely think they have been misplaced."

It was true, she kept forgetting they had a secret method of getting to almost anywhere in the Guild. She knew from previous visits, that the Library had a huge cellar area where thousands of old, half-forgotten parchments, manuscripts and books were stored. They had both taken advantage of this horde of ancient texts in the past.

"It will be difficult because we don't know what we are looking for," she mused ruefully.

"I think it has something to do with the Ichani," he replied.

Sonea's blood ran cold, what was Akkarin saying? Did he finally understand what had happened to her? Then, as he continued speaking, she realised he was thinking about something else entirely.

"It must be a latent skill in all of us, from the time when Higher Magic was the only type of magic practised in Kyralia. Probably the Ichani still retain a more active understanding of elements of it, although from my experience with them, they don't seem to be able to use it, a bit like Healing. So, the older the parchment, the more likely it is we will find something. Once we know how Justen's ability works, we can find ways of controlling it."

"Then you don't think Justen's magic is unique?"

Akkarin frowned, "I suspect that the Guild has forgotten a lot of the skills and abilities magicians had in the past. They have avoided Higher Magic for so long, they have lost any real understanding of what it can do. Even with us, they are so frightened of black magic that they have made no attempt to find out what our particular skills are. Oh, they know we are strong and they have some understanding of the link with blood, but beyond that, they know nothing of what Higher Magic can do and what's more, they never want to find out. It is possible that Justen, the child of two particularly strong magicians, has inherited a doubly strong magic source and has been able to access skills we do not fully understand."

Sonea thought about this. She had never considered that Justen's magic abilities might be nothing to do with the Ichani strike. She feared that his inability to speak and hear was a consequence of it, but now Akkarin had managed to lift a little of her feelings of guilt at least as far as his magic was concerned.

"We must return to the Guild, if we want to explore the library tonight," she said.

Akkarin nodded. "I had originally thought we should send Takan and Justen on ahead, but now I think it is better if we all go together. If we are lucky tonight, then we can leave in a day or so. If not, I think we must continue the search a little longer. It would be a mistake to leave the Guild's own resources unsearched because we want to leave quickly. As long as we are away before the election, a few days searching will be time well spent."

After disengaging their minds, they spoke fondly to each other, as lovers would do after lovemaking, just in case Justen was watching. Then Akkarin went off to see Taken and Sonea went to check up on Justen. If he was awake and aware of what they had been doing, she could tell him the agreed story about lovers needing privacy. He was soundly asleep, however, and looking at him, it was difficult to believe there was another Justen, with a personality so different from the one she was used to. She smoothed his hair, her heart heavy with her new knowledge. Although she had total faith in Akkarin's ability to deal with problems, she remembered that neither of them had been able to Heal Justen's hearing or enable him to speak, despite years of trying. How would they be able to control that inner Justen with his plans for domination of magic?

Later, as she helped Akkarin search the Library's ancient texts, that question refused to stop running round and round in her head. Try as she might, she could not see a future where Justen was simply another strong, but ordinary magician. It was Justen the Dominant she saw instead.