‘Why should I tell you if he did?’
‘You owe me for your life. If that isn’t enough to make you confide in me,
consider this. I have a plan whereby you can not only be free of the Maze, you
can be richer than any merchant, perhaps richer than the governor himself. You
will even be able to leave Sanctuary, to go to the capital city itself. Or
anywhere in the world.’
She thought, if Benna could do it, we can. But then Benna had not got away.
She said, ‘Why do you need a woman? Why not another man?’ Smhee was silent for a
long time. Evidently, he was wondering just how much he should tell her.
Suddenly, he smiled, and something invisible, an unseen weight seemed to fall
from him. Somehow, he even looked thinner.
‘I’ve gone this far,’ he said. ‘So I must go all the way. No backing out now.
The reason I must have a woman is that the mage’s sorcery has a weakness. His
magical defences will be set up to repel men. He will not have prepared them
against women. It would not occur to him that a woman would try to steal his
treasure. Or … kill him.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I don’t think it would be wise to tell you that now. You must take my word for
it. I do know far more about the purple mage than anyone else in Sanctuary.’
‘You might, and that still wouldn’t be much,’ she said. ‘Let me put it another
way. I do know much about him. More than enough to make me a great danger to
him.’
‘Does he know much about you?’
Smhee smiled again. ‘He doesn’t know I’m here. If he did, I’d be dead by now.’
They talked until dawn, and by then Masha was deeply committed. If she failed,