“I finally got Isidore to admit that she was the spiritist. I convinced her that because of her importance, she was in great danger that the dream walkers would take her mind. That persuaded her to give the devotion to protect herself.
“After she did, she told me the story of the slaughter of the people of Grandengart and how she had learned that their spirits were not safely in the world of the dead, where they belonged. She told me, too, the story of how you had taken her eyes.”
Magda gestured uncomfortably. “I couldn’t understand how she could do such a terrible thing. I couldn’t understand how she could . . . well, how she could let a wizard so fundamentally alter her, change her into something other than she had been born.”
“If you think it’s upsetting, imagine how I felt,” Merritt said.
Magda looked up into his eyes. She had to look away from the shadow of pain she saw there.
“Through Isidore’s story, I did come to realize how reluctant you were to do such a thing, and how determined she was to go through with it. While I of course felt sorry for what she was giving up, I also felt sorry for you, for the awful burden she placed on you.
“She was just starting to tell me that it wasn’t so terrible, like I thought, and what a wonderful new vision you had given her. But before she could finish explaining and then contact the spirit world for me, we were attacked by some kind of monster and—”
Merritt lifted a hand to stop her story. “What do you mean, a monster?”
Magda shrugged. “It appeared to be a man, close to as big as you. He was impossibly strong. At first I thought that he had to be gifted and that he was using magic.
“When I stabbed him, though, he didn’t bleed. When I got a good look at him, he looked like a dead man. He smelled like something dead, too.”
Merritt’s frown deepened the creases on his brow. “A dead man? What do you mean he looked like a dead man?”
“He was blackened, his flesh shriveled, and it even looked decayed and pulled apart in places. He looked like a corpse.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “That does indeed sound like a dead man. But was it dark? Are you sure you saw him clearly enough?”
“It was pretty dark,” Magda admitted. “But I still had a lantern. I got a good enough look.
“I stabbed him a number of times, hard and deep. The blade, deep as it went, didn’t seem to harm him at all. Isidore used her powers as well, but that didn’t stop him either. We tried. . . . We tried.”
Magda swallowed and had to look down at the floor away from Wizard Merritt’s gaze before she could go on. “He . . . he ripped Isidore apart. It all happened so fast. He killed her before we could stop him, before we had a chance to run.
“I realized later that a dream walker had to have been secretly lurking in her mind all along, listening. When I told her that I needed information from the spirit world, I never thought that a dream walker might already be there, in her mind. I had thought that I needed her to give the devotion in case a dream walker ever tried to take her. I should have realized that he might already be there.
“The dream walker had invaded my mind and spied on my thoughts without me being aware of him, but then he had failed to kill me because I was able to give the devotion and banish him from my mind in time.
“He must have then been spying on me and Isidore from the shadows of her mind, but he didn’t want to spoil his second chance by trying what had failed before. He wanted us both. So he didn’t reveal himself, didn’t try to kill her before she could give the devotion, as had happened with me.
“He instead let us believe we were safe. He probably slipped away, then, as she started to give the devotion. He probably wanted to lull us into feeling secure in order to make it easier for him to send the man who attacked us.
“I should have realized that he might already be there watching Isidore because she was important. I was just a lucky additional catch who happened along. I foolishly revealed too much before having her give the devotion.
“If I’d made Isidore give the devotion first, he would not have heard how important I thought she was to uncovering the answers Baraccus wanted me to find. He would not have realized that he needed to kill her before she could help me.”
Against her will, the vivid memory of that awful slaughter returned to fill her mind’s eye.
“That’s why you asked me to give the oath before you would talk to me,” he said, half to himself.
Magda nodded as she watched tears dripping onto the floor at her feet. “If I had thought it through, first, and had her give the devotion from the beginning, she would still be alive. She would have freed her mind from the dream walker before he overheard what I needed, and how much she mattered in my search for the truth.”
“But a dream walker didn’t kill her,” Merritt said.
Magda swiped the tears from her cheeks. She knew how much Merritt meant to Isidore. She knew how reluctant he had been to help the woman. Magda knew, too, that even though Merritt had taken Isidore’s sight and altered her with magic, he had come to consider her a friend.
Magda sucked back a sob. She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him.
“No, the dream walker didn’t kill her. He must have gone to his contact in the Keep, and they sent that monster to slaughter her before she could have the chance to help me.
“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t gone to her she would still be alive. Or if I’d had the presence of mind to realize how deeply the Keep has been penetrated by dream walkers and traitors, and had her take the protection of the bond right at first, she would be alive.
“It’s my fault she was murdered.”
Chapter 46
Merritt crossed the room and sat beside her. “I see now why you think you’re to blame, but it wasn’t your fault, Lady Searus. You didn’t know that a dream walker was listening to the things you told Isidore.”
Still, Magda couldn’t look him in the eye. “No, but I should have realized that it was a strong likelihood. I should have thought it through. Had I taken the precaution of having her swear loyalty to Lord Rahl first—”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
Magda finally looked up at him through her watery vision. “How can you know that?”
“The dream walkers know that you’re looking for answers, right?”
Magda swallowed past the lump in her throat. “That’s right.”
“Then if they know that much, they would know that you would sooner or later go to see the spiritist to try to find those answers. After all, with Baraccus dead, the spiritist would be the next logical place for you to go looking for answers—answers, after all, that they want as well. In fact, they were already there in her mind, secretly listening in on our other activities of the Keep’s business as they waited for you.”
“So if I had first had her swear loyalty—”
“It would have made no difference. Don’t you see? We have to assume that they already learned everything they could by covertly searching through her mind, so they were probably hiding in the hopes of hearing any new bit of information that you or anyone else might happen to divulge to Isidore. They were there to spy, to collect information. Information is the coin of war. When she agreed to swear the oath, they knew that was the end of them being able to learn any more from her, so they killed her before she could help you discover anything.”
“But had I thought to—”
“Had you thought to have her give the oath right at first, they would have killed her just the same. Talking to her first only delayed her murder for a brief time while they eavesdropped.
“They would have wanted Isidore dead for reasons beyond you. She was seeking vital answers in her work, answers about what the emperor’s wizards are up to. She was trying to discover why the enemy is harvesting the dead and what they’re doing with both the bodies and the souls of those dead. The dream walkers wouldn’t want her to help us understand what they’re doing, or why the souls of thos
e dead aren’t with the spirits in the underworld, where they belong.”
“Then they know everything Isidore knew,” Magda said. Her gaze flicked around as if driven by her racing thoughts. “Everything Isidore knew has been compromised. They know it all.”
Merritt nodded. “It would appear so, and because of that we have even bigger trouble than we realized. Because of what Isidore knew, and what she was working on, she was already marked. By talking to her, you likely actually delayed her death. The important thing now is to find out what she knew, and therefore what the dream walkers learned by spying on her mind.”
Magda wiped a hand back across her face to dry her tears as she considered the implications. Her search for answers, for the truth, had just become even more critical.
“It sounds like you may be right that my failure to have her give the oath at first made no real difference in the outcome.”
“You aren’t to blame,” he agreed. “You could just as easily say that it’s my fault she’s dead. After all, I’m the one who gave her abilities that made her a threat to the enemy. Had I refused, she very likely would still be alive, doing nothing more dangerous than helping to advise those in mourning about the souls of their dead relatives.
“But in the end, we can’t live our lives by ‘what if’ and ‘if only.’ We can only do the best we can to the best of our ability based on what we know. That’s why the truth is so important.
“Sometimes, as in Isidore’s case, it’s our skills that bring the attention of evil. Evil abhors those with ability. Emperor Sulachan wants to destroy just about everyone with the gift in order to make everyone helpless before him. He has already made significant strides in purging the Old World of magic. He can’t afford to let it flourish here.
“In the process, he is willing to lay waste to the gift itself, strip it from mankind, all to be able to consolidate power for himself and rule through brute force. The gift—our abilities—stand in his way and mark us as targets.”
“That’s true,” Magda said. “Baraccus told me once that Sulachan would rather annihilate us than allow us to live in peace, because that would mean the risk that his people would want the same freedom to live their lives that we have.”
Merritt nodded his agreement. “People like Isidore, like you, are not going to stand aside and do nothing as he slaughters people. Isidore was fighting for us all. She was well aware that she might lose her life in this struggle. In fact, I told her as much. That didn’t stop her.
“She was a warrior in our cause. So are you, or you wouldn’t be seeking the truth at the risk to your own life. If you were any less, you would give up your search and move away to somewhere safe. Yet you stay in the Keep, right in the midst of the danger.”
“There is no safe place, or at least there soon won’t be,” Magda said. “Safety is only an illusion when evil is on the hunt. I can’t stand by and watch. I have to act.”
“We all can be only who we are, no more, no less,” Merritt said.
“That’s a beautiful sentiment.” Magda smoothed a wrinkle in the skirt of her dress lying across her knee. “Is that why you gave in to her wishes when you could have said no?”
He stared off across the room for a long moment. “It was the path she chose. People have to live their own destiny.”
That sounded very much like what Baraccus had said in his note to Magda about her following her own destiny.
Magda wasn’t sure that Merritt was right, but it was an inviting notion to believe that she wasn’t responsible for Isidore being murdered.
“Thank you, Wizard Merritt, for helping me see it another way. I can see now that there is more to finding safety than me simply having Isidore give an oath. I must admit, though, that I do feel a bit ashamed for allowing myself to feel better. It isn’t easy to absolve one’s self of guilt.”
“Lady Searus, you were not the cause of her death. Evil likes to shift guilt to the victims. Don’t you let them.”
Magda nodded as she hooked some of her hair back behind an ear. “Please, I would feel better if you would call me Magda.”
His smile added a warmth that made his face all the more agreeable. “And I am just Merritt.”
Magda returned the smile, but it quickly faded.
“I’m afraid that I must ask some questions, Merritt, that you will not like me asking, but I need answers if I’m to get at the truth.”
He leaned back a little. “Really? And what do you need to know about?”
Chapter 47
“Why have you moved away from the Keep?”
He stood and strolled to the table with the sword. “I wanted to be alone to work in peace,” he said with his back to her. “I find the Keep to be . . . a distracting place.”
“Really? From the quantity and quality of what I can see in this room alone, to say nothing of what Isidore told me, I’d say you are a man of great focus and intensity. I think that you must have had more reason than that.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. “Well, besides that, it isn’t safe there.”
“I see. And why not?”
“You said yourself that the dead walk the dark passages of the Keep.”
“And you knew that before I told you about Isidore, did you?”
Magda wondered why he’d really left the Keep. It didn’t make sense to her that a wizard that Baraccus thought so highly of would leave what must have been important work at the Keep, where he would have been surrounded by a wealth of resources, everything from books, to tools, to an abundance of reference items invested with magic, as well as being able to draw on older, more experienced wizards for guidance.
Besides that, if it was a matter of safety, there were places at the Keep protected by guards as well as shields. She had seen no indications that his little home had any such shields to protect him as he worked.
But even so, that was really only a side issue. She was trying to find a way to ease into her relevant questions. He seemed to sense as much. He turned around, fixed her with a serious look, and again folded his muscular arms.
“Why don’t you tell me what it is that you really want to know, Magda?”
She lifted her chin. “All right, then.” She hated repeating hurtful words, but she didn’t know how else to get at the underlying truth without airing the charges so that he could at least have the chance to give his side.
“I hear it told that you are responsible for getting a number of wizards killed—good men who were important to our war effort. I’ve also heard it said that besides those deaths being on your hands, you have abandoned the men you led and refuse to help with important work for our defense. Some even say that you’re a traitor. Is any of that true?”
He stared down at her a moment. She had thought that the gift in his eyes might take on a dangerous appearance. Oddly enough, it didn’t. His expression was a strangely unreadable mask. In a way, that was worse because it hid his inner feelings. She felt like a traitor herself for asking him to answer such inflammatory charges, but too much was at stake and the charges were too serious for her to ignore.
“As long as we’re airing what ‘people say,’” he finally said in a chillingly calm voice, “I hear it told that you and Lord Rahl put on quite the show before the council to make it appear that dream walkers are in the Keep and invading people’s minds, all so that the two of you could frighten people into swearing loyalty to Lord Rahl.”
“But you know Alric Rahl.” Magda could feel her face going red. “You know why he created the oath.”
“Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did. What with everything else I’m beginning to hear, what am I to believe? People say that according to no less an authority than Head Prosecutor Lothain, Baraccus had secret meetings with people who might very well be enemy agents. The prosecutor has said publicly that he suspects that Baraccus might have been part of a plot, and that he may have convinced you to go along with the scheme.”
Merritt clasped his hands behind
his back as he paced before her, going on without pause.
“Worse, many people both up in the Keep and down here in the city of Aydindril wonder openly if Baraccus is responsible for the war going so badly. They wonder if he wrongly took us into war in the first place and lied about the reasons. They say that if he really had our best interest at heart, we wouldn’t be losing the war. They say that Baraccus must have finally committed suicide because of his sense of guilt over dooming his own people.”
Magda shot to her feet. “But Baraccus didn’t take us into war. We were invaded!”
Merritt shrugged. “People say otherwise. They say we weren’t invaded at all, that our side started it. They say that you, Lord Rahl, and Baraccus plotted all along to start a war and use it as an excuse so that Lord Rahl could seize rule of the Midlands and take it over as part of D’Hara.”
“But you know that the dream walkers—”
“Yes, yes, I know that dream walkers are real, but am I to believe the preposterous story that they are already here, on the loose in the Keep, just because you say they are, when there is no proof except your own self-serving stories of how they attacked you and sent monsters to kill Isidore when you were alone with her? Am I to discount the credible charges against you and Baraccus brought by no less an authority than our eminent prosecutor and some members of the council, all saying that your wild stories of plots against our people and traitors in our midst are really meant to distract people from your own guilt? How can I be expected to disregard such serious accusations?”
He opened his arms before her. “So you tell me. Are you a traitor to the Midlands, as so many people say?”
Magda swallowed. She was sure that her face was bright red.
“For not living up at the Keep any longer, you certainly seem to have heard some of the ugliest gossip.”
He arched an eyebrow in a way that would have made her back up a step if the couch hadn’t been at her heels.
“Gossip? Not merely gossip, but the suspicions of even high officials. People say that since the charges are so serious there must be something to them. So, you tell me, Magda. Are they true? I need to know if I’m talking to a traitor. I think I have a right to know before I answer any of your questions.”