Screams broke out as several wizards in the crowd suddenly covered their ears, writhing as they were stricken out of the blue with terrible agony. Some of the people around the victims backed away as blood began to run from the ears and noses of wizards gasping for breath, pressing their hands to their heads, trying to suppress the unbearable pain. They began choking on blood and coughing it out in thick gobs.
Magda understood all too well what was happening. It had happened to her. She rushed to the edge of the dais, close to the crowd.
“Listen to me!” she screamed out loud enough for all to hear. “Listen to me or some of you will die! You have to listen to me and do exactly as I say!”
Pleading faces turned toward her. Others tried in vain to help the stricken.
“Dream walkers are taking your minds!” Merritt yelled from beside Magda. “They intend to murder you! You only have one chance to live! Listen to her if you want to live!”
“Lord Rahl created magic to protect people from dream walkers,” Magda called out. “Giving the devotion to Lord Rahl bonds you to him through links to this magic. It will protect you from the dream walkers. You have no time to waste! Drop to your knees! Do it now!”
A good many people did as she had commanded.
“How can such a thing be possible?” one of the confused-looking wizards asked. “There is no way for a remote bond to accomplish something like that.”
“Yes there is!” Merritt answered. “I know because I helped him create it. Just as a dream walker can function remotely, so can the bond to Lord Rahl. I know because I ran the integrity check myself, from inside the verification web. It works. I tested it with a dream walker. Now listen to Magda and do exactly as she says or the dream walkers will be able to steal into your minds.”
“But I don’t see—”
“There is no time to debate this! I’ll give you details later!” Merritt pointed at a man in front, crumpled forward on his knees, bleeding from his ears. “If you want to be vulnerable to dream walkers just like that, then ignore her!”
All the people still standing, including the wizard, dropped to their knees.
“Everyone!” Magda shouted. “Bend forward, put your forehead to the ground, open your mind to the words, and repeat them after me! You must do it three times! Repeat the words after me if you want to live!”
The vast room reverberated with people shouting that they would do it, or crying, or begging her to hurry.
“To be protected, you must swear as follows,” Magda called out in a clear voice. “Repeat the words after me. Master Rahl guide us.” The voices echoed as the crowd repeated them. “Master Rahl teach us,” Magda said into the tense quiet. Those stricken, bleeding, and in agony gasped the words of the devotion along with everyone else, as she had once done herself. “Master Rahl protect us.” With each phrase she called out, everyone repeated it in unison. “In your light we thrive.” She waited for the echo to die out so they wouldn’t miss her words. “In your mercy we are sheltered.” She paused, then went on, “In your wisdom we are humbled.” They repeated together. “We live only to serve.” She looked out at all the bowed heads as she spoke the last of it. “Our lives are yours.”
The echo of the last words of the devotion spoken in unison finally died out. For good measure, Magda had them all repeat it two more times.
When the three devotions were finished, the people stricken had collapsed in relief. They nodded to those attending them that it had worked. The news that doing as Magda had said had saved the lives of those in the grip of dream walkers spread like wildfire through the packed rooms.
“Congratulations,” Magda told the crowd, “you have taken an important step in successfully protecting the Keep from dream walkers. You must tell everyone who was not here today. They must all give the devotion to Lord Rahl in order to be protected by that bond. We cannot allow anyone unprotected to be among us.”
Chapter 94
“I’m afraid,” Magda told the people who were now more than eager to hear what else she might reveal, “that besides the dream walkers, there are other dangers among us here at the Keep.”
She gestured to the man still on his knees before her. “Lothain, here, has long been a traitor acting to damage our ability to defend ourselves. He has been working to see to it that our countermeasures are betrayed and our weapons are ineffective so that our forces will be weakened and defeated by Emperor Sulachan’s invading army. His intent was to seize the rule of the Keep, here, today, by being named First Wizard so that he could hand control of the Keep over to the enemy.
“We were at their mercy and they have none. Without even being aware of it, we were on the brink of defeat, about to be slaughtered or enslaved.”
She turned her attention to the former prosecutor waiting on his knees. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“But you weren’t doing this all alone, were you?”
“No, Mistress. I had help.”
“So you have others, here at the Keep, working with you?” she asked. “Wizards and others working under you to help subvert the Keep?”
Lothain was nodding. “Yes, Mistress. A number of others.”
In the distance, Magda could see people trying to slip out of the council chambers. Soldiers of the Home Guard crossed their lances to bar the doors. Gifted working with the Home Guard stood, prepared to use whatever means necessary to prevent any resistance.
“Tell us all gathered here,” Magda said, “who are these other traitors working here at the Keep.”
Lothain began rattling off the names of wizards first. Some of them were the men who had just been detained trying to leave.
Lothain named a half dozen gifted that Magda knew worked down in the lower reaches of the Keep, and another half dozen she didn’t know. He named other, lower-ranking people who were helping him with various tasks and murders. He named the captain of the prosecutor’s private guard and in a rapid ramble named off a good thirty names of soldiers loyal to the Old World who were helping him take control of the Keep.
Magda had to stop him and have him repeat names because in his eagerness to answer her questions, they couldn’t easily understand him. Lothain burst into tears that he had displeased her. She ignored the tears and told him to continue, but to do it slower so that they could get all the names.
General Grundwall stood grim-faced nearby, listening to all the names. Aides worked feverishly to scribble down each one. Even as he was listening to the list of names, General Grundwall was giving instructions to his officers to find and capture all the men named and put them in the dungeon. He ordered the outer portcullis closed to seal the Keep until they were all caught.
“And those wizards took orders from you?” Magda asked once he finished the names.
“Yes, Mistress. I was the one commanding the efforts here.”
“And those men working down in the lower part of the Keep, what were they to do?”
Lothain again looked overjoyed to be able to answer her question. “Some were helping wizards who work on defenses against Emperor Sulachan’s weapons so that we would know what countermeasures the people of the New World had developed. Others worked with those developing weapons for the Midlands.
“When the people here went to great lengths to come up with a weapon and deploy it before a battle, they won’t know that Sulachan’s forces were ready and waiting with a trap. We also learned how you are able to defend against our weapons so that we can circumvent those countermeasures.”
“What else did your spies do here at the Keep and down in Aydindril?”
“They identified targets, letting me know who the most valuable and important people were. Then, I had others send the dream walkers to take them out, or else I would have them animate the dead down in the catacombs and send them out to kill those targets in order to spread terror in the Keep.”
Again the crowd gasped and whispered at all the horrific news they were hearing. A lot of th
ese people had friends and loved ones who had been murdered mysteriously in the Keep. Now they knew not only how, but who was responsible. They wanted Lothain’s head. Some people, angry at the level of treason Lothain was revealing, surged forward to try to get at him.
Merritt quickly gestured to soldiers of the Home Guard. They understood and rushed in to hold back the angry crowd.
“Are there others working with you?” Magda asked after the crowd had settled down and was listening again. “Other officials or people higher up in the Keep?”
“Yes,” he said, pointing a meaty finger back toward the council. “Guymer and Weston. When they traveled in the sliph to meet with officials in the Midlands, they would also secretly travel to places close to the Old World in order to go on to meet with Emperor Sulachan and his inner circle of wizards. There, they reported on the progress of wizards here, handed over secret information about weapons as well as countermeasures, and brought back orders. The sliph never reveals anything about people who use her, so no one ever knew that Guymer and Weston were carrying important information to the emperor’s forces.”
Both councilmen, red-faced, shot to their feet.
“This is the most preposterous story I’ve ever heard!” Weston shouted. “You can’t believe the product of such wicked magic!”
“It’s all lies!” Guymer added. “You can’t believe this man’s delusions!”
Magda ignored them as soldiers surrounded the pair. “Anyone else?” she asked Lothain.
“Of course.” He began to lift his hand to point.
Elder Cadell thrust out his arms. With a thump, a tumbling ball of wizard’s fire ignited and shot across the dais. The sphere of liquid flame rolled through the air as it roared toward them, expanding into a deadly inferno that hissed with menace. The hot yellow glow of it lit the faces of the stunned people watching.
The room erupted in panic.
Chapter 95
Merritt dove on Magda, driving the wind from her lungs as he knocked her out of the line of deadly flames flying across the dais. The wizard’s fire lit everything and everyone in the fierce glow of its orange-and-yellow flames. Quinn, Naja, and the general dove the other way just in time.
The wizard’s fire hit Lothain with a sickening thump that Magda could feel deep in her chest. The liquid inferno exploded over Lothain as it hit. Blobs of the deadly fire splattered and sailed on past him to splash down among the crowd. People everywhere screamed, some in panic, some in mortal pain.
There was nothing that burned with the deadly ferocity of wizard’s fire. It had a thick consistency that stuck to victims, burning down to bone. People with bits of it on them screamed as they tried without success to extinguish the fiery blobs.
Lothain briefly struggled in agony, his movements rapidly slowing to a stop, as the inferno consumed him. The fire was so intense it hurt her eyes to look at it. His arms, like brightly glowing torches, disintegrated as the man crumpled to the floor, turning into an unrecognizable burning black mass.
Out in the crowd, gifted rushed to do their best to quench the droplets of fire that had splashed out into the crowd. Others bent close, helping those injured. There were a number of victims who were beyond help. People everywhere were screaming.
“He’s a liar! This is all lies!” Elder Cadell cried out as he stood in front of his taller chair at the center of the council desk. “This Confessor power is a curse that brings forth nothing but terrible lies. The Council forbade Merritt from creating such a power because we knew it would become a tyranny of magic controlling us all!”
Naja, her ice blue eyes as cold as anything Magda had ever seen, pointed at the elder as she addressed the crowd. “The term ‘the tyranny of magic’ is the excuse Emperor Sulachan uses to go to war. It is a cover for his true aim of disarming all those who oppose him. He wants to eliminate magic to keep anyone from fighting back effectively.”
“She’s a liar! And so is she!” Elder Cadell screamed as he pointed at Magda. “She’s a traitor! They are both traitors! This is the tyranny of magic right before our very eyes! This sham of a Confessor power is an evil contrivance of an unscrupulous wizard meant to thwart the common good and control our lives!
“Arrest her!” Elder Cadell yelled as he gestured wildly at the soldiers nearby. “Lady Searus is a traitor! Lothain proved it! She must be put to death. She must be—”
The elder’s words were cut off when a frightening blast of power from Councilman Sadler slammed into him. The elder staggered back a step, his hands clawing as his flesh blackened and boiled. He only had time to let out the briefest of cries before his shriveling flesh melted and sloughed away, leaving the top of his skull exposed. His eye sockets opened up as his eyes liquefied. His shriveled lips fell away, revealing a skeletal grin.
Elder Cadell collapsed dead across the council desk, a smoking corpse.
Grim-faced Councilmen Clay and Hambrook both watched as soldiers wrestled Weston and Guymer under control and dragged them away.
“I’m ashamed at how easily we were deceived by Elder Cadell, Weston, and Guymer,” Councilman Hambrook said, “to say nothing of Prosecutor Lothain.”
“How do we know that you two weren’t part of it?” General Grundwall asked as he suspiciously eyed the two remaining councilmen. “Lothain is dead. He can’t tell us if you were in on it, too.”
Clay gestured at Magda. “From what I know of this Confessor power from when Merritt came before us before, there is no limit to it. She can use this power to get Councilmen Weston and Guymer to confess all that they know, just as Lothain was in the process of doing. Under the touch of a Confessor they will reveal the truth and the rest of the story. That will confirm that I wasn’t a traitor.”
“Nor I,” Hambrook said.
“Councilman Clay is right,” Merritt said. “We will not only be able to confirm if there are any more traitors among us, but also who is innocent.
“That’s the beauty of having a Confessor working with us. She will be able to burn through the deception and lies.
“As a Confessor, Magda will for the first time reveal for us the truth.”
Chapter 96
Councilman Clay watched as the two treasonous councilmen were led away. “At least Magda can use her power on them and discover if anyone else is involved.”
“We’ll have to move quickly,” General Grundwall said, “before any of them can cause trouble before they are caught.”
“How did this nest of traitors come about?” Councilman Clay asked. “How were they able to work so effectively right under our noses?”
Magda stepped away from what was left of the smoldering remains of Lothain. She had never trusted Lothain, but she had believed in Elder Cadell. She was angry that he had fooled her for so long, and that he had betrayed them all.
“Naja was forced to help Emperor Sulachan with his twisted objectives,” Magda said. “I don’t think that any of us could have imagined what was going on down in the Old World while we were going about our lives. Everyone needs to know the truth about what they have been doing.”
Magda drew Naja closer. “Please explain it. Give these people a picture of the true horror that the enemy has in store for us. Tell them how Sulachan uses the dead, and how his wizards rip the souls from the living.”
Naja looked out at the faces watching her. “If there is a tyranny of magic, it is what Emperor Sulachan and those who rule with him would impose on all of you.”
Everyone quieted to listen to her story.
“Hold on a moment,” Merritt said as he caught Magda under her arm as her knees started to buckle.
Magda was beginning to realize how seriously exhausted she was from using her new Confessor power. The sword had given her the strength she had needed the night before, but the use of her Confessor power had drained that strength.
Magda gestured. “I need to sit down.”
Merritt guided her around the desk. He seized the robes at Elder Cadell’s back and heaved the c
orpse aside. He gave quick orders. Soldiers rushed up and dragged the body away.
Merritt held out the tall chair for Magda. When she sat, he stood behind her, resting a hand on the carved top of the chair.
“The council has lost members. We need a council,” Magda said from behind the chair in the center of the council table. “As a start, I hereby reinstate Councilman Sadler.”
No one objected. When Magda gestured to him, Councilman Sadler smiled and took a seat to her left. Clay and Hambrook sat on her right again, at their traditional places.
Magda nodded for Naja to go on, then sat quietly listening to what she already knew as the sorceress revealed those terrors being hatched by the rulers in the Old World.
Wide-eyed people listened as Naja explained what they had never heard before, and told them what they really faced.
When Naja finished her brief summation, Magda, having regained a bit of strength, stood.
“When you hear the words ‘the tyranny of magic,’ as we heard from Elder Cadell, you will know that it is the calling card of killers. Don’t be fooled by their platitudes that it is for the common good. Their real purpose is to strip us of our abilities so that they may more easily conquer and rule us.
“If we are to survive, we need magic now more than ever to defend ourselves from those in the Old World. We need to learn, discover, create. We need to use our reasoning minds and truth.
“You have now heard the confession of the traitor Lothain and how he subverted the Keep. You have heard from Naja what Sulachan has planned. We now know the real nature of the war that is upon us.
“If we lose this war, we lose more than our lives, we lose more than the future for our people. We will lose our connection to all that is good.” Magda lifted her hand, showing them the ring with the Grace on it. “We will lose our connection to the very nature of creation, life, and our souls.