“I promised that I would use my abilities to help guide them all into the spirit world. He smiled, and as he thanked me and squeezed my hand . . . his last breath of life left him and he was gone.
“On my knees, as the gentle rain began, I hunched over him and rained my own tears down on this poor man for all that he and the others had suffered, wept for what might have been had we each had the courage to let the past go and embraced what life still had to offer.”
Magda understood all too well that desolate agony of loss.
“So, there I was beside the road to Whitney with the dead body of my friend, while back in Grandengart lay the corpses of my charges, my town. The corpses of the people I had failed.”
Magda laid a hand on Isidore’s arm. “You did not fail them, Isidore. Emperor Sulachan’s minions are as powerful as they are ruthless. Joel was right, you could have done nothing to stop it. Don’t take on the guilt that rightly belongs to the killers.
“Not many would have shown the courage you did in such a difficult situation. You did your people the greatest kindness possible. You were there for them to end their suffering when there was nothing else that could have been done.”
“I thought so too. But as it turns out, after reaching Whitney and burying Joel, that was only the beginning of the nightmare.”
Chapter 27
Magda stroked a hand along the silky back of the sleeping cat curled up in her lap. The cat’s contented purring served to emphasize the stretch of empty silence.
“The beginning of the nightmare?” Magda finally asked. “What do you mean?”
Isidore took a deep breath. Her shoulders slumped as she let out a weary sigh. “After Joel died, I managed to lift him up and over the back of the horse.” She flicked a hand in an aside. “I used to be stronger than I am as you see me now. I’ve lost weight and muscle since then. I find that I rarely have much of an appetite.
“Anyway, I rode most of that night, stopping only for a brief nap when neither I nor the horse could go on. It was the first sleep I’d had since arriving home to Grandengart. It was also the first of the terrible dreams that haunt me to this day. The short rest was at least enough for me to be able to resume the journey. By late the next afternoon I finally reached the wheat fields and scattered farms at the outskirts of Whitney.
“A man and his wife working a field saw me and must have realized that I was having trouble. They both rushed out to the road to help. When they saw the body slung over the back of the horse, they said that he needed to be buried at once. They were kind enough to lead me to a small graveyard beside a clutch of oaks, the only trees in sight out on the plains of the southern reaches of the New World. There, they helped me lift Joel down and then bury him.
“I was in a numb daze from the whole ordeal, from traveling so long and hard with the dead body of my friend, with tormented thoughts of what might have been between us, and worse, what I might have done to stop the madness had I returned home from seeing the council just a little sooner. I hadn’t eaten in days and I was near delirious with exhaustion. Even so, I knelt beside Joel’s fresh grave and prayed earnestly to the good spirits to welcome him and all the others into their arms.
“Hunched over his grave I again promised Joel that I would keep my word, given just before he died, that I would use my abilities to help make sure that they all made it safely into the embracing shelter of the good spirits.
“After that, the man and his wife, feeling sympathy for me, gave me some food and water and then escorted me the rest of the way into Whitney. I think they thought that I might not make it on my own.
“In Whitney I learned that a few of the terrified old men from Grandengart, the ones who had been released by General Kuno to carry word of what had happened so as to spread panic, had done just that, coming through and telling everyone of the horrifying fate of Grandengart’s people. The whole town of Whitney was buzzing with the news, so the town officials were not surprised when I briefly recounted my story.
“There were gifted there and they listened with even greater interest than the officials, though they said nothing, when I told them what they had not heard yet, that I had gone from one dying person to the next, ending their suffering.
“A number of the town’s people were already packing their belongings and more yet had already left, all headed north. No one knew where General Kuno and his army would strike next, but they wanted to flee to a more distant place where they thought it would be safer. I couldn’t really fault them.
“A detachment of troops, sent by the council to look into the reports of trouble brewing to the south, happened to have just arrived in Whitney. I talked with the commander and reported what had happened. I told him that I couldn’t bury well over a thousand bodies by myself and I needed help. I didn’t want my people to lie there and rot in the open or be scavenged by animals. All I could think of was that it was my duty to at least see them buried.
“Fortunately, the commander was an understanding man. He and his troops took me with them. We rode hard all the way back to Grandengart to attend to the dead as swiftly as possible.
“When we got there, the dead were missing.”
Magda blinked, not sure she had heard correctly. “Missing? What do you mean, they were missing?”
Isidore lifted a hand in frustration and then let it drop back into her lap.
“They were gone. Not a single corpse was there by the road where I’d left them. The town had been burned down. The rain had since doused the smoldering rubble. There were no bodies in the town, nor were there any beside the road where the poles had been erected, where I had delivered them from their suffering.”
“Did the troops believe you? Believe your story?”
Isidore grunted bitter confirmation. “The ground was soaked with clotted blood. They believed me. The poles, each with the ropes still attached, were covered with blood as well. There were some remains still scattered about—the viscera of those that animals had ripped open. After inspecting the remains the commander confirmed that they were human.”
Isidore again weakly lifted a hand. “But there were no bodies. None.”
Magda hooked a lock of her short hair behind her ear, at first having expected it to be long. She still wasn’t used to it being short.
“I don’t understand. How could there be no bodies? What could have become of them?”
“Well, I saw tracks that hadn’t been there before, so my first thought was that maybe General Kuno’s army had decided to turn back to the safety of the Old World and they had come back through Grandengart. I thought that maybe on the way back through they had decided to bury the dead rather than let them decay out in the open.”
“No,” Magda said. “That doesn’t sound at all like what I know about Kuno. Baraccus told me that Sulachan personally selected Kuno to lead their forces because he was so ruthless. Kuno wouldn’t care about any such decency as burying his enemy’s dead. Like Sulachan himself, he’s the kind who would have deliberately left the bodies there in the open as a ghastly warning to anyone who had thoughts of resisting. He uses tactics of terror to sap the will of those who will eventually have to face him.”
Isidore was nodding as she listened. “Though it was the beginning of the war, before we had learned how truly brutal Emperor Sulachan and his forces were, the commander I was with harbored no delusions. He said that any army that would come in and torture and murder innocent people like that would not care about burying them. And then his men, as they searched, found evidence that the bodies had been taken.”
“Taken? What do you mean, taken?” Magda asked. The whole thing was not making any sense to her.
“The soldiers said that there were a lot of tracks showing that an army had come back through and crossed over the road, headed south. There were drag marks on the ground where it looked like the bodies had been collected into piles. The ground there was covered with even more of the gore. The drag marks ended at wagon tracks. Lots of
wagon tracks.”
Magda frowned. “You’re saying that Kuno’s army came back though and . . . took them?”
“They came back and harvested the dead,” Isidore confirmed in an icy tone.
Magda’s hand paused on the cat’s back. “Harvested the dead?” She tilted her head toward the woman. “For what purpose?”
Isidore shrugged one shoulder. “The officer was only able to say that it appeared that they had taken the dead with them, south, back to the Old World.”
Magda pressed her fingertips to her forehead as she tried to make sense of it. “But why would they do such a thing? What would they want with the bodies?”
Isidore’s hands opened a little in a vague, noncommittal gesture.
Magda could only imagine the grisly state the bodies would have been in. Collecting hundreds and hundreds of days-dead corpses and taking them away in wagons would have been a sickening task. No one would have done such a thing without a powerful reason.
Isidore offered no immediate insight into the mystery of what that reason might be. Magda thought that maybe it was simply such an outrage that the woman didn’t want to think about it, much less discuss it. By Isidore’s guarded response, though, Magda suspected that she knew more than she was revealing.
Rather than press, Magda thought it best to try to soothe the woman’s terrible memories and let her tell the story at her own pace.
“That certainly is gruesome. I can see what you mean about the nightmare just beginning.”
Isidore’s head was hanging. She didn’t lift it.
“No. That is not what I meant when I spoke before of the nightmare only beginning.”
Surprised, Magda stared at the woman for a moment. “Then what exactly did you mean?”
Chapter 28
Isidore finally lifted her head. “Well, after that, the troops went south after Kuno’s army to make sure that they weren’t going to turn back and head north again into the New World by a different route. But also, the commander thought that, burdened as Kuno’s forces were with so many wagons, there was a good chance that if they rode hard he could catch them. He was confident that he had a large enough force to fully extract vengeance when he did.
“I didn’t know what to do at that point. With the commander and his troops gone, I was again alone. Most of my people from Grandengart were dead with the remainder captives, and my friend Joel dead and buried. I had no one.
“I decided to go back to Whitney.”
Magda thought that made some sense—there was nothing left of Grandengart and Whitney was the closest town. Yet, there seemed better options, such as going to Aydindril, where she could have given what information she had to the council at the Keep, and to the army. After all, this was an enormously significant event. It was the first attack in a war that many had long feared would eventually erupt and had now begun.
Magda suspected that there was more to Isidore’s decision. “Other than Joel being buried there, did you have some reason for choosing to go back to Whitney?”
Isidore rubbed a thumb back and forth on the side of her knee for a time before answering. “Yes. I went back because I knew that there was a spiritist there.”
“A spiritist?” Magda’s brow tightened. “Why did you want to see a spiritist?”
“I was so distraught by everything that had happened, and by the final injustice of the bodies being taken, that I wanted to consult the woman. I guess I wanted what most anyone else who goes to a spiritist wants. I wanted to know that Joel was safely in the fold of the good spirits. I wanted to keep my promise to him.”
Magda at last resumed stroking the cat. “I guess I can understand how you felt. So, did this spiritist help put your mind at ease?”
Magda watched as Isidore’s thumb continued to rub back and forth on her knee. She spoke without lifting her head.
“Sophia was much older, and quite experienced, although she told me that in recent years she had not practiced her craft. She said that while she was proud of the work she had done, she had spent a lifetime at it and was finished with the whole business of dealing with the spirit world. She said that she wanted only to live the remainder of her life in peace. She refused to help me.
“I persisted. I told her that it was important, that I had made promises. Promises not only as a friend, but as a sorceress. She angrily waved away the request and said that my promises were not hers. I asked if she couldn’t see her way to helping out of compassion for all those innocent people, so that I would know they were now at peace. She said that even if she wanted to, which she didn’t, she couldn’t help because my loss was too fresh for me and that I was too distraught.
“I asked if I could return later, after I had gained a bit of perspective. She told me that delving into the spirit world wasn’t what most people thought it was, that her craft wasn’t intended as a means to commune with the dead to find comfort for the living. She said that there were dangers involved that I couldn’t begin to understand. Sophia again, and very emphatically, refused to help me.”
Isidore smiled. “I guess I learned from Sophia much of my reluctance to see people who want to consult with the spirits. She advised me, as one sorceress to another, to forget the whole thing.” The smile ghosted away. “As it turned out, it was very wise advice. Perhaps I should have listened.”
Magda didn’t say anything, instead waiting for Isidore to go on at her own pace. The frail young woman brushed the back of a slender hand against the opposite cheek, as if wiping away an invisible tear, before she finally did.
“Much like you, though, I had no intentions of taking no for an answer.” Isidore’s head turned up. “As it turns out, that persistence is a requirement.”
Magda’s brow lifted in surprise. “A requirement to having a spiritist help you?”
Isidore nodded. “I waited a few days, got some rest and spent some time thinking, then I went back. Sophia still refused to consult the spirits on my behalf. I couldn’t understand why not. I decided to stay in Whitney and try again later.
“Since I’m a sorceress, I made myself useful by helping some of the people in Whitney with ailments and such. I made a pest of myself with Sophia, asking to help around her home, until she started giving me little things to do to help her. I asked roundabout questions as I cooked her meals, brought her firewood, banked her hearth, fetched her water, always trying to sound innocently curious—you know, conversational. I listened carefully to anything she would tell me. I was doing my best to get lessons out of her in any way I could.
“I figured that if she wouldn’t give me the help I needed, then maybe I could learn enough to do it on my own. I’m a sorceress, after all, so I’m not without abilities. Although the methods involved were a mystery to me, I thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so complicated to learn just enough to check on the souls lost to me and find out if they were at peace. I guess I felt guilty for failing to be there for the people of Grandengart when Kuno had shown up and wanted to make up for it.
“The old woman, of course, knew what I was up to. She finally asked what it was I hoped to accomplish by contacting the spirit world so directly. I explained my promise to Joel to help make sure that he and all of the people of Grandengart had made it safely into the embracing shelter of the good spirits.
“She chuckled and asked what I thought one of the living could do to influence events in the spirit world. How did I think I could help souls gone to the underworld? Did I think I could take them by the hand and lead them into the glory of the light of the Creator? Did I really think that the souls in the underworld would never be able to find peace until I found it for them? Of course I had no answers.
“So I told her, then, of how the bodies of those killed in Grandengart had been harvested and taken away. I told her that I was greatly worried about what the gifted down in the Old World were doing with the dead people of Grandengart. I told her that I had a terrible feeling that the souls of those people were not at all safe.
“That gave her pause.
“Sophia became darkly moody and said again that such things were not the responsibility of the living, and besides, no matter what we might wish we could do to help, we had no say in the spirit world. But the worry about why the corpses had been taken nagged at her. I could see her demeanor change with the mystery surrounding the harvesting of the dead.
“One evening, she finally said that she would help me see that the people of Grandengart were at peace, but on a condition.
“Because I was a sorceress, and not the typical person who came to her for consultation, she wanted me, in exchange for her help, to first learn from her to be a spiritist. She explained that it was an old and honorable craft, but with an unfortunate stigma attached to it. She said that she was nearing the end of her life and wanted to pass her lifetime of knowledge on to someone of a new generation. She wanted the skills to live on.
“I told her that I had no desire to become a spiritist. Sophia smiled and said it didn’t matter to her if I wanted to or not, only that I did. She said that it was a dying art and she had never found anyone willing to learn the old craft. She said that young sorceresses nowadays don’t really want to have anything to do with the world of the dead. They figured that they would have an eternity of being dead and so they would rather spend their time living.
“Sophia said that it was understandable for people to feel that way, but she believed in the value of what she did and didn’t want to see the old ways die out. I certainly believed in the value of what she did. In fact, it seemed the only thing of real importance to me at the time.
“Still, as much as I wanted her help, I admit that I was repulsed by the idea of taking up such a profession myself. She reminded me of how much I’d wanted the help of a spiritist, and said that there would be others in the future who would also need such help. Sophia said that without younger people like me learning the old ways, they would vanish forever and that help would be lost to them.