The First Confessor

  The elder brightened with a brief, relieved smile. For some reason it appeared that he thought it would have been more difficult. The council seemed to have formed an opinion of her that was based to some extent on accusations about her.

  “Thank you for understanding, Magda. So you will take the appointment, then?”

  Magda had no intention of taking such an appointment and leaving the Keep. There was something going on, something that threatened the Keep, threatened their very existence. She seemed to be the only one who understood that the threat was real. She was not going to abandon her search for answers just to make life convenient for the council.

  That search for answers was a mission that Baraccus himself had given her, both as her husband and as First Wizard.

  At the same time, she didn’t want to get into a battle with these men. That would only back them into a corner and make her search for answers all the more difficult.

  “I appreciate the generous offer, Elder Cadell. I will certainly give it my most earnest consideration. But in the meantime, I would like to give over the First Wizard’s apartments. I have modest needs and will have no trouble finding a place. I know that there is space under the southern ramparts.”

  The elder blinked. He was left momentarily speechless. The quarters under the southern ramparts were the least desirable in the Keep, so there was always room there. As much trouble as she was to them, even the council would think that such quarters were beneath the widow of the First Wizard. It reflected poorly on them that they would force her out of her apartments to live beneath the southern ramparts.

  Magda didn’t really care where she slept. She was only concerned with finding answers before they were all killed the way she was nearly killed by a dream walker, or as Isidore had been killed by that walking nightmare.

  Before Elder Cadell could say anything, she asked, “Have you selected the man to become First Wizard, then?”

  Sadler leaned back in his chair. Hambrook and Clay shared a look. Weston and Guymer showed no reaction to the question.

  Elder Cadell cleared his throat. “We have had discussions and have someone in mind.” He smoothed his bushy brow. “We will reveal our choice at the proper time and in the proper manner.”

  In other words, he wasn’t about to tell Magda what they had decided. She hoped it was one of the men Baraccus had worked closely with. There were good men among them.

  “Of course, Elder Cadell. I am sure that the council will choose wisely. They certainly did the last time.”

  With the war going badly, they needed someone strong. Someone like Baraccus. Once the man was selected, she had important information to convey to him.

  He would need to know what she knew, what she had dared tell no one.

  It seemed to her like Baraccus was already just a figure in their history, lost to the advance of time.

  The world was moving on. It was up to her to convey knowledge from that past history.

  But only to the right person.

  Magda dipped a quick bow and departed before they could insist that she accept the post they wanted her to take.

  As she was pushing closed one of the heavy double oak doors to the council’s private chambers, she heard footsteps. Turning, she saw Prosecutor Lothain and a dozen men of his personal guard. Magda stepped to the side to make way for them.

  “Lady Searus,” Lothain said with a smile. “I hear that you have been at the center of yet more trouble.”

  “Shouldn’t you be down in the lower portions of the Keep searching for a killer to prosecute?”

  The menacing smile remained in place. “I don’t believe that the threat to our security is confined to the lower portions of the Keep. I think dangers to our cause are closer than most people think.”

  She knew what he was getting at, but she didn’t want to be distracted by Lothain any more than she had wished to be drawn into arguing with certain members of the council. She had to get back to her search.

  “I’m afraid that you would know about such threats better than I would. If you will excuse me, I have things to do.”

  His smile returned. “Such as finding new quarters?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “Rather sad that with a new First Wizard soon to be named you have to give up such luxurious apartments.”

  Magda wondered how he seemed to already know all about it.

  “It’s not sad at all. It is just a place to sleep. I am joyous that a new First Wizard will soon be named. The people I care about are what really matter to me, not an apartment.”

  “And which people are they, Lady Searus, that you really care about?”

  “The innocent people of the New World who are being slaughtered in the name of a cause.”

  Before he could say anything else, Magda started away. He caught her arm, stopping her. His grip was hurting her arm but she didn’t give him the satisfaction of showing it.

  “No need to be in a hurry to move your things, Lady Searus. I may be able to help you out with an accommodation so that you can remain where you are comfortable.”

  Magda’s only answer was a brief, noncommittal smile before she pulled her arm away and marched off. She kept her eyes straight ahead and didn’t slow for the wall of men in green tunics blocking her way. The prosecutor’s big personal guards stepped back at the last moment and just enough to let her pass.

  She couldn’t imagine what Lothain was talking about and she wasn’t particularly interested in coaxing it out of the man. She was sure that was what he had wanted her to do. When she glanced back she saw him vanishing into the council chambers.

  Magda wondered what business Lothain had with the council that he would be seeing them in a private session.

  Chapter 43

  It was apparent to Magda that the city of Aydindril, though as busy and active as ever, was on edge. Concern weighed on every face. People in small groups eyed passing strangers as they talked in low, worried tones.

  Every day brought new stories of enemy advances, of bloody battles, of the numbers of men lost, of cities that had fallen, of innocent civilians being slaughtered by the approaching forces of Emperor Sulachan. She knew that some of the stories were nothing more than rumors and gossip. She also knew that the truth was far more gruesome than most people knew.

  Glancing up between spaces in the tightly packed, two-story buildings as she made her way down the crowded cobblestone street, Magda could see glimpses of the lush forests covering the foothills and lower sweep of the nearest mountain. Higher up, the pines and spruce thinned as they reached granite ledges at the base of sheer cliffs. Beyond a few passing wisps of clouds and flocks of birds that lived in the stone face of the mountain, the massive cliffs supported dark, soaring stone walls of the Keep. Above the walls, even at this distance, she could see ramparts, bastions, lofty spires, and towers joined by high bridges.

  For as long back as Magda could remember, the dark shape of the Keep had loomed over the city, at once protector and threat, the magic it embodied both guardian and target.

  Magda had always had mixed feelings about living in the Keep. She loved the vibrancy of Aydindril, so with a soon-to-be-appointed new First Wizard needing the apartments, she had given thought to moving back down to the city. But she couldn’t do that until she found out what was behind Baraccus’s death and the other things that were happening at the Keep.

  While no one seemed to believe her, Magda was sure that everyone at the Keep was in danger. She couldn’t leave the Keep until she knew that the people living there were safe. While people were focused on the distant war, no one but her seemed aware that the enemy was already closer than anyone thought.

  Magda knew, the enemy was already slipping in among them.

  Even as Aydindril sweltered in the summer heat, there was talk that by winter the enemy troops might be within striking distance of the city. Magda feared to consider how devastating such a strike would be to the place where she’d grown up. If the
city was overrun, that would also mean a siege of the Keep. The Keep could withstand a siege for a long time, but not forever.

  Besides, it was impossible to win a war defensively. The forces from the Old World had made it clear that there would be no mercy. While some of Sulachan’s forces held the Keep under siege, others would lay waste to the New World. When the Keep finally fell, they would make examples of every last person.

  That was what they did to every village, town, and city in their path. Either people surrendered, or they were made to suffer for refusing.

  Simply hiding behind walls and iron doors would not eliminate the threat. Sooner or later even the Keep walls would fall. Evil had to be defeated or it would only grow stronger.

  How they were going to destroy this evil, Magda didn’t know. All she knew for sure was that it was not only getting closer every day, it was already among them. She had felt the painful presence of the dream walker. She had seen the monster that had come out of the dark and killed Isidore. Those were not random events; they were connected. Magda had to find the truth behind those connections.

  Making her way past crowds on the streets was at times like trying to move upriver. The peddlers shouting out the many benefits of their goods stood like rocks in that river as streams of people continually flowed around them.

  Some of the street merchants tended carts with salted meats and fish, fresh vegetables, or a variety of ready-made goods. Other vendors carried trays stacked high with long loaves of bread. There were also hawkers draped with jangling strings of amulets prowling the crowds as they shouted out singsong warnings of curses and plagues. They attracted flocks of bouncing children wanting to hear about curses of magic as parents rushed in and pulled them away.

  Magda sometimes crossed the street to avoid particularly aggressive hawkers she saw grabbing the arms of passing women, insisting that they listen to why they needed the protection of a magic charm. Potential customers were warned that when the enemy got closer, the supply of charms and talismans would all be gone and then it would be too late to get what was needed. Some people gave in to the warning or bought the least expensive of the amulets simply to free themselves from the hawker.

  Warm as it was, as she passed throngs of people Magda, like many women, kept the hood of her light cloak pulled up. People down in the city weren’t as likely to recognize her as were people up in the Keep, but she had been the wife of the First Wizard and as such it often surprised her how many people she’d never met recognized her.

  With time working against her, she couldn’t afford delays. As much as she would like to, she couldn’t stop to give guidance to people on the oath to avoid the dream walkers, or convey news from up in the Keep. There were also those who hated Baraccus and might want to give her a piece of their mind, or worse.

  Most people understood that surrender was suicide at best, slavery at worst. But not everyone could recognize the face of evil when it presented itself in the guise of salvation. She could hardly defend herself if a mob wanted to stone her because her husband had decided that they would go to war rather than surrender.

  Panicked people didn’t listen to reason and didn’t want to hear the truth. Sympathizers frequently stirred up resentment against the authority of military officers, the council, and even the First Wizard for being unwilling to accept the peace that the emperor had offered. Peace, these people said, was as simple as letting Emperor Sulachan rule instead of the council. They wanted to believe, and so they did, that the rule of either was the same difference in their lives.

  If other people wouldn’t accept the wisdom of their notion of “peace,” the advocates were all too willing to use violence to make their point. It struck Magda as ironic that those who professed to want peace the most were quickest to use bloodshed to try to get their way.

  Magda pulled her cowl farther forward as a knot of people moved past her. Unshaven men leered at her shape, even though they could see little of it under the cloak. They knew only that she was a woman, and therefore must be worthy of ogling. When a passing group of women happened to get a glimpse inside her cowl, Magda’s short hair told them that she was a nobody. They didn’t give her a second look as they went on about their own business.

  At a cross street, Magda peered around the corner of a two-story brick building that housed a tailor. On the other side of the street was an inn with a blue pig painted on the sign hanging over the door. The narrow street around the corner followed rolling, uneven ground. Despite how confining and confusing this part of the city of Aydindril was, she knew that this was the turn she needed to take.

  Magda had searched under the southern rampart but had learned that he was no longer living there. As much as she needed to find him, she hadn’t wanted to bring undue attention to herself by asking too many questions. Those kind of questions would sooner or later get noticed.

  Isidore’s murder had made Magda more than a little cautious. She had nearly been a victim, too. A dream walker was no longer in Magda’s mind, but she had no way of knowing if one might be in the mind of any person she talked to. A dream walker could no longer follow her through her own eyes, but she didn’t want them following her through the eyes of others.

  So, she had gone to Tilly. Tilly had been horror-stricken over the death of Isidore. At first she blamed herself, believing that if she hadn’t shown Magda the way, then maybe none of it would have happened.

  Magda had convinced the woman that she was wrong. They were fighting evil, and the evil was not Tilly’s doing. Magda had told her that Isidore herself said that they were warriors in this war. Evil would not rest. It had to be fought.

  Tilly had been silent for a moment and then asked if she, too, was a warrior in this war. Magda told her that indeed she was, and in fact she had been more help than any of the council had been. Magda said that since no one else would help her find Isidore’s killer, she intended to do it herself, and to that end she again needed Tilly’s help.

  It had taken a few days, but Tilly had discovered that the man whose help Magda sought was nowhere in the Keep. After several more days of discreet inquiry she had finally been able to learn where he lived. Magda was surprised that he would have moved out of the Keep and down into Aydindril, and frustrated that it had taken so long to find where he now lived. She knew that time to act was slipping away.

  After glancing around to make sure that she wasn’t being followed, Magda turned up the quiet street. There were no shops, only houses, mostly multi-family structures. She could see that trees beyond the buildings shaded an alley. The houses and two-story dwellings were tightly packed together and in some places connected with common walls. Out back people planted gardens and laundry hung on lines. She could hear chickens and a hog or two. A crudely painted sign on one gate said eggs for sale.

  After following the street over several rises, she came to the place that was set back beside a two-story stone building. There was a forked plum tree in the front of the little porch. At the side of the small place she could see down the narrow passageway between the buildings that the back was heavily shaded by oaks. She also saw the corner of a shed along with wood scraps and odd bits of metal neatly laid out beside it.

  On the porch, in under a low overhang, Magda tucked her small bundle under an arm and knocked firmly on the simple plank door. After a moment, she heard someone coming through the house from the back. He stopped on the other side of the door.

  “What is it?” he asked without opening the door.

  “Are you Wizard Merritt?”

  “I’m sorry but I can’t see anyone right now,” he said from the other side.

  “This is important.”

  “I told you, I can’t see anyone now. I’m busy working. Please be on your way.”

  She could hear the footsteps heading away from the door toward the back of the house.

  Chapter 44

  “Please, I need to see you,” Magda called to the door. “I come with news of Isidore.”


  She heard his distant footsteps pause.

  As she waited in silence, Magda wasn’t sure if he would come back and open the door or not. She wiped away a bead of sweat trickling down her temple as she idly watched a lacewing hunting for aphids on the lush green leaves and stems of a vine climbing one of the posts holding up the overhanging roof of the porch. At last she heard his footsteps returning.

  The door opened enough that Magda could see that he was as imposing a figure as Isidore had said. After all Magda had heard about him—from Baraccus, from the men down in the Keep, from wizards she knew, and from Isidore—she found it was a somewhat strange feeling to finally see him in the flesh. After all the things said about him, he wasn’t exactly what she had pictured.

  He was somehow more.

  He was tall, and without a shirt it was plain to see that he was handsomely built. He was a good deal younger than Baraccus. In fact, he didn’t look much older than her—maybe a couple of years at most.

  Magda had seen hundreds of wizards. The Keep was full of them. Merritt, especially without a shirt, didn’t look at all like her idea of what a wizard looked like.

  His skin glistened with sweat and grimy smudges. There were a few streaks of soot on his face behind stray, wavy locks of light brown hair that was struck through with a lighter, sun-bleached, blondish brown. Disheveled as it was, it added to his rugged looks.

  Somehow, impossibly, the sweat and the soot made him look all the better.

  But it was his hazel eyes cast with a shade of green that caught her breath. It felt as if he was looking right into her soul, weighing it for worth. At the same time, she felt that she could see in his eyes that he was open about who he was, without pretense or deception.

  Though they contained the same basic trait, the eyes of the gifted tended to appear quite different to her. In some people, such as warriors, the glimmer of the gift that she saw had a menacing aspect to it. In healers it had a softer, more gentle appearance. The aspect of the gift in Baraccus’s eyes had been passionately wise, resolute, formidable.