The First Confessor (44 page)

“You carried me?”

He nodded. “I didn’t think . . . well, I thought it best to get you in out of the rain here, and see to making sure that you’re all right as soon as possible.”

“The sword,” she said, licking her cracked lips.

“What about it?”

“Did it work, Merritt? Were you able to complete the key?”

His handsome smile widened. “Thanks to you, yes. Thanks to your strength and determination I was able to do it.”

“You did it . . .”

“We did it.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ve healed you, but more than anything you need to rest, now. I can’t use magic to give you that, and you desperately need it.”

In the dim recesses of her memory, she recalled him holding her head in his hands as he worked to save her. She had been healed before, so she had known what he had been doing. His touch, though, felt different from any healing she had felt before. It had fierce intensity, yet a warmth to it that calmed her and let her relax so that he could do as he needed.

She could remember only bits and pieces of him bent over her, holding her head, as the rain poured down on them. She did remember, though, how much she hurt, and how terrified she had been that she would die there in the dark woods.

Magda didn’t know what had needed healing, but she was aware that for a time she had been on the other side of the veil of life.

Merritt had come after her and brought her back.

“Is it still night?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s morning.”

“Morning?” Magda tried to push herself up on her elbows, but she couldn’t seem to muster the strength. “Merritt, we have to go. We need to get to the dungeon. We need to find that sorceress who defected. If she’s even still alive. If she is, they could execute her at any time.”

Merritt’s hand on her shoulder gently pushed her back down. “I know, but right now you have to rest. I healed you, but if you are to recover, you still need to rest. I can’t do that part for you, and you can’t do anything if you don’t finish getting better, first.”

There was something serious about his tone. She looked up to his face. His eyes revealed the level of his concern. The look in his hazel eyes gave her a ripple of terror.

“Am I going to be all right? Am I going to live?”

A touch of his smile returned. “If you rest. Your body needs sleep to fully recover.”

Magda narrowed her eyes, peering, trying to focus her still-blurry vision to see the sword at his hip. Trying to focus her eyes gave her sharp pains in her temples. She didn’t see the scabbard there at his hip.

Merritt saw where she was looking and gestured. “It’s hung on the chair.”

“Please,” she managed past the pain in her throat. “Can I see it? I want to touch it.”

Merritt scratched his temple. “Sure.”

He went to the chair sitting before the table with the red velvet where the sword used to lie. When he drew the blade from its scabbard hanging on the chair, the room filled with the clear ring of steel. It sounded the same, yet somehow different. The ring had a nature to it that resonated with something deep inside her.

He brought the sword to her, holding it out in both open hands. Magda reached up and touched the hilt, running her fingers over the raised letters of the word
Truth
.

She stretched both hands toward it, wanting it, needing it. Merritt let her lift it from his hands.

Magda laid the blade down the length of her body, feeling the satisfying weight of it against her. The hilt rested on her chest just beneath her chin. At that moment, after all she had been through, it was more comforting than any blanket. Knowing that it was now complete was gratifying beyond words.

She held the hilt with both hands, letting the deep satisfaction of knowing that they had done it seep through her.

Merritt had accomplished the near impossible. The key was complete. Magda had managed to do her small part to help him and as a result the Sword of Truth was now complete.

Though she was ungifted, she could clearly feel the power of the magic the sword now possessed. It was power unlike anything she had ever imagined. It churned the way the storm had. It held more power than the storm had. It was fury and rage and love and life all folded together, over and over, blending them into the finest layers of something new, something remarkable.

This was now a weapon unlike any other, more than any other.

It felt so good holding it, knowing that they had done it, that she never wanted to let it go.

Magda let out a deep breath of contentment and, with the Sword of Truth held in both hands, lying down the length of her, listening to the steady drumming of rain on the roof, she allowed herself to succumb to sleep.

“Are you sure that you’re all right?” Merritt asked in a quiet voice as they made their way up the broad hallway. “I know I would feel more confident in your recovery if you had gotten more rest. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

This section of the Keep was reserved for the Home Guard. The hall was simple stone block walls, beamed ceilings, and plank floors. There were barracks, dining halls, and assembly rooms down various corridors. As they passed intersections, she saw that some of the halls were filled with soldiers. Iron brackets held torches with flames that flapped in the breeze as they passed. The hall smelled musty, punctuated with the heavy aroma of pitch each time they passed a hissing torch.

Two soldiers in polished armor breastplates over blue tunics, their heads bent close in a confidential conversation, were walking swiftly toward them. Magda waited until they passed and were out of earshot before she answered Merritt.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Really. Stop asking me, would you?”

As they marched down the long corridor Merritt glanced over with a skeptical expression but didn’t answer. From time to time he looked over at her out of the corner of his eye, as if checking to make sure she was still upright.

Magda wished it weren’t so late. She had slept the entire day, and on into the night. No matter how much she might need rest, she didn’t want to sleep any more. She was strong enough to do what had to be done. That was all that really mattered at the moment.

“Don’t I look fine?” she asked.

Merritt finally smiled. “Yes, you certainly do look fine.” His face reddened. “I mean, you look like you’ve regained your strength.”

Magda smiled at his look of embarrassment.

Truth be told, she didn’t feel at all fine. She was so exhausted that she could hardly put one foot in front of the other, but she was more concerned that the sorceress from the Old World might be executed before they could get to her. It might be their only chance to get information about what the enemy was up to. She couldn’t afford to worry about how tired she was when there was so much at stake.

Despite the late hour, she expected General Grundwall to still be up. She knew him to be ferociously dedicated to his duty of protecting the Keep and those who lived and worked there. She remembered Baraccus often reminding General Grundwall to get some sleep or he wouldn’t be good for anything. The man rarely took the gentle reminders to heart.

By the clusters of men crowded around the archway to the Home Guard’s headquarters, she was sure he would be there. Some of the soldiers in blue tunics and light armor clutched papers or scrolls, waiting to give the general their reports. Other men were gathering for their patrols. The dozens of reflector lamps along the stone walls outside the archway reflected sparkles of light off polished armor and weapons that all the men carried. It was a decidedly male environment that made her feel out of place.

As Magda and Merritt made their way up the corridor, past soldiers coming and going as well as clusters of men discussing their work and their plans for the night, she spotted the general coming out of the arched opening to his headquarters. He was average height, but built like an oak tree, with thick arms and a neck that started flaring right from his ears down into his broad shoulders. She thought that he looked like a man who could shove a mountain aside if it was in his way.

He spoke to various people with brief, direct orders, sending men on specific types of patrols, or telling officers how he wanted watches run, or taking papers with reports from waiting men even as he was talking to others. He scanned each report and thanked the man giving it. Before long he had a sheaf of papers in his big fist.

When General Grundwall spotted Magda weaving her way through the swarm of soldiers, his face lit up with a big grin.

Magda instantly went on alert.

The general smiling like that was out of character. He was a serious soldier, healthy and fit despite the gray at his temples. He often rode with his men or walked miles and miles of patrols through the Keep with them, up and down countless stairs as he checked that his people were safe. He was focused and serious. He was not a man to smile casually.

Since the strange deaths at the Keep, he was, if anything, short-tempered. He felt that the murders reflected poorly on him personally. That the deaths continued put him continually on edge.

But here he was grinning as if he were at a ball and full of wine.

“Lady Searus! So glad to see you,” he said as he rushed up to her.

Merritt, standing beside her, made the general look not nearly as big and muscular as she had always thought of him.

“General Grundwall, can we speak privately? I need to ask you something.”

“Of course, of course,” he said, still grinning as he gestured expansively, urging her into an alcove to the side that held several statues of famous soldiers from history.

Before she could say anything, the general, still grinning, did.

“I must congratulate you, Lady Searus.”

If Magda had been on alert before, now she was alarmed. Again, the general spoke before she had a chance to ask what he meant.

“It’s wonderful news, simply wonderful. Just what the Keep needed. It lifted the gloom.”

Magda was not merely bewildered, she was becoming ever more apprehensive. She thought it best to be as careful as possible.

“And how did you hear the news, General?”

He straightened with a proud grin and hooked his thumbs on his weapons belt. “Prosecutor Lothain told me himself.”

Magda had to force herself not to act startled. “He did?”

General Grundwall nodded. He glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to hear him.

“I have to say, I’ve been worried about matters here at the Keep, but now, with you to marry our new First Wizard, I have been put at ease.” He held up his hand as he glanced around again. “Don’t worry, I haven’t told my men yet that Lothain is to be named First Wizard. I know that the news is supposed to be saved for an announcement at the council session.

“But the biggest news, as far as I’m concerned, is that you will once again be the wife of our First Wizard. I can’t tell you how relieved I am at that news.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Magda shared a look with Merritt.

She couldn’t help herself. “Why are you relieved?”

His brow lifted. “Lady Searus, you are widely respected. You may not be aware of it, but your word is widely listened to and valued. People know of all the times you have spoken with measured reason before the council, oftentimes being their conscience. You have always spoken for those who have no voice before the council. That has earned you the quiet respect of many people in the Keep.

“A lot of people had doubts about Lothain, and what you had to say about him before, and, well, your words put voice to the concerns of many. At the same time, though, there are others who believe in Lothain, believe that he is our savior for going after all the traitors among us. Those people, who believe in Lothain, would like to cut your throat. I have worried greatly for your safety because true believers are often quite vicious.

“But Lothain explained it all to me. He made it clear how your grief over Baraccus’s suicide weighed terribly on your nerves, that’s all. As he says, such deep grief can make even good people act out in misguided ways and so they must be forgiven.

“But by your marrying him, it will settle the matter and end any misgivings about Lothain being named First Wizard. People will be very pleased to have the reassurance of your confidence in him. After all, you’re marrying him!” He thumped his chest with a fist. “I’m reassured and pleased! I have to tell you, it will really quiet things down in the Keep. I can’t tell you how happy I am for you, and that you once again are to be wife to the First Wizard.”

Magda did her best to conceal her rage.

“And who have we here?” the general asked as his typical suspicious gaze turned to Merritt.

“I’m Merritt,” Merritt said with a pleasant smile, a smile that she could see was forced.

Merritt held out his hand. General Grundwall, still looking suspicious, shook the hand.

“Merritt is a maker,” Magda said, drawing the general’s attention back to her. “Since I have no use for them, I am giving Baraccus’s tools to Merritt, here. He will be able to put them to good use.”

“Ah,” the general said with a nod indicating that his suspicion had been allayed. “Well that’s a nice thing to do. I’m sure that First Wizard Baraccus would have wanted that.”

“That’s what I thought,” Magda said.

General Grundwall leaned close. “Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?”

Magda was taken off guard, and her mind suddenly raced for an answer.

If this man was now on the side of Lothain, she couldn’t very well trust him to take her to see the sorceress that Lothain was intent on putting to death. She momentarily considered taking him into her confidence and telling him that she had no intention, under any circumstances, of marrying Lothain. She was furious at Lothain for having the audacity to tell people that she was going to marry him.

As he stared at her, waiting for her answer, she reminded herself to focus. She couldn’t take the chance of trusting him.

“Well,” she said, “I was taking Merritt to show him Baraccus’s tools, like I said. We were passing nearby, and I hoped to run into you. I wanted to ask you if you had found the man who had murdered Isidore, the spiritist.”