The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 6

Looking down at the frightening drop over the edge of the wall, a drop of thousands of feet, Magda saw that the towering wall in this section of the Keep wasn’t perfectly vertical but actually flared out as it descended toward the foundation within the rock face of the mountain. She realized that when she jumped she would need to get herself some distance out away from the wall to ensure that she cleared the steeply angled stone skirt of the Keep or it would be a long, gruesome fall.

Her muscles tensed at the thought of a drawn-out, tumbling descent, repeatedly smacking the steeply angled wall and breaking bones all along the way down. She didn’t like the thought of that. She wanted a quick end.

She placed her hands on the stone battlements flanking the notched opening as she leaned out farther for a better view. She also checked back and to each side to make sure that no one was around. Like her husband, she didn’t need to worry much about anyone trying to stop her. Because it led to the First Wizard’s enclave, this particular rampart was restricted, leaving it a lonely, out-of-the-way area of the Keep. The guards back at the access stairs that spiraled up from below knew Magda and had offered their sincere condolences. Since they knew her so well, they hadn’t tried to prevent her from going up top.

Peering down the mountain, Magda tried to judge how far out she would need to jump in order not to hit the wall on the way down. She wanted it to be over before she had time to feel the pain of it. The whispers promised her that if she got out far enough, she would fall free until she finally reached the rocks at the bottom, where it would all be over in a single instant.

She hoped that Baraccus had been able to do the same and that he had not suffered.

But he must have felt a different sort of suffering all the way down: the suffering of knowing that he was leaving life and leaving her. She knew that she, too, would have to endure that final terror of leaving life behind.

But it would end quickly enough and then she hoped to be in the protective arms of the good spirits. Maybe then she would again see Baraccus smile at her. She hoped he wouldn’t be angry.

She wasn’t angry at him giving up his life because she knew him well enough to know that he had to have had a compelling reason for what he had done. She knew that a great many people had sacrificed their lives in the war so that others might live. Those sacrifices were made out of love for others. She knew that Baraccus would only have given his own life for just such a powerful reason. How could she be angry at him for making that sacrifice? No, she couldn’t feel anger toward him.

She felt only crushing sadness.

Magda gripped the top corners of the rough stone to each side. Even though the sun was setting, the stone was still warm. While the battlements were spaced quite a ways apart for her size, they would still be useful to help push herself off.

Not far away, out in front of her in midair, a raven rode an updraft, its glistening black feathers ruffling in the wind as its black eyes watched her prepare to leap.

Magda bent at the knees, readying herself for a maximum effort to jump clear of the wall. In a daze, she felt as if she were only watching herself. The whispers urged her on.

Her heart hammering, Magda took a deep breath, crouched down even more, and started rocking back and forth, swinging farther out each time, standing, crouching, standing, crouching, back and forth, farther out over the edge of the wall, farther out toward the drop that would take her pain away, building up speed for the final, big push.

In a swelling moment of doubt, she heard a voice within whisper for her not to think, but to simply do it.

As she swung herself out past the wall on the last rocking arc before the great leap, she realized in a single, crystal-clear instant the true enormity of what she was doing.

She was ending her life, ending it forever, ending it for all time. Everything that she was would be no more.

The voice became more insistent, telling her not to think, telling her to end her misery once and for all.

She was struck by how odd that seemed. How could she not think? Thinking was critical to any important decision.

In that icy flash of comprehension, in spite of the whispers, she realized just how terrible a mistake she was making.

It was as if, since learning of her husband’s death, she had been carried along in a raging river of emotions, urged onward by an inner voice pressing her toward the only thing that seemed like it could make the agony stop. She realized only now that she hadn’t thought it through, she had simply allowed herself to be swept along toward the spot where she now stood.

She was making no loving sacrifice. She was not trading her life for something she believed in, offering it for something of value as she knew Baraccus had. She was instead throwing it away for nothing. She was giving in to weakness, nothing more.

She was thoughtlessly rejecting all she believed in, all she had fought for. How many times had she gone before the council to speak for the lives of those who couldn’t speak for themselves? How many times had she argued for the importance of their lives, for the value of all life?

Was hers not just as important? Was her own life to be so carelessly, so foolishly, thrown away? Was she not going to fight for the right to her own life as she had fought for others?

She remembered telling Tilly that every life was precious. This was her only life and, despite her crushing agony, her life was precious to her. In her grief, she had allowed herself to be blind to that.

As if coming out of a fog, she realized, too, that there were things going on that didn’t make sense. There had to be more to everything that had happened than she was seeing. Why had Baraccus killed himself? What had been his purpose? Who was he protecting? For what had he traded his life?

She suddenly regretted thinking that she wanted to die, regretted being up on that wall. In fact, it now seemed to her as if she had somehow arrived at that spot in a dream.

As much as she hurt, she wanted to live.

But she was already moving too fast to stop, already flying out toward empty space.