The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 100

Merritt waggled the journal. “We’ll hint at it in books of magic, information, records, and history. That’s how I came to the belief that the key had to be a sword. You’re always recording history of the Keep. You need to create a false history, for the false key. Create a better idea of what the key should be, one that makes more sense to people, so that they believe in the diversion we create.”

Quinn nodded thoughtfully. “Wizard’s First Rule.”

“Right,” Merritt said. “Emperor Sulachan has been able to amass information because he is a student of history. He gleans all he can from records and accounts. According to Naja, that’s part of the way he uses dream walkers.

“So, in order to help hide the real key, we need to make some parts of history more muddled. We need to obscure what I learned about the key needing to be a sword. We don’t want it to be easy for Sulachan, or anyone who might get their hands on the boxes, to be able to so easily learn the truth through history.

“If people see the muddled history you create, they will repeat it. Those accounts you create will take on a life of their own. They will become the conventional wisdom. As they do, the truth will be blurred, at least until we find the boxes or, if not us, then the right person eventually comes along.

“So, while you’re down here with the sliph, writing your journals and histories of the Keep, don’t make clear what is happening now. Don’t make it easy to understand what has taken place here in the Keep, or to grasp what we know, what we have discovered, and how we solved the plots against us. Don’t let people know how Magda uncovered Lothain’s plots, or how we unmasked the traitors and collaborators and spies. Don’t let the enemy know how we did what we did. Mix it up.”

“Of course. Disinformation,” Quinn said. “I can do that. I’ll leave out critical events, then I’ll put in false information and twist everything that has happened around into a kind of vague, shadowy history that obscures what really took place.”

“Good,” Merritt said with a firm nod.

Quinn snapped his fingers. “And what if I made the diversion for the key, be a book?”

“A book . . .” Merritt gazed off as he considered it.

“Yes, kind of like the books with the complex rift formulas that Baraccus brought back from the Temple of the Winds.”

“That would be fitting,” Magda said.

Quinn shook a finger as he thought. “I could even use some calculations from the rift formulas to give it legitimacy. Not enough to make it function properly, of course, but enough star azimuth angles and such to make it appear legitimate. If it was complex enough, and if some of the magic in it actually functioned, that would make the false key look real.”

“What kind of book would it be?” Magda asked.

Quinn leaned in. “A book of instructions. After all, isn’t that what people expect? They will want to know how to use the power of Orden. An instruction book meets their expectations.”

“The power of Orden predates the star shift,” Merritt said. “Information about it is sketchy, at best.”

“Exactly,” Quinn said. “So they will want to know how it works. They start out invested in wanting a book of magic that will tell them how the power works. So why not give them one?”

“Create a fake instruction book as the key to the power?” Magda asked.

“Yes. It would be a book on how to use the boxes of Orden, full of legitimate formulas that predate the star shift to add legitimacy, but altered just enough so that they wouldn’t be of any value as a real key. Who would know they’re false? There would be no way to check them, nothing to check them against.”

Magda was intrigued. “And you think that you could create a book that would appear real enough that people, even if they found it and looked at it, would believe it was real?”

“The power of Orden is ancient,” Quinn said. “How would they confirm anything in it? I can make it look real and fabricate a verification process within the book itself, but this book would actually be nothing but shadows. Along with the muddled history I create, that would further add to the sense of authority of this shadowy book.”

“You could even call it that,” Merritt said. “Name it Shadows, or something.”

“That’s too simple,” Magda said. “Sounds like my cat’s name. It would work better as a diversion if it sounded like it functioned as a key. Like it contained methods for unlocking answers. It needs a more mysterious title.”

Quinn frowned. “Like what?”

Magda thought a moment. It came to her, then.

“How about The Book of Counted Shadows.”

Quinn’s brow lifted in delight. “I like it.”

“It’s brilliant,” Merritt said, grinning at her.

Seeing him smile at her like that lifted her heart. But the shadow over her heart dimmed her bright, momentary pleasure.

“I’ll get started on it right away,” Quinn said. “I’ll also create some historical sources to make it look like the key to the boxes can be found in The Book of Counted Shadows. I can even come up with some fragments of text and make them look like they survived from before the star shift as well.

“If we let some of these accounts slip into the wrong hands and they get back to Emperor Sulachan, he will be sent off chasing shadows, so to speak.”

Merritt pinched his lower lip in thought. “You could create some fake documents about recent events, with tantalizing bits of ancient knowledge talking about the key to the power of Orden, hinting at the book as the key, and then we could plant this documentation on a dead man dressed as a courier.” Merritt leaned close. “Then we could leave the body where General Kuno’s patrols would find it.”

“And if we hide The Book of Counted Shadows,” Quinn added, “it will convince the emperor that he is on the right track. The harder it is to find, the more they will all be convinced that the book is the key.”

“Meanwhile,” Merritt said, lifting the Sword of Truth partway from its scabbard, “no one will ever suspect the true key.”

“It all should work,” Quinn said. “After all, no one knows much of anything about the power of Orden’s origin. I’ll obscure what’s known about the star shift to better hide what is known. I won’t have to worry about altering a lot of material, or contradicting a great deal of evidence of actual history, so it should be easier to create a credible diversion out of history.”

“And look here.” Merritt opened the journal he had in his hand and tapped a place on the page. “You wrote in your journal, ‘The third attempt at forging the key failed today. The wives and children of the five men who died roam the halls, wailing in inconsolable anguish. How many men will die before we succeed, or until we abandon the attempt as impossible? The goal may be worthy, but the price is becoming terrible to bear.’”

“I see what you mean. That’s the kind of thing that’s too obvious in pointing people to the sword as the key. I know,” Quinn said as he swiped a finger across the first words, making them disappear, “I’ll change this part so that it says, ‘The third attempt at forging a Sword of Truth failed today.’ How’s that sound? That way it disassociates the key from the sword and makes the sword look like a special object of its own.”

Merritt smiled. “Perfect. That adds credibility to the sword being something other than the key.”

“I’ll add some real magic to the book,” Quinn said, “so that it seems even more real. Some occult spells and spell-forms will make for a sinister book.”

“You are a devious man, Quinn,” Magda said with a grin.

Quinn arched an eyebrow. “If you think so now, wait until you see The Book of Counted Shadows.”