The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 101

Magda rushed into the sliph’s room. Merritt followed close behind her.

Lord Rahl, leaning back against the low wall of the well, looked up when he heard them come through the doorway, and swept his long blond hair back off his face. He looked rather disoriented and euphoric after his journey in the sliph. It had that effect on a lot of people. Magda had to admit that it had had the same effect on her. Despite that, she still didn’t like the sliph.

“I came as fast as I could.” Lord Rahl gestured to Quinn. “Quinn filled me in on everything. Sounds like quite an eventful ordeal.” He grinned at Magda. “Confessor, eh? Seems to fit.” His gaze traveled the length of her white dress and back up again. “I must say, so does that dress. Quite well, in fact.”

“Thank you,” she said, not knowing exactly what to say.

“When I first got the message, I was pretty worried that for some crazy reason you were actually going to marry that pig of a prosecutor. I should have known better. Good job, Magda. Good job. You indeed did have a reason to stay at the Keep, as you told me the last time I saw you.”

Merritt nodded his agreement. “Even though Magda uncovered the plot and brought Lothain’s treason to light, I’m afraid that we still have a lot of work to do, and a difficult war ahead of us. Did Quinn tell you about the half people as well?”

Alric Rahl sighed as he nodded. “And these walking dead people things.”

“We wanted you to know what your soldiers were facing,” Merritt said. “They’re going to be hard to fight. I haven’t worked out a method, yet, to keep them away from us. I would suggest that you do something about any places the dead are buried, like the catacombs.”

“I always worried about men with a weapon in their hand, or a gifted conjuring magic. I never thought I’d have to worry about the dead people.”

“I can assure you, it’s not a thought I like either,” Quinn said from his writing desk.

A thought tickled at the back of Magda’s mind, but she couldn’t quite bring it forward.

“Say,” Lord Rahl said, stretching his neck to look out the door to make sure no one was near. “I have to bring up something rather important. But it has to be kept a secret among just us in this room.”

It seemed to Magda like a day of secrets. “What is it?”

Lord Rahl scratched his jaw as he searched for words. “We found something, something quite important.”

“You ‘found’ it?” Merritt asked suspiciously. “Where did you ‘find’ this important something?”

Lord Rahl heaved a sigh. “It was on a man we killed. Well, actually, we killed a whole bunch of men until we finally killed this particular one. By how well he was being protected, we knew that he had to be an important person, or have something mighty important on him. It turned out to be the latter.”

“So, what was it?” Magda asked.

Lord Rahl put his hands on the short stone wall of the sliph’s well and leaned back to look up at them with blue eyes.

“It was covered in jewels.”

Merritt was still looking suspicious. “You’re telling us that you found important treasure?”

“You might say so. These jewels were covering a box.” He gave them each a meaningful look.

“A box,” Merritt repeated carefully. “What sort of box?”

Alric Rahl arched an eyebrow as he folded his arms. “A box as black as the Keeper’s heart, and containing great power, if you catch my drift.”

Magda glanced at Merritt before looking back at Lord Rahl. “And what makes you think that this box contains great power? Did you try to open it?”

He frowned indignantly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“No,” Magda said. “But you said that it contained great power. What do you know about this box?”

He shot her a look. “Are you forgetting that Baraccus and I were good friends? He told me about how the power of Orden was contained in three inky black boxes covered in jewels. The thing is, he said that the boxes had been sent away to the Temple of the Winds.” He looked from Magda to Merritt and back again. “So if they’re in the Temple of the Winds, what is one of them doing in this world in the possession of a dead man?”

“We’d better tell him,” Merritt whispered to her.

Magda nodded as she let out a long sigh. “The boxes were stolen from the Temple of the Winds.”

“Obviously. But who took them?”

Merritt shrugged. “I’d say Sulachan’s people if I had to venture a guess.”

“What about the other two?” Magda asked.

Lord Rahl, arms still folded, sighed unhappily. “Don’t know. I only have the one. And you would have a hard time believing how many men we had to kill to get this one.”

“I can only imagine,” Merritt said. “But if it was Sulachan who had it, you had better believe that a lot more men than that are going to come to get it back.”

“No doubt,” Lord Rahl said.

“We have to hide it,” Magda said to Merritt. “Trying to protect it is too risky. It must be hidden.”

“That sounds well and good, but where?” Merritt asked. “I don’t know a place safe enough that Emperor Sulachan couldn’t get to it. After all, it was hidden—in the Temple of the Winds in the underworld—and he managed to get to it.”

“Well,” she said, “if he didn’t know where to look he—”

Magda went silent as the thought tickling at the back of her mind suddenly became clear. She blinked. She wondered if it could work. She wondered if it was even possible.

She seized Merritt’s shirtsleeve. “A gravity spell?”

Lord Rahl’s face scrunched up into a frown. “A what?”

“A gravity spell,” Merritt said, ignoring Lord Rahl, his attention focused on Magda because he realized from the look in her eyes that she was on to something important. “What about a gravity spell?”

“That little gravity spell you created and gave to me draws those little clay figures to it.”

“Right,” he said in a drawl as it started to dawn on him.

“What if you created a bigger gravity spell that would draw the dead that Sulachan’s forces have animated, and draw the half people to it as well? Naja helped create them. She knows how they function and how their spirits have been manipulated, so maybe she could give you information on the spells involved and then you could create a gravity spell specifically designed to draw them both in, right?”

“For someone born without the gift,” Merritt said with a smile, “you sure have some pretty interesting ideas of how to use it. You make a pretty good maker’s match.”

Lord Rahl was looking from one face to the other and back again. “Draw them into where?”

Merritt ran his hand back over his neck. “That’s the problem. It needs to be someplace where we could trap them. Once we draw them in, we would also have to keep them there.”

Magda snapped her fingers. “Isidore’s symbols.”

Merritt was already nodding. “We could use Isidore’s keeper spells to make a barrier to help prevent them from escaping.”

Lord Rahl still had the serious scowl. “You mean that you think you could create a spell that would draw Sulachan’s walking dead people and his half-dead people to it?” When Merritt smiled and nodded, Alric Rahl went on. “And then you would place a barrier spell to ensure that they were trapped?”

“That’s exactly right,” Merritt said. “If we could draw them in and trap them, then our forces wouldn’t ever have to fight them. I was racking my brain trying to think of weapons and ways for us to fight these things, but if we trapped them somewhere instead, we wouldn’t ever need to fight them. If we never had to fight an army of the dead and half dead, it could save the lives of untold numbers of our soldiers, to say nothing of the innocent people in places Sulachan invades.”

“All we need is a place to put them,” Magda said. “It has to be someplace remote that would provide physical barriers as well as the barrier spells, just to be sure. Maybe a blind canyon or something like that.”

Lord Rahl’s scowl was gone. His arms came unfolded as he stood. He looked suddenly intent and serious.

“The Dark Lands.”

“The Dark Lands?” Merritt asked. “What are the Dark Lands?”

“A remote and inhospitable area in D’Hara. There is a place there, to the north in the Dark Lands, surrounded by mountains. There is only one way in and out. All around are impassable mountains. If you could draw them in with this spell of yours, you might be able to trap them in there. No one goes to that remote area in the Dark Lands. It’s a dangerous place. Everyone already considers it demon ground.”

“That’s perfect,” Magda said. She turned to Merritt. “As soon as you can come up with a gravity spell that works on Sulachan’s dead and his half people, we can go there, set the spell, and draw them in.”

“The barrier spells that I could make from what Isidore came up with wouldn’t weaken for thousands of years.

“And,” Merritt added with a smile as he leaned toward her with a sparkle in his eyes, “we could leave the box of Orden there as well. Then it, too, would be trapped there. After all, who is going to go on demon ground filled with the walking dead and with half people who want to rip you open and eat you alive?”

Magda put a hand to her chest and heaved a big sigh of relief. “We’ve just solved two problems with the same solution. As soon as you can create the spells, we can travel to the Dark Lands and set the trap.”

“We?” He shook his head. “You’re not going. The thing about a gravity spell is that it’s distance-sensitive. If you were to take those little clay figures I gave you some distance away from the gravity spell, it wouldn’t have enough power to draw them to it.

“So, I’m going to have to create this spell and then travel near the enemy forces so it has enough power to draw the dead out. When I get them all coming after me, I’ll be able to lead them to the Dark Lands and into this remote place. I’ll set the spell and as soon as they’re all drawn in, I’ll place the barrier spell to keep them in. Having them follow me in isn’t what I would prefer, but it’s the only way.

“It’s too dangerous for you to come with me.”

“Too dangerous?” Magda planted her fists on her hips. “Who is it that saved your hide by cutting down all those soldiers and setting you free?”

Lord Rahl lifted a hand. “Ah, is this a story I ought to know about? You cutting men down? What are you talking about?”

Merritt waved a hand irritably. “She had the sword.”

“Ah, she had a sword. That explains it.”

“Just because she killed a wizard and eight or ten of Lothain’s soldiers all by herself, now she thinks she’s qualified for such a fight.”

Lord Rahl clasped his hands as he arched an eyebrow. “Sounds to me like maybe she is.”

Merritt’s mouth twisted, and then he gave in to a smile. “I suppose it does. It will take a little while to create the spells, but once they’re ready, we can set the trap.”

He smiled at Magda in a special, very private way. It made her grin.