The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 17

Magda spotted the stony Lord Rahl standing just outside the great doors watching her long march out of the council chambers. His two grim bodyguards waited not far behind him. Glancing back over her shoulder as she passed the massive, mahogany doors, Magda saw the council guard who had been following after her slow to a halt when they were sure that she was indeed leaving and looked to have no intention of returning.

Far off across the rotunda Magda saw Lord Rahl’s small army standing ready to draw weapons and defend him if there was trouble. She realized that they would not be in a good mood after word of all the angry charges and accusations that had been leveled against Lord Rahl reached them. As far as the soldiers were concerned, they must believe that they were in a potentially hostile place. What’s more, three of them had already died mysterious deaths since arriving at the Keep. At a signal from Lord Rahl, though, their hands eased off their weapons.

Back inside the council chambers, despite the calls for order, things were not returning to normal. The crowd didn’t want to go on with the agenda. They wanted answers to pointed questions about the threat from dream walkers.

Magda hoped that the council would think it over and see the wisdom in using Lord Rahl’s solution to shielding people from the threat. In her experience, it was often the case that upon further reflection the council saw that her suggestions made sense. She hoped that was the case this time.

“I must apologize, Lady Searus,” Alric Rahl said with a deep bow. “I was terribly wrong.”

“Wrong about what?” Magda asked, her own temper still burning hot as she started out once again.

As he fell in beside her, he gestured back through the door to the council chambers, where a near riot was taking place. People were shouting at the council, demanding to be heard, demanding to know if it was true that danger was really that close at hand.

“I must beg your forgiveness. I was wrong and you were right.” He leaned down toward her a little and arched an eyebrow. “I can see now that having shorter hair has indeed lowered your status to that of a nobody and that you are now completely defanged.”

Magda’s fury faded in the face of his satire. She couldn’t help but to smile. “Well, the truth is the truth, no matter your status.”

He glanced back briefly toward the council chambers. “Unfortunately, I think that speaking the truth has made you some enemies.”

Magda’s smile faded. “I almost died twice this day. The second time you brought me back as I was passing through the veil into the world of the dead. I was nearly in the embrace of the good spirits. I was dead but for you pulling me back to the world of life.

“Every moment I live now is a gift. All anyone can do is return me to that place where I should rightfully be. If I am to live, then I will live free of pretense.”

“You’re wrong that you should rightfully be dead, Magda. You chose life and you lived. That is the fact of the matter. We can’t live our lives according to what might have been. We have to live by what is. You’re alive and that is what’s important.”

To Magda, though, life without Baraccus seemed dismal and empty. Despite the pain she had been in, she had thought that she was about to be with him again. Despite wanting to live, she was in a way sorry to have been snatched back.

“You lived and you have given other people the gift of also being able to choose to protect themselves so they can also live,” one of Lord Rahl’s big bodyguards said.

Alric Rahl glanced back at the man and nodded. “The choice is now their own, not the council’s.”

He turned his attention back to Magda. “But by helping people make their own choice, you have put yourself in jeopardy. Perhaps you should come with me back to the People’s Palace. You will be safer there.”

With the world at war, Magda wondered if there was such a thing as a safe place. If one place fell, then the next would come under siege until it, too, fell. Eventually, there would be no safe place left to run to. Either the New World survived together, or all of it would fall under the swords of the invaders.

Though he didn’t return the stares, people watched Alric Rahl as he passed. Their eyes betrayed their fear of the imposing figure of Lord Rahl, a man that few in the Keep had ever seen. But they would have heard the stories of him.

As they passed through the great rotunda, she noticed others, back in the shadows, a collection of worried people who glanced her way as they talked quietly among themselves. She saw the silent dread in the eyes tracking her.

In that moment, she realized that while some feared Lord Rahl, most of the others were not watching him, they were watching her as she passed by. They were looking to her for something, for answers, or salvation, or maybe simply a reason to hold out hope. They weren’t seeing her short hair. They were seeing Magda Searus, a woman covered in blood who had declared that it didn’t have to be.

Magda finally shook her head. “I grew up in Aydindril. Since I married Baraccus I’ve lived in the Keep. This is my home. We are at war and my home is under threat. I have to stay and fight for it. These are my people. I have to stay and fight for them.

“People are accustomed to doing as the council says. I don’t know if any will choose to become bonded to you and your protection, but at least I’m shielded from the dream walkers. That means I will be better able to fight for these people. Maybe I can convince others to join in accepting the same protection.

“Besides, the dream walkers are not the only threat. There are things going on that don’t make sense to me. I know that Baraccus, too, always thought that there was something wrong here at the Keep.”

“Lothain’s conspiracies?”

Magda pursed her lips as she considered. “Knowing my husband I don’t think it’s that simple. There is something terribly wrong here, something much deeper.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for one thing, the Temple team was supposed to take the most dangerous things of magic away into the Temple for safekeeping. They betrayed us, supposedly to help protect mankind from the tyranny of magic.”

“But they’ve all been caught and put to death.”

Magda was beginning to think that whole story was too simple, too neat and tidy. She was beginning to wonder if they all really were traitors.

“But how could such men turn against us? How is mankind suffering under a tyranny of magic? Dear spirits, they were wizards, creatures of magic. They weren’t tyrants.

“For the Temple team itself—a hundred men—to have been working for the enemy was horrifying. No one, not even Baraccus, had suspected such a thing. So if no one suspected, do you really think that Lothain managed to catch and execute every last one of the traitors?”

“It is hard to imagine such a widespread conspiracy here at the Keep, and especially among such trusted men. But I’m sure that Lothain tortured confessions out of those men before they were executed and would have rounded up any others if there were any.”

“You told me that three of your men died mysteriously since arriving here,” she reminded him.

“There is that,” he said.

“Baraccus left me a note. It was his last words to me. He told me that my destiny is here. He asked me to have the courage to find the truth.”

“The truth? The truth about what?”

Magda let out a deep sigh. “I don’t know.”

“How do you know that the note really meant anything specific? Maybe Baraccus, knowing your nature, simply wanted to let you know that you were in his heart.”

“In that note, he told me to guard my mind.”

Lord Rahl missed a step. “Guard your mind? You mean from the dream walkers?”

She cast him a sidelong glance. “You tell me.”

Some of his long blond hair fell forward over a shoulder as he looked over at her. “So you think he also wanted you to stay here?”

“Yes. He said that my destiny is here. Baraccus was a war wizard. He had the gift for prophecy. I think that he knows that something dark is going on here and he wanted me to find it.”

Lord Rahl thought it over as they walked past soaring marble columns supporting an arched ceiling with scenes of great events painted between the ribs of the vaulting.

“But Baraccus was a war wizard. You’re, well, you’re not. What can you possibly do that he couldn’t?”

“Try and guess how many times I’ve tried to make sense of that very thing.”

Lord Rahl grunted his understanding of her point. “You have no idea what it is you are supposed to look for?” he asked.

“I guess that I’m supposed to look for the truth.”

“But what truth?”

“Maybe the truth of why Baraccus killed himself.”

Lord Rahl considered that for a moment. He finally gestured in frustration. “Perhaps after venturing into the world of the dead, he was simply overwhelmed by the experience and lost all hope.”

Magda again glanced over at the man. “None of the Temple team killed themselves after they returned. None of them seemed overwhelmed. Baraccus was stronger than those men.”

Lord Rahl clasped his hands behind his back as he walked silently beside her, thinking it over.

“Baraccus never did anything without good reason,” he finally said.

“Exactly. I think that he had a purpose in killing himself. I think it must have been the only way he could accomplish something profoundly important. I think that Baraccus sacrificed his life for a calculated, powerful reason. I need to know what that reason was. I think he wanted me to look for the answer to that question.

“I have to stay and find the truth behind all of the things that have happened. I’m the only one who seems to care why he killed himself. I may be the only one who can find the answer. In any event, Baraccus seemed to have faith that I could. In fact, he charged me with that mission as his last request. He said for me to live the life that only I can live.”

As they entered the long gallery Lord Rahl glanced up at the red banners hanging above them. “Where will you start?”

“I’m not sure, yet.”

For a time he walked in silence along the crimson carpet with the names of battles woven into it before finally glancing over and smiling. It was not a happy smile, but rather a sad, grim smile.

“I understand. These people are fortunate to have you fighting for them. But know this. You are not the only one here who is safe from the dream walkers.”

Magda frowned up at the man as they passed immense black pillars. “What do you mean? The council rejected your help.”

He clasped his hands behind his back and waited until they had gone by a knot of onlookers and were out of earshot before answering.

“I expected that they might, so when I first arrived I went to those who do the work of protecting us—the officers and the gifted working here—and laid out the situation. Military men understand threat all too well and grasp the value of an effective defense.”

“You are a devious man, Lord Rahl.”

He grinned, looking happy with himself. “I knew better than to put all our necks in the hands of the council. That’s why I went to a number of important people here at the Keep, first.”

“And they’ve sworn loyalty to you?”

“Not all. But some comprehended the true dimension of the threat and spoke the devotion as you have.” He chuckled softly. “Though none of them had to bleed first.”

She smiled with embarrassment. “Baraccus mentioned a few times that he found me stubborn.”

“Officers Rendall and Morgan are with us,” he said. “They command troops in and around Aydindril. Grundwall too. He leads the Home Guard.”

Magda nodded. “I know them. They’re good men. What of the gifted?”

“Since it involves magic, they tended to understand the true dimensions of the threat and therefore the wisdom of the solution. Some didn’t take to my offer, but many did. That means we have a fair number of allies who can go about their work without worry of dream walkers subverting what they do.”

Magda sighed. “Still, not all have accepted the protection of the bond to you. Maybe I can help convince them.”

When they reached his big, brawny soldiers at the far end of the great gallery, Alric Rahl turned to face her.

“I have to be on my way. Now that I’ve done what I can here, there are pressing matters that I must attend to.”

Magda looked up into his blue eyes. “Before you go, tell me something.”

“If I can.”

“Are the council and prosecutor right? Are you after rule? Is power what you really care about, what drives you? Is that why you created the bond to work in the way it does, so that people must swear loyalty to you? The truth, now.”

He hooked his thumbs in his weapons belt as he gazed down into her eyes for a time. His intent resolve didn’t waver.

“Know this, Lady Searus. I have agents in the Old World as we speak. They seek out the dream walkers. They are there to hunt down and kill every last one of those bastards. I couldn’t tell you before, before you were sworn to me, because I couldn’t risk the dream walkers learning of it. If my purpose was to rule, I would let the dream walkers live so that people would have to swear loyalty to me. If the men I sent succeed in the mission I’ve given them, no one will have any need of swearing loyalty to me.”

Magda smiled. “Thank you, Lord Rahl. In your wisdom I am humbled.”