The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 38

In a daze, Magda stumbled as she ran. Tears streamed down her face. Blood dripped from her fist holding the knife. Glancing down at her arms, she thought it looked as if she had just butchered someone.

As she ran, she struggled to comprehend what she had just seen. She knew that something only remotely human, or maybe only once human, had just slaughtered Isidore. It made no sense.

It was such a horrific sight, such a shock, that she was already questioning if she had really seen what she knew she had seen when she had looked into the man’s face. She began to wonder if it could have been a trick of the shadows.

But she knew it wasn’t.

She cried out in fright when she suddenly ran into one of the walls of hanging cloth. It caught her, flapping around her like arms grabbing for her. She slashed wildly with her knife, frantically trying to get away from what she thought for a second was the man who had killed Isidore trying to seize her.

She shoved the cloth aside and started running. She could only see a short distance ahead into the empty maze of halls.

She looked down as she ran, fumbling with the lantern door, trying to get it open so that she could see better. It finally sprang open, casting a bit of useful light into the passageway.

She realized that, lost in the maze as she was, she would soon be the next victim of the thing that had killed Isidore. It was coming for her. If she was wandering around aimlessly it would likely be able to catch her in short order.

Magda thrust a hand into her pocket, frantically searching for the map that Tilly had given her. She dug around with trembling fingers but couldn’t find the map. She didn’t know if she’d dropped it as she was running, or if she’d lost it in the fight. All she knew for sure was that the map wasn’t in her pocket.

She turned back the way she had come, holding the lantern up, trying to see if she had dropped the map when she had fought her way out of the embrace of the hanging cloth. She didn’t see it on the ground anywhere.

She heard a sound. She thought she saw a dark shape move back in the direction she’d come from.

Then she saw the glow of his eyes off in the darkness, like some goblin from her childhood nightmares come to life.

Magda abandoned the search for the map and started running. She knew that it was foolish to run in a maze without knowing where she was going, but she was too panicked to stop herself.

Besides, what choice did she have?

She ran with wild abandon, taking random passageways at intersections. From time to time she could hear the dead man in the distance behind her. He let out a growl of rage as he came, his feet sometimes dragging on the floor. Magda ran all the faster, imagining the goblin from her nightmares hot on her heels. She knew that she didn’t stand a chance fighting against him. She had to get away.

She was suddenly brought up short in a dead end. She spun around and saw the man step into the passageway from a side hall, blocking her way back. Magda stood panting, knife clenched tightly in her fist, trying to decide what to do.

His glowing eyes watched her, and then he started toward her. As he got closer, the cat sprang out of the darkness onto the man’s head, clawing at his gleaming eyes with wild fury. He twisted to the side, his arms thrashing, trying to swipe the cat off his head.

Magda knew that it was her only chance. She didn’t hesitate. She ran toward the man and the only way out. As she reached him, she bent low and slammed her shoulder into his ribs, knocking him to the side. He lost his balance and fell against the wall.

Pain shot through her shoulder from the solid impact with his rocklike torso. Magda was already past him and running at full speed as the cat sprang off the man and raced after her.

Magda took intersection after intersection, ducking around heavy panels of hanging cloth whenever they appeared unexpectedly out of the darkness. She didn’t know where she was or how to escape the maze. She was simply trying to lose the man close on her heels. The man who had killed Isidore.

Charging down a long hallway, she suddenly came upon another hanging cloth that loomed up out of the darkness. Magda pushed it to the side with an arm as she went around it. When she did so, she realized that it was different from the others she had encountered. Unlike the others, this one was light and airy.

Almost immediately, before she could wonder at the silken nature of the cloth, she saw in the weak lantern light that it was a dead end. She couldn’t go any farther.

Magda spun around. The man had already reached the other side of the cloth wall blocking the passageway. It was too late to go back the way she had come.

The man slowed. He had her trapped in a dead end.

Magda stood frozen in panic, gulping air. She could see the reddish glow of his eyes through the gauzy cloth.

She had nowhere to run.