The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 41

Magda stood when the six men filed into the quiet room. A row of small, high windows let in glowing streamers of early sunlight that cut diagonally across the gloomy space.

Elder Cadell gestured without looking up at her before pulling out his own tall-backed chair. “Please, have a seat.”

Magda did as he asked, sitting in the single, simple, and rather uncomfortable wooden chair set before a highly polished mahogany table in the council’s private chambers. Though her chair was simple, the six chairs on the other side with Elder Cadell and Councilmen Sadler, Clay, Hambrook, Weston, and Guymer were quite elaborate, as were the three walls of floor-to-ceiling bookcases packed tightly with faded leather-bound volumes.

The furniture was intended to emphasize to people the difference in status between any of the council and those coming before them. Magda suspected that they had sent word that they would like to see her privately, before they began the day’s session, so as to avoid a repeat of anything like the last time.

A steady stream of people had sought Magda out since that day in the council session, asking her to help them with swearing the oath to Lord Rahl in order to protect themselves against the dream walkers. She had met with hundreds of people who had heard about what she said before the council that day and who were afraid of the dream walkers. With good reason.

While the council had not forbidden such an oath—after all, D’Hara was part of the New World and on the same side in the war—they privately chafed at people giving a devotion to Lord Rahl. Their official position was that while dream walkers were indeed real and presented a danger, the enemy was not yet advanced enough to put such a weapon into use, so while the threat was genuine, it was distant in the future.

Other than the attack against herself, Magda could provide no proof otherwise. But many people didn’t want to take the chance and learn too late that the council was wrong.

“I had been expecting to see you sooner,” Magda said when they were all seated.

“The war grows more desperate by the day,” Elder Cadell said without looking up as he lifted one paper after another from the table before him, glancing over each briefly before setting it aside and going on to the next. “We have been trying to keep from losing the effort.”

Councilman Sadler only briefly glanced her way between selecting specific papers from his own stack and handing them to the elder. Some of the other men were not interested in the papers. They were glaring at her.

“Of course,” Magda said, dipping her head respectfully. With the elder continuing to look through papers, and several of the others staring at her, she felt compelled to say something. “Have you found the . . . person responsible for Isidore’s murder?”

Elder Cadell looked up from under bushy brows. “Some people seem to think that you are responsible.”

“Me?” Magda felt her face flush. “And have these people managed to explain how I could rip a person apart like that with my bare hands?”

The elder grunted before returning his attention to a paper that Sadler handed to him.

“That’s true,” Councilman Clay said. “She isn’t gifted, after all.”

“She had a knife,” Councilman Guymer reminded him. “A bloody knife.”

“Isidore’s skull was torn in half,” Magda said. “An axe could do such damage, but not a mere knife, especially not one wielded by me.”

“I didn’t say that we believed you are responsible,” Elder Cadell intoned. He looked up and lifted an eyebrow. “I said some people think you are.”

Magda didn’t know what he was getting at.

“People often believe a lot of things that aren’t true,” she said. “I wish I had a way to reveal the truth for you, but I don’t.”

“The spiritist was doing valuable work for the war effort,” Guymer said. “And now, while you were alone with her, we lost her rare talents.”

Magda came up out of her chair. “If you are suggesting—”

“What were you doing down there?” Councilman Sadler asked in a quiet voice meant to override Guymer’s accusation. “What business did you have with a spiritist?”

Magda sank back down into her chair. “What do you think I was doing seeing a spiritist?”

Sadler shrugged. “You tell me.”

“I had what business anyone going to see a spiritist would have. I wanted to contact the spirits.”

Councilman Weston lifted an eyebrow. “Contact spirits? For what purpose?”

“I miss my husband,” Magda said. “What other purpose would there be to see a spiritist? I wanted to know that he is safe in the arms of the good spirits, to know that he is at peace. Perhaps none of you miss Baraccus, or worry and pray for his soul, but I do.”

Looking rather uncomfortable for the first time, some of the men leaned back.

“You are not the only one who misses him,” Sadler said.

Magda thought that he sounded sincere.

“And was the spiritist able to help you?” Weston asked. “Did you find out what you needed in order to put your mind at ease about Baraccus?”

“No. She was killed before . . .” Magda turned away and swallowed at the terrible memory. She cleared her throat and looked back to the men watching her.

“So, has the murderer been found?” she asked.

Elder Cadell swished a hand back and forth just above the table, as if he wished he could brush the problem away. “The lower reaches of the Keep have been searched extensively. Nothing has been found. There is no trace of the killer.”

Magda looked from one face to the next. “But how is that possible? How could he have gotten away?”

“This dead man?” Guymer asked in a mocking tone. “The one you say killed our spiritist?”

“I reported what I saw,” Magda said. “Are you suggesting that I lied?”

“No,” Guymer said with a smirk, “only that in the heat of panic you may have imagined him to be more fearsome than he actually was, imagined that a killer would have had to be a monster. Your description was hardly useful. How would anyone searching know what he really looked like so as to know who to look for?”

Magda returned the glare in kind. “I told you what I saw.”

Councilman Clay leaned forward. “And what you say you saw was not of any help in identifying the person responsible so that we could find him, now was it? There have been several such murders in the lower Keep. You are the only one who has actually seen the killer. Or, should I say, you are the only one who has survived the encounter.”

“It was an invaluable opportunity to help us catch the killer,” Guymer said. “We need to stop him before he kills again. But because you didn’t keep your head and imagined a monster, we have lost the chance to identify the attacker and capture him. Because of your emotional reaction, we still have a killer loose in the Keep and we don’t know his identity, much less what he looks like. He is undoubtedly a traitor or an infiltrator sent to kill important people. We might have had him if you could have kept your wits about you so that you could tell us what he looked like. Because you couldn’t do that simple thing, we missed our chance and as a result we don’t have a clue who it could be.”

“We are left to wonder why,” Clay added.

“She can’t be faulted for being afraid,” Sadler said.

Magda sat quietly, refusing to allow herself to rise to the bait. There were more important things at stake than proving herself to these men. It was not only the lives of the people in the Keep that were at stake, but all the people of the New World. She didn’t know why the council had summoned her, but it wasn’t to get at the truth. There was no point in defending herself when they had already decided that it was more convenient to blame her than listen to her. They didn’t want the truth; she did.

Elder Cadell waved his hand again. “That’s not why we called you here, Magda. We called you in because Councilman Weston had a valuable suggestion.”

“And what would that be?” she asked without looking over at Weston’s smug expression.

“That we appoint you as a representative of the council for the people in outlying lands. It’s an important post. We value your experience with such distant lands. You would be our contact with these remote peoples of the Midlands, as you often were on an informal basis in the past. As Councilman Weston pointed out, there is simply no one better suited to the post.”