The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 46

Merritt crossed the room and sat beside her. “I see now why you think you’re to blame, but it wasn’t your fault, Lady Searus. You didn’t know that a dream walker was listening to the things you told Isidore.”

Still, Magda couldn’t look him in the eye. “No, but I should have realized that it was a strong likelihood. I should have thought it through. Had I taken the precaution of having her swear loyalty to Lord Rahl first—”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Magda finally looked up at him through her watery vision. “How can you know that?”

“The dream walkers know that you’re looking for answers, right?”

Magda swallowed past the lump in her throat. “That’s right.”

“Then if they know that much, they would know that you would sooner or later go to see the spiritist to try to find those answers. After all, with Baraccus dead, the spiritist would be the next logical place for you to go looking for answers—answers, after all, that they want as well. In fact, they were already there in her mind, secretly listening in on our other activities of the Keep’s business as they waited for you.”

“So if I had first had her swear loyalty—”

“It would have made no difference. Don’t you see? We have to assume that they already learned everything they could by covertly searching through her mind, so they were probably hiding in the hopes of hearing any new bit of information that you or anyone else might happen to divulge to Isidore. They were there to spy, to collect information. Information is the coin of war. When she agreed to swear the oath, they knew that was the end of them being able to learn any more from her, so they killed her before she could help you discover anything.”

“But had I thought to—”

“Had you thought to have her give the oath right at first, they would have killed her just the same. Talking to her first only delayed her murder for a brief time while they eavesdropped.

“They would have wanted Isidore dead for reasons beyond you. She was seeking vital answers in her work, answers about what the emperor’s wizards are up to. She was trying to discover why the enemy is harvesting the dead and what they’re doing with both the bodies and the souls of those dead. The dream walkers wouldn’t want her to help us understand what they’re doing, or why the souls of those dead aren’t with the spirits in the underworld, where they belong.”

“Then they know everything Isidore knew,” Magda said. Her gaze flicked around as if driven by her racing thoughts. “Everything Isidore knew has been compromised. They know it all.”

Merritt nodded. “It would appear so, and because of that we have even bigger trouble than we realized. Because of what Isidore knew, and what she was working on, she was already marked. By talking to her, you likely actually delayed her death. The important thing now is to find out what she knew, and therefore what the dream walkers learned by spying on her mind.”

Magda wiped a hand back across her face to dry her tears as she considered the implications. Her search for answers, for the truth, had just become even more critical.

“It sounds like you may be right that my failure to have her give the oath at first made no real difference in the outcome.”

“You aren’t to blame,” he agreed. “You could just as easily say that it’s my fault she’s dead. After all, I’m the one who gave her abilities that made her a threat to the enemy. Had I refused, she very likely would still be alive, doing nothing more dangerous than helping to advise those in mourning about the souls of their dead relatives.

“But in the end, we can’t live our lives by ‘what if’ and ‘if only.’ We can only do the best we can to the best of our ability based on what we know. That’s why the truth is so important.

“Sometimes, as in Isidore’s case, it’s our skills that bring the attention of evil. Evil abhors those with ability. Emperor Sulachan wants to destroy just about everyone with the gift in order to make everyone helpless before him. He has already made significant strides in purging the Old World of magic. He can’t afford to let it flourish here.

“In the process, he is willing to lay waste to the gift itself, strip it from mankind, all to be able to consolidate power for himself and rule through brute force. The gift—our abilities—stand in his way and mark us as targets.”

“That’s true,” Magda said. “Baraccus told me once that Sulachan would rather annihilate us than allow us to live in peace, because that would mean the risk that his people would want the same freedom to live their lives that we have.”

Merritt nodded his agreement. “People like Isidore, like you, are not going to stand aside and do nothing as he slaughters people. Isidore was fighting for us all. She was well aware that she might lose her life in this struggle. In fact, I told her as much. That didn’t stop her.

“She was a warrior in our cause. So are you, or you wouldn’t be seeking the truth at the risk to your own life. If you were any less, you would give up your search and move away to somewhere safe. Yet you stay in the Keep, right in the midst of the danger.”

“There is no safe place, or at least there soon won’t be,” Magda said. “Safety is only an illusion when evil is on the hunt. I can’t stand by and watch. I have to act.”

“We all can be only who we are, no more, no less,” Merritt said.

“That’s a beautiful sentiment.” Magda smoothed a wrinkle in the skirt of her dress lying across her knee. “Is that why you gave in to her wishes when you could have said no?”

He stared off across the room for a long moment. “It was the path she chose. People have to live their own destiny.”

That sounded very much like what Baraccus had said in his note to Magda about her following her own destiny.

Magda wasn’t sure that Merritt was right, but it was an inviting notion to believe that she wasn’t responsible for Isidore being murdered.

“Thank you, Wizard Merritt, for helping me see it another way. I can see now that there is more to finding safety than me simply having Isidore give an oath. I must admit, though, that I do feel a bit ashamed for allowing myself to feel better. It isn’t easy to absolve one’s self of guilt.”

“Lady Searus, you were not the cause of her death. Evil likes to shift guilt to the victims. Don’t you let them.”

Magda nodded as she hooked some of her hair back behind an ear. “Please, I would feel better if you would call me Magda.”

His smile added a warmth that made his face all the more agreeable. “And I am just Merritt.”

Magda returned the smile, but it quickly faded.

“I’m afraid that I must ask some questions, Merritt, that you will not like me asking, but I need answers if I’m to get at the truth.”

He leaned back a little. “Really? And what do you need to know about?”