The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 47

“Why have you moved away from the Keep?”

He stood and strolled to the table with the sword. “I wanted to be alone to work in peace,” he said with his back to her. “I find the Keep to be . . . a distracting place.”

“Really? From the quantity and quality of what I can see in this room alone, to say nothing of what Isidore told me, I’d say you are a man of great focus and intensity. I think that you must have had more reason than that.”

He glanced back over his shoulder. “Well, besides that, it isn’t safe there.”

“I see. And why not?”

“You said yourself that the dead walk the dark passages of the Keep.”

“And you knew that before I told you about Isidore, did you?”

Magda wondered why he’d really left the Keep. It didn’t make sense to her that a wizard that Baraccus thought so highly of would leave what must have been important work at the Keep, where he would have been surrounded by a wealth of resources, everything from books, to tools, to an abundance of reference items invested with magic, as well as being able to draw on older, more experienced wizards for guidance.

Besides that, if it was a matter of safety, there were places at the Keep protected by guards as well as shields. She had seen no indications that his little home had any such shields to protect him as he worked.

But even so, that was really only a side issue. She was trying to find a way to ease into her relevant questions. He seemed to sense as much. He turned around, fixed her with a serious look, and again folded his muscular arms.

“Why don’t you tell me what it is that you really want to know, Magda?”

She lifted her chin. “All right, then.” She hated repeating hurtful words, but she didn’t know how else to get at the underlying truth without airing the charges so that he could at least have the chance to give his side.

“I hear it told that you are responsible for getting a number of wizards killed—good men who were important to our war effort. I’ve also heard it said that besides those deaths being on your hands, you have abandoned the men you led and refuse to help with important work for our defense. Some even say that you’re a traitor. Is any of that true?”

He stared down at her a moment. She had thought that the gift in his eyes might take on a dangerous appearance. Oddly enough, it didn’t. His expression was a strangely unreadable mask. In a way, that was worse because it hid his inner feelings. She felt like a traitor herself for asking him to answer such inflammatory charges, but too much was at stake and the charges were too serious for her to ignore.

“As long as we’re airing what ‘people say,’” he finally said in a chillingly calm voice, “I hear it told that you and Lord Rahl put on quite the show before the council to make it appear that dream walkers are in the Keep and invading people’s minds, all so that the two of you could frighten people into swearing loyalty to Lord Rahl.”

“But you know Alric Rahl.” Magda could feel her face going red. “You know why he created the oath.”

“Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did. What with everything else I’m beginning to hear, what am I to believe? People say that according to no less an authority than Head Prosecutor Lothain, Baraccus had secret meetings with people who might very well be enemy agents. The prosecutor has said publicly that he suspects that Baraccus might have been part of a plot, and that he may have convinced you to go along with the scheme.”

Merritt clasped his hands behind his back as he paced before her, going on without pause.

“Worse, many people both up in the Keep and down here in the city of Aydindril wonder openly if Baraccus is responsible for the war going so badly. They wonder if he wrongly took us into war in the first place and lied about the reasons. They say that if he really had our best interest at heart, we wouldn’t be losing the war. They say that Baraccus must have finally committed suicide because of his sense of guilt over dooming his own people.”

Magda shot to her feet. “But Baraccus didn’t take us into war. We were invaded!”

Merritt shrugged. “People say otherwise. They say we weren’t invaded at all, that our side started it. They say that you, Lord Rahl, and Baraccus plotted all along to start a war and use it as an excuse so that Lord Rahl could seize rule of the Midlands and take it over as part of D’Hara.”

“But you know that the dream walkers—”

“Yes, yes, I know that dream walkers are real, but am I to believe the preposterous story that they are already here, on the loose in the Keep, just because you say they are, when there is no proof except your own self-serving stories of how they attacked you and sent monsters to kill Isidore when you were alone with her? Am I to discount the credible charges against you and Baraccus brought by no less an authority than our eminent prosecutor and some members of the council, all saying that your wild stories of plots against our people and traitors in our midst are really meant to distract people from your own guilt? How can I be expected to disregard such serious accusations?”

He opened his arms before her. “So you tell me. Are you a traitor to the Midlands, as so many people say?”

Magda swallowed. She was sure that her face was bright red.

“For not living up at the Keep any longer, you certainly seem to have heard some of the ugliest gossip.”

He arched an eyebrow in a way that would have made her back up a step if the couch hadn’t been at her heels.

“Gossip? Not merely gossip, but the suspicions of even high officials. People say that since the charges are so serious there must be something to them. So, you tell me, Magda. Are they true? I need to know if I’m talking to a traitor. I think I have a right to know before I answer any of your questions.”

Her hands fisted as she glared at him. “None of it is true. It’s all lies. Hateful, despicable lies.” Her gaze fell away. “But I admit that I have no way of revealing the truth to you. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

He did the oddest thing, then. He smiled. “And I would wish for a way to reveal the truth to you as well. But the truth can seem awfully small and insignificant when compared to a mountain of lies.”

Magda was angry. She hated to hear such terrible things said about Baraccus. She knew that some people believed those very lies while the truth was that he had given his life to protect the people of the Midlands. She didn’t know why, yet, but she knew that was why Baraccus had died.

Merritt spread his hands. “Do the accusations make Baraccus guilty? Make you guilty?”

“No.”

“Ah, but you worry that similar accusations make me guilty. You worry that, because the accusations are so serious, they must be true.”

“I see your point.” She looked away from his eyes as she wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m sorry, Merritt, for being so unfair. I’m sorry to come to you out of the blue, without invitation, and dare to question you about things I’ve heard.

“But this is about our very survival. If I make a mistake, and trust the wrong person, we could all pay with our lives.”

“At least you had the courtesy to come and ask me for the truth instead of simply accepting the lies.” Sadness haunted his smile. “It’s ironic that so much of my life’s work has been devoted to being able to find a way to ensure that we know the truth when it’s important enough, when lives are at stake, and now lies are used against me and that work.”

“I see what you mean,” Magda said, “I really do. I feel like I need to prove my innocence to you, and at the same time I feel helpless because I can’t.”

His smile was reassuring. “Baraccus was quite a remarkable man and no fool. I’ve always thought that there had to be a good reason why he considered you worthy to stand beside him. Baraccus believed in you. That says a great deal to me.”

Magda felt conflicted. She didn’t want to ask him about the things she’d heard, didn’t want to give the accusations credibility, but at the same time she needed to put the issues to rest and so far they hadn’t been.

“I can tell by the look on your face how troubled you are. You don’t know me, so it’s understandable that you don’t know what to believe. Why don’t you go ahead and ask the things you need to know about.”

Magda nodded as she took a seat once more, hoping that by sitting it might take some of the hostility out of her question.

“I’ve heard accusations from wizards who were there that men died because you had abandoned your duty to them. I need to know why they think you are responsible for the deaths. I need to know if you are the kind of man who would walk away and let other men die. I realize that it isn’t fair of me to repeat such charges from others, or to expect you to answer them. You certainly don’t owe me the truth.”

She looked up into his eyes. “But please, Merritt, I’m trying to find answers to what is really going on. I believe that the Keep, all of our lives, are in grave danger. I need to find out what is really going on before it’s too late. Would you please not take offense at my asking these questions and simply tell me the truth?”

“And how will I prove to you that I’m telling you the truth?”

She smiled a bit. “As it so happens, the truth has always mattered a great deal to me. Baraccus often said that I was the bane of liars. I’d like to think that I’m a person who can recognize the truth when it’s told to me, or detect a lie, and often I can, but I guess that in the end I have no real way of knowing truth from lies.

“I’d still like to hear your side of it.”