The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus

Chapter 64

Magda glanced toward the call of unseen creatures echoing out from the darkness. She had little chance of seeing anything, of course, but she couldn’t help looking every time she heard a strange sound. The hoots, yelps, and howls coming from the distance in the deep woods, even though she was familiar with many of the animals that made them, were unnerving at night, and especially a night such as this one. The lightning and thunder didn’t help, either.

The dark shadow of Merritt behind her felt like she was being haunted by a spirit. After leaving the Keep, they had walked for quite some time through the blackness of the dense woods that stretched away in all directions from Aydindril.

She often thought of that thick carpet of forest as nearly going on forever, because it seemed to touch the most distant of places. The roads and trails through those forests connected Aydindril with the rest of the world.

She had traveled the vast wilderness too many times to count as she journeyed to visit distant peoples of the Midlands. She had followed woodland trails through mountains to small kingdoms to the north, the routes off to the distant settlements to the west, the woods roads to cities in D’Hara in the east, and the nearly trackless stretches all the way down to the peoples that inhabited the open grassland of the wilds, far to the south.

Beyond the wilds, farther south, lay the boundless mysteries of the Old World. Though there were well-traveled trade routes down into the Old World, she had never had reason to venture to the distant empire. By some of the trade goods brought back from there, it seemed like it must be an exotic land.

Not wanting to distract Merritt’s mind from what he needed to do, she hadn’t said much since they had left the city of Aydindril. He had considered the task that lay ahead in silence as Magda had guided him along the little-used path in the deep woods.

She couldn’t imagine what Merritt must be feeling. He had worked toward this moment for years, only to come to believe that the goal was out of his reach. Men had died trying to do what he was now about to attempt. But now, because of Baraccus, he had a real chance to complete the key.

While it had been years since she had been on this particular trail, she used to walk it often enough that it was still familiar, although it seemed more overgrown and narrower to her now than it had as a young girl. The lantern Magda carried lit only a small patch of the trail close around her, but it lit enough between the flashes of lightning for her to make her way without difficulty. Since they had left Aydindril, the clouds had built and the lightning had taken on a kind of stormy urgency.

Magda recognized a forked tree and then a particular jumble of granite ledges that abruptly loomed up out of the darkness. She knew that the rock led up and over the spine of a long, descending ridge. Without having to think about it, she took the correct footholds in roots and cracks to smoothly make the brief but tricky switchback ascent. She noticed that Merritt followed in her footsteps, taking the exact same route, so as to be able to make the climb without any trouble.

He looked at ease in the dark woods. In his dark clothes, he blended right in. Being used to traveling herself, Magda could tell by the way he moved through the woods that he was used to being in the wilderness. A lot of wizards weren’t. A lot of wizards rarely left the confines of the Keep. That contrast, too, made him stand apart from other wizards.

With rain imminent, Magda wanted to finish their business as soon as possible and get back to the shelter of the Keep. Since her encounter with Councilman Sadler, just before sunset, the clouds she had seen at the horizon had moved in to lower the sky into a brooding mass seething with flashes that revealed a menacing green cast deep inside. That color, she knew, often foretold especially violent weather. The arrival of the clouds had pushed out the hot, muggy air, replacing it with chill, gusty breezes.

The sudden bursts of lightning lit the towering pines all around in flashes of harsh, white light that cast bizarre shadows, making the journey through the dense forest unsettling. When the lightning abruptly cut off, it suddenly plunged the woods back into blackness. It made for alternating glaring light and then total blindness. The loud crack of thunder that followed each flash was equally unsettling. Sometimes a bright flicker of lightning and the loud bang were quickly followed by deep, rolling thunder that shook the ground.

Unlike most storms, this lightning became ever more incessant. As they made their way between the towering trunks of pines and occasionally followed the trail as it tunneled through thick foliage, the lightning flashed relentlessly in a nearly continual display of crackling intensity. In fact, the lightning was often so closely stitched together that she could almost, but not quite, have made her way without the lantern’s light. The intervals of darkness between flashes were surprisingly brief, but without the lantern it would have been like being blind as they went from brightly lit to darkest night.

The air smelled like rain was imminent. Magda was resigned to getting wet. She could also smell the dry pine needles matting the ground, along with the occasional balsam trees or swaths of cinnamon ferns beside the trail.

“How much farther?” Merritt asked as they descended the back of the low ridge.

Magda stopped and pointed off to the right. “If it was light, I believe you could see the pond through the trees, down there.”

Merritt cast out his hand, as if he were tossing a pebble. A flare of light, not unlike a tiny, solid bit of the colossal light show overhead, sailed out in the direction she had pointed, illuminating the dark trunks of trees as it passed. She saw the water reflect the light before it touched down on the rippling surface and was extinguished.

“That’s too steep and wooded here down to the shore,” he said. “We need to have some open space.”

“Just up here ahead is the place I told you about,” she said. “The trail just ahead will take us to the open area at the pond’s edge.”

Magda led him onward until she reached a familiar, ancient oak. She passed just beneath a fat, low limb and warned Merritt to watch his head. He ducked under as he followed after her. The trail wound its way down across a band of open ledges and then through a narrow cut in a screen of cedar trees. Dropping down a steep but brief slope, they arrived at a broad, flat, open area with scattered tufts of grass. In the spring it was often flooded at the windward end of the pond, but by high summer it was dry and open.

Lightning flashes revealed the pond before them and the towering stands of trees to the sides that sheltered them somewhat from the wind. In the flashes of lightning, Magda could see that to the right the surface of the pond was thickly layered with lily pads riding the choppy surface. Off to the left stood a band of rushes bending and whipping with each gust. Stretching out from the gravel shoreline was the black expanse of the pond, with a short cliff backing it at the far side.

“It’s perfect,” Merritt said as he looked around.

A bright, crackling flash of lightning, followed by booming thunder, silenced all the night creatures. When the thunder rolled away into the distance it left an interlude of quiet in its wake. The only sound was the wind in the trees and the small waves lapping the shore. The quiet was quickly broken by yet more rolling thunder.

When Magda turned back, she saw Merritt down on his knees, smoothing the sandy dirt among clumps of long grass. Once he had a clean, flat area, he stood and brushed his hands clean.

“Set the lantern down over here on this rock,” he said, pointing beside the area he had just smoothed out.

As Magda was setting down the lantern, the chilly air rang with the sound of the sword being drawn. The blade coming out of the scabbard made a uniquely menacing sound that sent a chill up her spine. In the faint lantern light she could see Merritt standing with his feet spread and the sword in one hand. A bright flash of lightning cast his shadow across the area he had prepared.

“You know how to draw the Grace, right?” he asked her as he lifted his fist, showing her the ring he wore with the Grace engraved on it.

“Merritt, I’m not gifted.”

“I told you, it isn’t necessary. I will be the one doing what is needed with magic, but you will have to be the one to draw the Grace. That’s all I will need you to do.”

“Well, since I’m not gifted I never had reason to draw the Grace, but I’ve seen it often enough. It’s not that complicated. I shouldn’t have any problem at all drawing it.”

“It needs to be drawn in blood.”

She had expected as much and nodded.

He had that serious look again that had a way of making her brow bead with sweat. “The sword needs to taste the blood as well,” he said. “The blood connects the sword to the Grace.”

Magda eyed the sword. She didn’t know what he meant about the sword needing to taste blood. She folded her arms against a chill gust.

“How much blood will it take?”

He stepped into the center of the flat area and, using the sword to point, gestured in a circle around him. “The Grace needs to be big enough to surround where I’m standing. It has to be enough blood to complete the whole thing. All the lines you draw have to be complete. They can’t be a bit here, and another bit there. It has to be fully drawn with complete lines. I’m afraid that it will take quite a bit of blood to do that.”

She pulled strands of windblown hair back off her face. She had known it wasn’t going to be easy. She had insisted on being a part of it. She had to be the one to do it. She wasn’t about to back out now, no matter what it took.

“I understand,” Magda said. “I’ll do my best.”