The First Confessor (37 page)

“Mary, what’s the matter,” Merritt asked the younger of the two as she grabbed one of his hands. The older woman stood behind, expectantly wringing her own hands.

The younger woman’s face was tearstained and she was in obvious distress. “It’s James—he’s been hurt. Hurt bad.”

“Hurt?” Merritt asked, clearly alarmed. “How? What happened? How badly is he hurt?”

“He was working on an assignment from the council to make a sword of some sort.” She had to pause to choke back a sob. “James never talked much about the work he does, so I don’t know a great deal about it. But earlier this afternoon there was some kind of an accident down in the lower regions. Three of the men with him were killed outright by a massive explosion. Two others standing farther back were hurt but not seriously. James is in a bad way, though. He was closer and breathed in the inferno. They say it burned his lungs. He can’t breathe. He’s hurt bad, Merritt.”

As she fell against him, sobbing, she clutched his black shirt in both fists. “What will I do if he dies, Merritt? What will I do?”

“It had something to do with magic gone wrong,” the older woman added when the first succumbed to her tears, hoping that somehow the information might help him.

Merritt cast Magda a look as he circled an arm around Mary’s shoulders. His big hand gently held the woman’s head to his chest as she wept.

Magda knew what the look meant. Yet more men had just died and others had been hurt in a futile attempt to make the key to the boxes of Orden.

“Are they healing him?” Merritt asked. “Are there gifted working to heal him?”

“No. He wouldn’t let them,” Mary sobbed, barely getting the words out.

“What? Why not?”

The older woman placed a hand on his forearm. “James is asking for you, Merritt.”

“But why? Why won’t he let the gifted help him?”

“Apparently, he believes that you are the only one who knows enough about what they were doing, what elements are involved, to have a chance to heal him. The wizards with him are trying to keep him alive until you could be found, but they told me that they don’t know enough to heal him and they need you. It’s only chance that Mary and I spotted you on our way down to the city to look for you. Hurry. Please.”

Merritt, with one arm around the younger woman, holding her as she cried against his chest, put his other hand on the older woman’s shoulder.

“Of course.”

He turned to Magda, concern shaping his features. “I need to help James. Wait for me?”

Magda nodded. “Hurry. Help him.”

Magda put a hand on Mary’s back. She knew what it was like to fear for a loved one. She knew the terror of it. She was getting tears herself at the sight of Mary’s distress. At least this woman was not yet grieving her husband’s death. Magda hoped that Merritt could prevent that from happening.

“Try to be brave,” Magda said. “Merritt will help. Your husband will need to see you being strong for him.”

The woman nodded as she reached out to squeeze Magda’s other hand. “I’ll try.”

“Where will I find you?” he asked in a private tone.

“I’ll either be in my apartments,” Magda said, “or in the storage room next door getting my things ready to move so the new First Wizard can have the space.”

“Wait for me, then, and I will come get you as soon as I help James.”

His hazel eyes looked even more green in the late-day light, and they spoke more than mere words. He knew how important their business was, but at the same time he couldn’t let a man barely clinging to life die if there was anything that could be done to save him.

Merritt reached out and briefly touched Magda’s cheek, then let the two women lead him away in a rush.

Magda stood in the center of the massive stone bridge, still feeling the touch of his fingers on her cheek as she watched the three of them cross the bridge and race toward the gaping iron maw of the portcullis. It had been a small but rather remarkable gesture, she thought, as if to say that he understood the trouble they were in and to hold tight until he was back.

Magda knew that healing a seriously injured person could take quite a while. If everything went right, it could sometimes be done in a matter of hours, but it could also just as easily take days.

The man, James, was apparently a friend. He needed Merritt’s help or he would certainly die. Merritt of course had to go help, to try to heal him. Magda would expect no less of Merritt.

But Magda didn’t think the rest of them had days to wait.

The boxes of Orden were missing, dream walkers were haunting the Keep, traitors were among them, people were dying mysteriously, and dead men hunted among the dark passageways.

Magda knew that no one else but Merritt even believed her.

As a jumble of thoughts fought for her attention, Magda gazed out over the stone wall at the side of the bridge and down into the vast chasm. The split in the mountain spanned by the stone bridge dropped nearly all the way to the very floor of the valley. Clouds frequently drifted by below the bridge, but not this day. This day a humid haze dimmed the details far below. A flock of birds passed beneath the arch of the bridge, and far below them trees clung in places to small ledges in the cliff. Far down at the bottom she could just make out boulders.

The boulders reminded her of the ones below the cliff where Baraccus had jumped to his death, and she almost had. At that thought she had to turn away from the dizzying drop.

The dark, soaring stone walls of the Keep caught the last warm rays of the setting sun. The humid air had gone dead still as the day neared its end.

Magda stood gazing out at the blue haze of mountains in the distance across the other side of the bridge, unsure what to do, unsure how long she dared wait for Merritt before she had to go without him down to the dungeon to look for the enemy sorceress. Someone coming across the bridge caught her eye.

It was Councilman Sadler. He looked grim as he strode resolutely across the bridge, head bent, watching the ground before him as if in a daze.

Magda stepped out and gently caught him by the arm. “Councilman Sadler, good afternoon.”

His arm a captive in her grip, he looked up.

“Magda.” He blinked at being so suddenly jarred from his thoughts. “Good afternoon.”

As he started away, Magda held on to his arm, pulling him to a stop again and keeping him from leaving.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He scowled unhappily. “Am I that obvious?”

“No, not at all. Just a feeling I had when I saw you. Is there anything I can do for you?”

He peered at her a moment, his clear eyes behind drooping lids finally looked away from her before he spoke.

“The council has made some decisions,” he said. “You caught me thinking over the matter.”

“And you don’t like what was decided?”

“I can’t say that I’m entirely in agreement with their determinations.”

It was uncharacteristic for him to voice such personal feelings about matters decided by the council. He was usually quite stoic. With thoughts of all the trouble at the Keep still in her head, she decided not to let the matter go.

“May I ask what they have decided that troubles you?”

He pressed his lips tight for a moment, thinking it over, but then he finally relented.

“People will know soon enough. Won’t be a secret for long.”

“Have they named a First Wizard?” She guessed. “Is that it?”

He straightened and studied her face before finally letting out a sigh. He gazed off at the city far down in the valley.

“Yes. And more.”

Puzzled, Magda was not about to let the matter go without more details. “I don’t know what you mean. What more?”

He came out of his private thoughts and glanced around to see if anyone was close, then took her arm and led her over to the stone wall edging the bridge. Women carrying bundles hurried past on their way back from markets in Aydindril. Men walked before carts pulled by mules or rode in wagons piled high with supplies of every sort, from firewood to barrels of salted fish.

A double column of soldiers coming from the Keep rode past on big black horses. Their breastplates reflected the amber glow of the late-day light. Chain mail and armor jangled as the horses trotted past. People scurried out of their way. All the equally big men carried lances at a perfect upright angle. These heavily armed men, called the Black Lancers, were some of the most lethal soldiers in the Home Guard. Besides wearing black tunics beneath their armor and chain mail, they also proclaimed their identity with long black pennants as well as their beautiful black horses.

Sadler watched the Black Lancers gallop away once they reached the far side of the bridge. He waited until all the nearby people continued on their way again, waited until the two of them stood apart from everyone crossing the bridge.

“You’re a good woman, Magda. Always fair and always well reasoned. So, I’ll tell you before you hear it elsewhere tomorrow.”

Magda tilted her head toward him so as not to miss his quiet words. “What is it, Councilman Sadler.”

“Lothain has been named First Wizard.”

Magda’s mouth hung open. It was a moment before she finally found her voice.

“Lothain? Head Prosecutor Lothain? That Lothain? He has been named First Wizard? Are you serious?”

“Quite serious.” Sadler’s expression was grim. “His installation will be held soon—within a matter of a few days, I would expect, although I’ve not been informed of exactly when. With pressing matters of the war, the council wants to forgo the usual large, public event such as when Baraccus was named. They want it to be somewhat smaller than is customary in order to hurry arrangements along so he can get on with the business of First Wizard.”

Magda was too stunned to know what to say.

“That’s not all,” Sadler added. He gestured down the mountain. “I’m moving down to my cottage in the woods. No need for me to live at the Keep any longer.”

“But the council . . .”

His eyes, still as sharp as ever, flashed her way. “I won’t be sitting on the council.”

Magda blinked. “What do you mean?”

He looked suddenly uncomfortable, even embarrassed. “I have been dismissed.”

Magda had to run the word through her mind again to be sure she had heard it correctly. “Dismissed? You can’t be dismissed. Unless of course you have been convicted of—”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he said as he waved with a gesture to indicate that she had gotten the wrong idea.

“Then what do you mean you’ve been dismissed? How can you be dismissed? By whom?”

“Lothain.”

Magda stared a moment before again having to remind herself to close her mouth.

“I don’t understand.”

He grimaced a little as he looked away from her. “Lothain suggested, and the rest of the council agreed, that changes needed to be made so that decisions in such difficult times could be more easily reached. With six members on the council, we were often deadlocked.”

“But it’s supposed to be that way so that a majority can’t run roughshod and dictate. Six members is meant to be more deliberative, meant to promote a measured pace in the council working toward the truth. It prevents rash decisions.”

He gestured with a flick of his hand, as if he agreed with her, but could do nothing about it.

“It was thought that in wartime, with problems such as we now face, what the council needs most is the ability to reach swift rulings. Five members gives them that ability. Three members in agreement is all it now takes to pass a proposal.”

Magda didn’t know what to say. She had known Sadler for a long time. She had brought matters before him for several years. He hadn’t always agreed with her, but unlike some of the others he had always listened with an open mind.

She reached out and laid a hand on his forearm. “I’m so sorry. Are you going to be all right?”

He again waved off her concern. “Don’t worry for me. I’ll be fine. I always wanted to spend more time in my quiet little cottage in the woods. Since my wife passed . . . well, I guess that I could use some time to reflect. Worrying about matters of war are probably too harsh a burden for me anymore. . . . At least, that was what the others said.”

A slight breath of breeze pulled some of her short hair across her face. Magda pushed it back. “Can I come see you sometime?”

He grinned and pinched her cheek, something he had never done before. It was an extraordinary gesture that stunned her.

“I’d like that, Magda. I’d like that.”

He seemed so much less reserved than, in her experience, he had always been. His weathered, wrinkled face looked tired. She thought it must be that he had believed he had to present a measured and resolute façade appropriate to being a councilman. Now that mask had faded away to reveal the man beneath it.

As he started away, she watched him turning his back on the Keep, on a life’s work. He looked hunched and older to her than he ever had before. Magda suddenly thought of something and called out to him.

Magda took a step away from the stone wall at the side of the bridge.

“Councilman Sadler.”

He stopped and turned. “It’s just Sol, now. I am no longer a councilman. I am just Sol.”

Magda smiled a sad smile. “I’m afraid that I could never in my life bring myself to call you anything other than Councilman Sadler.”

He accepted the sentiment with a slight smile and a nod. “If you wish. I guess my ears are accustomed enough to the sound of it, and as long as we are alone I guess that there is no one to object.”

Magda glanced around to make sure that no one was close. Everyone looked to be mostly concerned with their own business and in a hurry to get where they were going before it got too dark. They didn’t pay the two of them undue attention, although people who did recognize him stared for a moment on their way past. Magda took another step, closing the distance to him so that there was no chance that anyone could overhear them. She again glanced around.

“Councilman Sadler, can you tell me anything about a woman, a sorceress from the Old World, who defected and came here to the Keep to join our cause?”