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“No doubt,” Lord Rahl said.
“We have to hide it,” Magda said to Merritt. “Trying to protect it is too risky. It must be hidden.”
“That sounds well and good, but where?” Merritt asked. “I don’t know a place safe enough that Emperor Sulachan couldn’t get to it. After all, it was hidden—in the Temple of the Winds in the underworld—and he managed to get to it.”
“Well,” she said, “if he didn’t know where to look he—”
Magda went silent as the thought tickling at the back of her mind suddenly became clear. She blinked. She wondered if it could work. She wondered if it was even possible.
She seized Merritt’s shirtsleeve. “A gravity spell?”
Lord Rahl’s face scrunched up into a frown. “A what?”
“A gravity spell,” Merritt said, ignoring Lord Rahl, his attention focused on Magda because he realized from the look in her eyes that she was on to something important. “What about a gravity spell?”
“That little gravity spell you created and gave to me draws those little clay figures to it.”
“Right,” he said in a drawl as it started to dawn on him.
“What if you created a bigger gravity spell that would draw the dead that Sulachan’s forces have animated, and draw the half people to it as well? Naja helped create them. She knows how they function and how their spirits have been manipulated, so maybe she could give you information on the spells involved and then you could create a gravity spell specifically designed to draw them both in, right?”
“For someone born without the gift,” Merritt said with a smile, “you sure have some pretty interesting ideas of how to use it. You make a pretty good maker’s match.”
Lord Rahl was looking from one face to the other and back again. “Draw them into where?”
Merritt ran his hand back over his neck. “That’s the problem. It needs to be someplace where we could trap them. Once we draw them in, we would also have to keep them there.”
Magda snapped her fingers. “Isidore’s symbols.”
Merritt was already nodding. “We could use Isidore’s keeper spells to make a barrier to help prevent them from escaping.”
Lord Rahl still had the serious scowl. “You mean that you think you could create a spell that would draw Sulachan’s walking dead people and his half-dead people to it?” When Merritt smiled and nodded, Alric Rahl went on. “And then you would place a barrier spell to ensure that they were trapped?”
“That’s exactly right,” Merritt said. “If we could draw them in and trap them, then our forces wouldn’t ever have to fight them. I was racking my brain trying to think of weapons and ways for us to fight these things, but if we trapped them somewhere instead, we wouldn’t ever need to fight them. If we never had to fight an army of the dead and half dead, it could save the lives of untold numbers of our soldiers, to say nothing of the innocent people in places Sulachan invades.”
“All we need is a place to put them,” Magda said. “It has to be someplace remote that would provide physical barriers as well as the barrier spells, just to be sure. Maybe a blind canyon or something like that.”
Lord Rahl’s scowl was gone. His arms came unfolded as he stood. He looked suddenly intent and serious.
“The Dark Lands.”
“The Dark Lands?” Merritt asked. “What are the Dark Lands?”
“A remote and inhospitable area in D’Hara. There is a place there, to the north in the Dark Lands, surrounded by mountains. There is only one way in and out. All around are impassable mountains. If you could draw them in with this spell of yours, you might be able to trap them in there. No one goes to that remote area in the Dark Lands. It’s a dangerous place. Everyone already considers it demon ground.”
“That’s perfect,” Magda said. She turned to Merritt. “As soon as you can come up with a gravity spell that works on Sulachan’s dead and his half people, we can go there, set the spell, and draw them in.”
“The barrier spells that I could make from what Isidore came up with wouldn’t weaken for thousands of years.
“And,” Merritt added with a smile as he leaned toward her with a sparkle in his eyes, “we could leave the box of Orden there as well. Then it, too, would be trapped there. After all, who is going to go on demon ground filled with the walking dead and with half people who want to rip you open and eat you alive?”
Magda put a hand to her chest and heaved a big sigh of relief. “We’ve just solved two problems with the same solution. As soon as you can create the spells, we can travel to the Dark Lands and set the trap.”
“We?” He shook his head. “You’re not going. The thing about a gravity spell is that it’s distance-sensitive. If you were to take those little clay figures I gave you some distance away from the gravity spell, it wouldn’t have enough power to draw them to it.
“So, I’m going to have to create this spell and then travel near the enemy forces so it has enough power to draw the dead out. When I get them all coming after me, I’ll be able to lead them to the Dark Lands and into this remote place. I’ll set the spell and as soon as they’re all drawn in, I’ll place the barrier spell to keep them in. Having them follow me in isn’t what I would prefer, but it’s the only way.
“It’s too dangerous for you to come with me.”
“Too dangerous?” Magda planted her fists on her hips. “Who is it that saved your hide by cutting down all those soldiers and setting you free?”
Lord Rahl lifted a hand. “Ah, is this a story I ought to know about? You cutting men down? What are you talking about?”
Merritt waved a hand irritably. “She had the sword.”
“Ah, she had a sword. That explains it.”
“Just because she killed a wizard and eight or ten of Lothain’s soldiers all by herself, now she thinks she’s qualified for such a fight.”
Lord Rahl clasped his hands as he arched an eyebrow. “Sounds to me like maybe she is.”
Merritt’s mouth twisted, and then he gave in to a smile. “I suppose it does. It will take a little while to create the spells, but once they’re ready, we can set the trap.”
He smiled at Magda in a special, very private way. It made her grin.
Chapter 102
“I’ve found him,” Naja said. Her voice sounded like it was coming from that far-distant world. She squeezed Magda’s hand. “I’ve found him.”
Magda swallowed. “Are you sure it’s him?”
Naja, her eyes closed, slowly nodded. “I’ve found him. It’s beautiful. His spirit is beautiful. I knew it would be.”
A tear rolled down Magda’s cheek. “Can we . . . talk to him?”
Naja’s smooth brow twitched slightly. “In a way. Like I told you before, if he permits it, in a way.”
They were alone, the two of them. And yet, in a manner of speaking, they were among a whole underworld of spirits.
The room was dark except near them where it was lit by a dozen candles set all around them on the floor. It was the dead of the night and dead quiet. There was no light to leak in around the shutters. Magda and Naja were alone in the storage room of the First Wizard’s apartment. It seemed the fitting place because Baraccus had spent so much time at his workbench there.
Both Naja and Magda sat cross-legged on a plush, round carpet set before Baraccus’s workbench lined with candles. Beyond the candlelight, the rest of the room might as well have been the void of the underworld itself.
Magda wondered briefly if perhaps it was.
She hadn’t told Merritt what she was going to try to do. She didn’t know what he would think of the idea. She supposed that he would support whatever she wanted to do, but she didn’t want to worry him. He was always incredibly respectful of Baraccus as her husband, and Magda’s feelings about him.
But Baraccus was gone.
Magda was alone, now. She had people who cared about her, but she felt alone without Baraccus. It was a terrible feeling to miss him, and at the same time realize
that he was gone and that he never could be in her life again. She didn’t know how to find peace.
She thought that maybe if she knew why he had killed himself, that would help.
Merritt understood. As much as it stood unspoken between them, he understood. She wasn’t sure that she did. Merritt, though, gave her respectful distance because of Baraccus.
