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Walking in front because the passageway was too narrow for them to walk side by side, Tilly looked back over her shoulder and spoke without slowing.
“I often go this way, Mistress. Other routes are sometimes crowded and noisy. I find that this way is faster, and besides, I would rather be alone with my own thoughts.”
Magda understood that well enough. As much as she didn’t like the confining, dark passageways, they did have the advantage of being virtually unused. In the more direct routes by way of busy corridors she would have encountered a lot of people.
“Is it much farther?”
“A ways yet, Mistress.”
The two of them worked their way around an awkward jog in the passageway that skirted a protrusion of wet, gray, speckled granite on the right. It was the bedrock of the mountain itself, left in place to serve as a wall, evidence that they were at the margin of the Wizard’s Keep, deep in the mountain into which the vast structure was built. Much of the lower Keep was pinned directly into the stone heart of the mountain.
At an intersection, they followed the passage that cut off to the left, heading in the direction of the Keep’s interior. The walls were even closer together, the ceiling lower.
Not long after they had taken the turn, a deep thump shook the stone floor. Magda could feel the concussion in her breastbone. Grit rained down from joints in the stone. They both paused. She then heard a distant scream echo though the cramped corridor.
“What was that?” Magda asked, her words echoing back to her from the darkness.
Tilly glanced back and saw that Magda had stopped. “Not far ahead be where some of the gifted work on creating weapons. Sometimes, people get hurt. It might be nothing more than that.”
“Are you saying that you think it might be something else?”
The old woman leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I know that I be the one who planted the seed of this idea in your head, Mistress, but that was before people started turning up dead down here. Like I told you when you asked me to show you the way, I didn’t know if this still be such a good idea. As much as I would like to believe your suspicions, I don’t know if I share the explanation.”
Not long after Baraccus’s death, people had begun to find mutilated bodies down in the lower Keep. Tilly’s fears were understandable, especially since she had found one of the bodies herself. People didn’t know who was to blame, and that only heightened everyone’s fears.
At least Lord Rahl was long gone so they couldn’t blame him, though a few still tried. For some people, it was better to blame anyone than to fear the unknown.
Magda’s suspicion was that the killings were most likely the work of the dream walkers, just as she had warned the council. Since giving the devotion to Lord Rahl, Magda was protected from the dream walkers by that bond, so she wasn’t too worried about the danger to herself in the lower Keep. Tilly wasn’t so sure that it was the dream walkers. She was worried for Magda’s safety down in the areas where the victims had been found. Despite suspecting dream walkers, Magda couldn’t help sharing that nagging worry in the back of her own mind.
Magda ruffled her short hair, ridding it of the bits of stone and dust that had rained down from the joints in the ceiling. “If you don’t think it’s the dream walkers, have you heard any suggestion of who else might be responsible?”
Tilly checked the darkness ahead and behind. “Not who, Mistress, what.”
Magda’s frown deepened. “What does that mean?”
“From what I hear, no one knows much about the killings and no evidence has been discovered. I have heard it said, though, that such as was done to the poor souls they found dead does not appear to have been done by people. At least, not people who could be in their right mind. Considering what I saw, I am inclined to agree.”
“Dream walkers can rip a person apart, or make them attack someone else as savagely as any animal.”
Tilly straightened. “Maybe so. Please promise me that you will be careful when you are down here? You are ungifted. Promise me that you will be on guard at all times?”
Magda nodded. “You’ve no need to worry about that. As soon as I’m done with what I came to do, I’ll be headed back up. I have no desire to stay down here any longer than necessary.”
She followed after as Tilly started out again, moving quickly enough to reveal the slight hitch in her gait. Magda heard the screams several more times before they finally died down to a brief murmur of weeping and then even that mercifully ended. She hoped it was wizard’s work that had injured someone and not something else. If wizards were involved, then help would at least be at hand for the person in pain.
If dream walkers were involved, there would be no help at hand.
Magda was well aware that Tilly could go just about anywhere in the Keep and few people ever paid much attention. Most people didn’t even seem to notice her, almost as if she were invisible. She was just a lowly worker, one of many, going about her work. People rarely gave her a second look.
Magda had been worried that dream walkers might see the significance of that as well, see an opportunity in such anonymity, and take Tilly in order to use her for their ends. To protect her, Magda had convinced Tilly to take on the protection of the bond to Lord Rahl by giving the devotion. Though Tilly was now protected from dream walkers, she still feared what else might be on loose in the Keep. Magda didn’t entirely dismiss those fears.
The old woman stopped and moved to the side, pressing her back to the stone-block wall to make room for three men who suddenly appeared, approaching from the darkness ahead. The three, dressed in simple robes, were in a hurry. Magda pulled the cowl of her cloak forward to hide her face as she backed up against the wall beside Tilly.
“Tilly,” the first of the men said in greeting as he dipped his head. While most people didn’t even know Tilly’s name, there were apparently at least a few people, like Magda, who did notice her and know her name.
“Do you know who screamed?” Tilly asked.
The man had to turn sideways a little in order to shuffle past. “Yes,” he said, anger charging his tone. “Merritt just got another two men killed. A third was injured. That’s who you heard screaming.”
Magda thought that she recognized the name. Baraccus must have mentioned it before. She spoke before she thought.
“How did this Merritt get the men killed?”
The first man looked up at her, indignation clearly evident in his eyes. Magda held her lantern off to the side, making it look as if she were trying to stay out of the way, but in doing so it put her face in shadow and lit his.
“Merritt refused to help us any longer in crafting a critical weapon. Five brave wizards went to their death as a result.” The muscles in his jaw flexed when he clenched his teeth. “Now two more have just died trying to accomplish the task Merritt abandoned instead of leading. The third man, at least, will recover, though he may be blinded. I don’t know how many more we will lose until, the Creator be willing, we are successful.”
“I’m sorry,” Magda said in a sympathetic tone.
“Merritt should have been there,” the second man in line said.
The first man grunted his agreement as he moved on past Magda. She noticed that he smelled of smoke and burned flesh. As he passed close, she saw specks of blood splattered across his robes.
Magda lowered her head so that the second two men, holding glowing spheres that cast cold, greenish light up across their heated expressions, wouldn’t recognize her. All three swiftly disappeared back into the darkness.
Chapter 19
Once the men were out of earshot, Tilly leaned closer. “Wizards,” she confided before starting out once again.
Magda had suspected that they were wizards by their simple robes. She had known they were when she had looked into their eyes.
While she had no gift for magic, she did have the rare knack of being able to see the gift in the eyes of those who possessed it. She’d always thought of it as merely a form of intuition. Baraccus had said that it was more. He had told her that, while she was ungifted in the overt sense, she had latent abilities that set her apart in at least some small ways from others who were ungifted.
He’d said that the spark of life was stronger in her than in most people. That, he said, was what he saw in her eyes, that she was not merely beautiful but intelligent, unusual, rare. He had sometimes looked into her eyes and whispered to himself how bewitching she was, as if she weren’t there hearing him, as if he were all alone looking upon some exceptional specimen rather than his wife.
Magda nev
er thought of herself as exceptional, but she did feel lucky that he thought so.
She recalled quite clearly the first time she had looked into Baraccus’s eyes. She remembered feeling momentarily lost for words as she gazed in those gentle, knowing eyes. Looking into his eyes had made her feel safe. She had known that he was gifted, of course, but she’d also seen a handsome older man behind those abilities that she was inexplicably drawn to. Who knew the ways of love?
Besides being aware of the presence of the gift in the eyes of all three men, Magda was pretty sure that she recognized the first two. She didn’t know their names, but she thought that she had seen both of them before. Magda had occasionally gone with Baraccus on some of his frequent visits down into the lower Keep to see his wizards. She thought that she must have seen the men one of those times because she didn’t recall them ever coming to see Baraccus in their apartments.
She also thought that she recalled the name Merritt. Baraccus met with a lot of gifted people and he didn’t always introduce her. She knew when he preferred that she remain in the background or even out of sight, such as when people came to discuss confidential matters or to report trouble. There had been times, after such visitors left, that he would stand at a window, stoically staring out at the city of Aydindril below.
Sometimes, though, when visitors left he would tell her their names and what it had been about. On occasion he talked to her about people he’d met with down in the lower Keep. The name Merritt sounded familiar, though she couldn’t place a face with the name. It could be that she’d never seen him, merely heard Baraccus mention him.
Magda would rather not be returning to the lower reaches of the Keep. It was an unnerving place in the best of times, to say nothing of some of the things she had heard from Baraccus, but it was even more so, now, in light of Tilly’s warnings, yet Magda didn’t know what else to do. She had run out of ideas and needed to find answers.
