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“I finally got Isidore to admit that she was the spiritist. I convinced her that because of her importance, she was in great danger that the dream walkers would take her mind. That persuaded her to give the devotion to protect herself.
“After she did, she told me the story of the slaughter of the people of Grandengart and how she had learned that their spirits were not safely in the world of the dead, where they belonged. She told me, too, the story of how you had taken her eyes.”
Magda gestured uncomfortably. “I couldn’t understand how she could do such a terrible thing. I couldn’t understand how she could . . . well, how she could let a wizard so fundamentally alter her, change her into something other than she had been born.”
“If you think it’s upsetting, imagine how I felt,” Merritt said.
Magda looked up into his eyes. She had to look away from the shadow of pain she saw there.
“Through Isidore’s story, I did come to realize how reluctant you were to do such a thing, and how determined she was to go through with it. While I of course felt sorry for what she was giving up, I also felt sorry for you, for the awful burden she placed on you.
“She was just starting to tell me that it wasn’t so terrible, like I thought, and what a wonderful new vision you had given her. But before she could finish explaining and then contact the spirit world for me, we were attacked by some kind of monster and—”
Merritt lifted a hand to stop her story. “What do you mean, a monster?”
Magda shrugged. “It appeared to be a man, close to as big as you. He was impossibly strong. At first I thought that he had to be gifted and that he was using magic.
“When I stabbed him, though, he didn’t bleed. When I got a good look at him, he looked like a dead man. He smelled like something dead, too.”
Merritt’s frown deepened the creases on his brow. “A dead man? What do you mean he looked like a dead man?”
“He was blackened, his flesh shriveled, and it even looked decayed and pulled apart in places. He looked like a corpse.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “That does indeed sound like a dead man. But was it dark? Are you sure you saw him clearly enough?”
“It was pretty dark,” Magda admitted. “But I still had a lantern. I got a good enough look.
“I stabbed him a number of times, hard and deep. The blade, deep as it went, didn’t seem to harm him at all. Isidore used her powers as well, but that didn’t stop him either. We tried. . . . We tried.”
Magda swallowed and had to look down at the floor away from Wizard Merritt’s gaze before she could go on. “He . . . he ripped Isidore apart. It all happened so fast. He killed her before we could stop him, before we had a chance to run.
“I realized later that a dream walker had to have been secretly lurking in her mind all along, listening. When I told her that I needed information from the spirit world, I never thought that a dream walker might already be there, in her mind. I had thought that I needed her to give the devotion in case a dream walker ever tried to take her. I should have realized that he might already be there.
“The dream walker had invaded my mind and spied on my thoughts without me being aware of him, but then he had failed to kill me because I was able to give the devotion and banish him from my mind in time.
“He must have then been spying on me and Isidore from the shadows of her mind, but he didn’t want to spoil his second chance by trying what had failed before. He wanted us both. So he didn’t reveal himself, didn’t try to kill her before she could give the devotion, as had happened with me.
“He instead let us believe we were safe. He probably slipped away, then, as she started to give the devotion. He probably wanted to lull us into feeling secure in order to make it easier for him to send the man who attacked us.
“I should have realized that he might already be there watching Isidore because she was important. I was just a lucky additional catch who happened along. I foolishly revealed too much before having her give the devotion.
“If I’d made Isidore give the devotion first, he would not have heard how important I thought she was to uncovering the answers Baraccus wanted me to find. He would not have realized that he needed to kill her before she could help me.”
Against her will, the vivid memory of that awful slaughter returned to fill her mind’s eye.
“That’s why you asked me to give the oath before you would talk to me,” he said, half to himself.
Magda nodded as she watched tears dripping onto the floor at her feet. “If I had thought it through, first, and had her give the devotion from the beginning, she would still be alive. She would have freed her mind from the dream walker before he overheard what I needed, and how much she mattered in my search for the truth.”
“But a dream walker didn’t kill her,” Merritt said.
Magda swiped the tears from her cheeks. She knew how much Merritt meant to Isidore. She knew how reluctant he had been to help the woman. Magda knew, too, that even though Merritt had taken Isidore’s sight and altered her with magic, he had come to consider her a friend.
Magda sucked back a sob. She couldn’t bring herself to look up at him.
“No, the dream walker didn’t kill her. He must have gone to his contact in the Keep, and they sent that monster to slaughter her before she could have the chance to help me.
“It’s my fault. If I hadn’t gone to her she would still be alive. Or if I’d had the presence of mind to realize how deeply the Keep has been penetrated by dream walkers and traitors, and had her take the protection of the bond right at first, she would be alive.
“It’s my fault she was murdered.”
Chapter 46
Merritt crossed the room and sat beside her. “I see now why you think you’re to blame, but it wasn’t your fault, Lady Searus. You didn’t know that a dream walker was listening to the things you told Isidore.”
Still, Magda couldn’t look him in the eye. “No, but I should have realized that it was a strong likelihood. I should have thought it through. Had I taken the precaution of having her swear loyalty to Lord Rahl first—”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
Magda finally looked up at him through her watery vision. “How can you know that?”
“The dream walkers know that you’re looking for answers, right?”
Magda swallowed past the lump in her throat. “That’s right.”
“Then if they know that much, they would know that you would sooner or later go to see the spiritist to try to find those answers. After all, with Baraccus dead, the spiritist would be the next logical place for you to go looking for answers—answers, after all, that they want as well. In fact, they were already there in her mind, secretly listening in on our other activities of the Keep’s business as they waited for you.”
“So if I had first had her swear loyalty—”
“It would have made no difference. Don’t you see? We have to assume that they already learned everything they could by covertly searching through her mind, so they were probably hiding in the hopes of hearing any new bit of information that you or anyone else might happen to divulge to Isidore. They were there to spy, to collect information. Information is the coin of war. When she agreed to swear the oath, they knew that was the end of them being able to learn any more from her, so they killed her before she could help you discover anything.”
“But had I thought to—”
“Had you thought to have her give the oath right at first, they would have killed her just the same. Talking to her first only delayed her murder for a brief time while they eavesdropped.
“They would have wanted Isidore dead for reasons beyond you. She was seeking vital answers in her work, answers about what the emperor’s wizards are up to. She was trying to discover why the enemy is harvesting the dead and what they’re doing with both the bodies and the souls of those dead. The dream walkers wouldn’t want her to help us understand what they’re doing, or why the souls of thos
e dead aren’t with the spirits in the underworld, where they belong.”
“Then they know everything Isidore knew,” Magda said. Her gaze flicked around as if driven by her racing thoughts. “Everything Isidore knew has been compromised. They know it all.”
Merritt nodded. “It would appear so, and because of that we have even bigger trouble than we realized. Because of what Isidore knew, and what she was working on, she was already marked. By talking to her, you likely actually delayed her death. The important thing now is to find out what she knew, and therefore what the dream walkers learned by spying on her mind.”
Magda wiped a hand back across her face to dry her tears as she considered the implications. Her search for answers, for the truth, had just become even more critical.
“It sounds like you may be right that my failure to have her give the oath at first made no real difference in the outcome.”
“You aren’t to blame,” he agreed. “You could just as easily say that it’s my fault she’s dead. After all, I’m the one who gave her abilities that made her a threat to the enemy. Had I refused, she very likely would still be alive, doing nothing more dangerous than helping to advise those in mourning about the souls of their dead relatives.
