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Magda fisted her hands in fury as she marched away. She and Merritt passed groups of soldiers coming in the other direction as she resolutely made her way down the stone corridor.
“What was all that about?” Merritt finally asked. He sounded about as angry as she felt.
“Isn’t it obvious? There must have been opposition to Lothain being named First Wizard. Apparently, he’s trying to quell dissent, shore up his support, and win people over. It appears to be working. Grundwall thinks it’s going to be good for the people of the Keep. Lothain is no doubt counting on just that attitude.
“He probably thinks that when I see how pleased everyone is, how it eases tensions and reassures people in a time of crisis, I will have no choice but to go along with his plan. He knows that I care about the people here. He’s trying to shame me into doing it for the good of the Keep.”
“But you’re not going to actually do it,” Merritt said.
It didn’t sound like a question. Magda frowned over at him. “Are you out of your mind?”
He heaved a sigh of bottled exasperation. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“To the dungeon.”
“The dungeon?” Merritt grabbed her arm and pulled her to an abrupt halt. He checked both ways to make sure none of the soldiers coming and going from the Home Guard headquarters were close enough to hear them. “Are you crazy?”
Magda squared up to him. “Look, Merritt, we’re running out of time. If that woman is still alive, we have to get to her before they execute her.” She threw her hands up. “I already wasted the entire day sleeping, we can’t afford to waste any more time.”
“It wasn’t a waste,” he said in a tone meant to calm her down. “It kept you from dying.”
Magda took a breath, trying to calm her anger over the things the general had said. She didn’t want Merritt to think she was angry with him, or blamed him for what they’d had to do. Merritt was the only one who believed her and he was trying to help. She lowered her voice.
“I suppose, and I’m grateful, I really am. You healed me, and I’m better. I know I need more rest to be back to myself, but right now it doesn’t matter how exhausted I am. We may never get another chance. We have to get to that sorceress.”
Merritt nodded as he visibly cooled off. “I understand and I share your sense of urgency. After all, I’m the one who told you about the sorceress defector in the first place, remember?”
“I remember.”
“So, how do you propose we get in to see her without General Grundwall? They don’t simply let people in to see prisoners.”
A group of soldiers hurried past, eyeing the woman in the midst of their domain. She flashed them a brief, polite smile of greeting. Most of the men returned the smile. Once they were past, Magda pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head and started out once more. She peeked around the edge of the hood at Merritt.
“You heard the general. I’m respected. It’s news to me, but maybe not to the men down in the dungeon. They certainly won’t be expecting a woman—the wife of their dead First Wizard—to show up in their midst in the middle of the night.”
Merritt looked to be getting agitated again. “And what good is that going to do you?”
“Surprise is sometimes the best advantage a warrior can have.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Where did you hear that?”
“Baraccus told me.”
“He’s right, but this is different from what is typically meant by that saying.”
“That’s why this surprise will work to our advantage.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Magda took his arm, leaning closer to him as they started down the stone steps of a broad stairway. Their footsteps echoed through the stairwell, so she kept her voice low.
“Merritt, we have to try. Time is working against us. If they haven’t executed her before, or even today while I was sleeping the day away, they will surely behead her soon, maybe even tomorrow. We can’t delay. If they’ve tried her and condemned her to death, they’re not going to keep her alive down in the dungeon for long—a few days at most. Every day we don’t get to her adds to the odds that we never will. Maybe she doesn’t know anything and can’t help us, but what if she does know something about what’s going on here at the Keep, or Emperor Sulachan’s battle plans?
“By the way she was tried without the public knowing about it, someone must have a reason to want to get rid of her. After all, why wouldn’t Lothain want to try her publicly so he could add another executed traitor to his list of heralded accomplishments? Could he be doing a favor? Or protecting someone? Maybe even protecting himself? Why was the trial conducted out of the public eye?”
“I was wondering those same things.” Merritt looked both up and down the stairwell to make sure no one was near. “What we really have to ask ourselves is why they’ve let her live this long.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they charged her with being a spy and sentenced her to death, maybe it’s because someone has a reason to want her dead. Maybe it’s to shut her up. So if that’s true, and they want to shut her up, then why didn’t they just put her to death immediately after finding her guilty?” Merritt leaned closer and arched and eyebrow. “If they want her dead, then why have they kept her alive for this long?”
It dawned on her what Merritt was implying. “You mean you think they’re torturing her? You think they haven’t killed her yet because they’re torturing information out of her?”
“Wouldn’t any spy in the Keep want to know if she has any companions defecting with her, and if she does how much they know about the people Emperor Sulachan might have secretly slipped in here? Nor will killing her solve their problem if she’s already spoken with people here at the Keep and given them names of traitors working on behalf of the emperor. They would need to know that before they killed her, don’t you suppose?”
Magda glanced over at him. “For a traitor, worried about being discovered, finding out how much she knows would be reason enough to torture her.”
Merritt waved a hand. “But this is all speculation. For all we know, maybe she really is a spy, or even an assassin, posing as a defector, intent on using her gift to kill our leaders. Maybe they wanted to keep the trial out of the public eye in order to find any accomplices. Maybe they did a good thing by uncovering her plans. For all we know, they may very well have beheaded her right in the beginning—right after convicting her. We don’t know that she’s even alive.”
“All the more reason to get down to the dungeons as soon as we can. We may never get another chance to find out the truth. Maybe she is an assassin, but maybe she really is a defector who wants to help us. And if they’re torturing her, she may soon enough be as good as dead as far as helping us is concerned.”
Merritt considered her words as they continued down the broad stairs leading to the lower levels. The stairwell was a core passage used by the Home Guard to move quickly between different areas of the Keep. As they kept taking flight after flight down, several patrols passed them going up.
“I don’t like it,” Merritt said after a group of half a dozen soldiers, climbing the stairs two at a time, were far enough above them not to be able to overhear, “but I have to admit that what you say makes sense. We won’t know the answers to any of it—if she’s still alive and if she is, is she in any condition to talk to us—unless we get down there and see for ourselves.”
“The thing that worries me,” Magda said, “is that these dungeon guards might not necessarily be the reasonable type.”
“Likely not, actually. That’s why they’re chosen for the task in the first place. Some very nasty criminals and killers are kept down there before being put to death. Those guards need to be tough men.”
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Magda headed to the broadest corridor. It led to the immense chamber down in the heart of the lower Keep. Their shadows from the torchlight rotated around them as they moved swift
ly down the simple hall.
“That’s what I mean,” Magda said. “I’m not sure they will have any desire to let us in. But, on the other hand, they are liable to be so surprised to see me down there that we may be able to bluff our way through.”
“I’d prefer that to having to kill them,” he said under his breath.
Magda blinked in surprise. “Kill them? They’re on our side, Merritt. They’re our men.”
“How do you know that? What if the traitors in the Keep had those men placed there to keep the likes of you and me away from their dirty work. You said yourself that something terrible is going on at the Keep and there seem to be a number of people involved. This woman might have some answers about that and that’s why she’s in the dungeon. So who are we up against? Who’s keeping her there? Who is involved in wanting her dead?
“We’re at war. We can’t afford to fail or we could easily end up dead, along with all the innocent people of the Midlands.
“Those guards down there may be our men, or they very well may be working for a traitor—for the enemy. With what we’re doing, we’ve already crossed a lot of lines, here.
“And don’t forget,” Merritt added, “we’re probably dealing with an enemy who stole the power of Orden. This sorceress may know something about all that. She may know who has the boxes or where they are. If we’re really serious, then we can’t be halfhearted. We dare not let this chance slip away, no matter who gets in our way. If we go down there and those guards won’t let us in to see this woman, we may have to end up killing them.”
Magda sighed in frustration. “You’re right. If we don’t discover the enemy’s plans before it’s too late, everyone could die. The risk is too great. We’re going to have to do what is necessary.” She looked over at him as they turned down a carpeted corridor. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Hope isn’t a plan. We have to get in and to do that we may need to kill the guards.”
“I’d rather bluff my way in.”
“If it works, I’m with you. But I need to be ready to have your back.”
