As much as she wished it were otherwise, Magda could do nothing to alter the past or to bring Baraccus back. He was now in the hands of the good spirits. Meanwhile, life went on. He had wanted her to go on.
The great mahogany doors to the council chambers stood open, as they usually did. The doors were three times her height and as thick as her thigh, both sides carved in intricate designs meant to represent spells, although they were not actually spells. As Baraccus had often told her, drawing out real spells was dangerous. The intention was to remind all that it was the gift that guided them in everything.
The open doors were meant to convey a sense of the council’s openness, but Magda knew that it was an illusion of receptivity. Where the council was concerned, nothing was as simple as it seemed.
At the great doors, the guards posted to either side, their pikes standing perfectly upright, saw that she didn’t intend to stop. Their pikes tilted as they hesitantly stepped away from their positions onto the great seal set into the stone before the doors.
One of the guards lifted a hand out, thinking she needed assistance. “Lady Searus, you’re hurt. Let me get someone to help you.”
“Thank you, but the members of the council are the only ones who can help any of us.”
“I’m afraid that they’re in session,” he warned.
“Good,” she said as she pushed his pike up out of her way.
“Lady Searus,” the other guard said, “I’m afraid that the agenda is full for today and they are not taking up any new business.”
“They are now,” she said on her way past.
The guards weren’t sure what they should do. They knew her quite well as the wife of the First Wizard who often spoke to the council. But even though they knew her, they were not accustomed to women with short hair walking in to speak to the council. More importantly, though, she was covered in blood and they didn’t know why. If the Keep was under attack, they clearly needed to know about it, but then, so did the council.
Other guards inside the council chambers started to close in to slow her until they could find out what was going on. They took in Lord Rahl and his two men behind her. Confused by the sight of the First Wizard’s wife covered with blood, to say nothing of the leader of the D’Haran Lands accompanying her, they finally parted, apparently thinking that stopping her could potentially be more trouble than letting her through. Not only was Lord Rahl a dignitary, but it was the council, after all, that decided who would speak.
Magda was glad that she had told Lord Rahl to leave his small army waiting in the corridors farther back and out of sight. Having a force of armed men try to enter the council chambers would only have complicated matters.
Once inside the big doors and past the knot of guards, she turned back to Alric Rahl. She put her hand on his chest to urge him to a halt.
“Why don’t you wait back here? Your presence beside me will only make them think that I ask this on your behalf.”
His brow creased with displeasure as he stared off at the council on the dais in the distance at the far end of the room. He shifted his weight and hooked his thumbs on his belt.
His blue eyes finally turned down to her. “As you wish.”
Magda offered him a brief smile before she turned her attention to the room she had visited many times. A runner of blue and gold carpet leading off toward the council split the grand room. Fluted mahogany columns supported soaring arches to the sides. Leaded windows high up in the arches let in muted streamers of sunlight. Below the windows, balcony galleries held seating for observers. The seats were packed, which told her that the council was not dealing in restricted military matters.
The open floor beneath the balconies had no windows, making it a rather dark and gloomy place. The windows up high were meant to represent the light of the Creator, while the darker regions down below were a reminder of the eternal darkness of the afterlife in the underworld. It was a subtle reminder of the forces of nature, life and death being the most notable, that always had to be held in balance.
Groups of people who had come for an audience with the council crowded the floor farther off to each side, beneath the shadows of the balconies. As was often the case, there were military men in dress uniforms with clusters of staff around them, officials in dignified robes with color-coded bands to denote rank and position, wizards and sorceresses in simple robes, and aides accompanying well-dressed, important women. As in most places in the Keep, there were even children here and there with their parents.
The sunlight slanting in through the windows high to the right revealed a slight haze from men smoking pipes as well as the dust that the constant traffic carried into the vast room. As she marched down the blue and gold carpet and through isolated patches of sunlight from windows that had been designed to let the light penetrate down to the center runner, no one could miss Magda’s blood-soaked dress. She knew from seeing herself in mirrors that her face and hair were quite a sight as well.
Despite the relatively hushed quiet of the room, out in the world a war raged. Baraccus had confided that the fighting was horrific. Men died by the thousands in desperate battles, their bodies torn apart in the mad rush to attack or defend. The fury, the panic, the blood, the noise, the desperation were said to be beyond imagining.
In contrast, the vast room where the council went about its stately work was an ordered and dignified place where business was conducted at a measured pace. Panic, blood, and naked desperation seemed very far away.
Magda knew that it was an illusion. While everyone worked very hard to preserve the appearance that this place was the balance to the madness of the war, that war was on every mind.
As in the outer halls, people quietly discussing business fell silent as they spotted Magda marching resolutely along the long ribbon of carpeting through the center of the chamber. Most of these people knew her. Most of them had seen her standing before the flames that had consumed her husband and their beloved leader. Many had come to her to offer their condolences.
Atop the dais, the council sat at a long, ornate desk that curved around in a half circle. Staff and assistants sat at the desk beside them. Even more sat behind. People stood in the center of the dais, with that desk curving halfway around them and the audience at their back, to be heard by the council.
Magda recognized the woman standing in that spot, speaking passionately to the council. Her words trailed off as she looked over her shoulder to see Magda step up behind her.
The woman first quickly took in the length of Magda’s hair and then scowled down at her bloody clothes. “I don’t appreciate being interrupted when I am addressing the council.”
“I’m talking to them now, Vivian,” Magda said as she showed the woman a very brief smile. “You can speak to them later.”
Vivian pulled a long lock of hair forward over her shoulder. “What makes you think that you can—”
“Leave,” Magda said in a voice so calm, so quiet, so deadly that Vivian flinched.
When the woman made no move to leave, Magda leaned even closer and spoke in a confidential tone that no one else could hear.
“Either you walk out now, Vivian, or you will have to be carried out. I think you know that I’m not bluffing.”
At seeing the look in Magda’s eyes, Vivian turned and dipped a quick bow to the council before hurrying away.
A hush fell over the room.
“What is the meaning of this interruption?” a red-faced Councilman Weston asked. “What matter could be important enough for you to dare to think you can intrude in this fashion?”
Magda clasped her hands. “A matter of life and death.”
Behind her, whispers rippled through the room.
“Life and death? What are you talking about?” Weston demanded.
Magda met the gaze of each councilman, now that one of them had made the mistake of inviting her to speak on the subject.
“The dream walkers are in the Keep.”
Chapter 15
The room erupted with noise and confusion as everyone behind Magda started talking at once. Some people yelled questions. Others called out their disbelief. Yet others shouted denunciations. Many, gripped by fear, remained silent.
Elder Cadell, ever the arbiter of decorum in the council chambers, held up a gnarled, arthritic hand, calling for silence.
When the crowd quieted, Councilman Weston went on. “Dream walkers? Here in the Keep?” His eyes narrowed. “That’s absurd.”
Elder Cadell ignored Weston’s charge. “Lady Searus,” he said with practiced patience, “first of all, the council is in session and—”
“Good,” Magda said, not at all patient. “That means I don’t have to hunt you all down. Better that you are all gathered to hear this. Time is short.”
Councilman Guymer shot to his feet. “You have no standing to speak before this body much less to interrupt us! How dare you dismiss someone who was speaking on important matters and—”
“Whatever matter Vivian was wound up about this time can wait. I told you, this is a matter of life and death. I was just invited by Councilman Weston to speak. I intend to do so.” She arched an eyebrow. “Unless you want to have me dragged away before I can make known the mortal danger to our people as well as how the council can help to protect them?”
Assistants shared looks. Some of the councilmen shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. Not all of them wanted to so publicly silence her before she could reveal what the council could do to help to protect people. That reluctance gave her a window of opportunity.
Councilman Hambrook leaned back and clasped his hands together over his ample middle. “Dream walkers, you say?”
Guymer shot to his feet and turned his wrath on his fellow councilman. “Hambrook, we’re not going to be diverted from our agenda to allow this outrageous interruption to continue!”
Magda closed the distance to the desk in three long strides, placed her hands on the polished wood, and with a glare, leaned toward Councilman Guymer.
“Sit down.”
Taken aback by the calm fury in her voice, and somewhat stunned to be spoken to in such a way, he dropped into his chair.
Magda straightened. “Dream walkers have made their way into the Keep. We must—”
This time it was Weston, to her right, who interrupted her. “Disregarding your bursting in here in such an insolent fashion, what makes you think we would believe such a claim?”
Magda slammed the flat of her hand on the desk before the man. The shock of the loud smack made all of them jump. She could feel her face going red with rage.
“Look at me! This is what a dream walker did to me! What you see—the blood all over me—is what your countrymen and loved ones are going to look like before they die in unimaginable agony! This is what is coming for all of us!”
“I am not going to sit here and—”
“Let her speak,” Elder Cadell said with quiet authority.
Magda bowed her head to the elder in appreciation before collecting herself and going on. “A dream walker entered my mind without my being aware of it. I don’t know how long he was hidden there. I fear to think what he overheard while he was lurking in my mind without my knowledge.”
“What could he have overheard?” Councilman Sadler asked in a suspicious tone.
“For one thing, the reason I was coming here today: the solution to prevent the dream walkers from having free run of the Keep and destroying us all. Once he heard that solution, and knew that I was going to come here for the council’s help in implementing it, he acted. His intent was to kill me so that I couldn’t speak to you. His intent was to keep you in the dark so that we would all be vulnerable.”
As Magda looked at each councilman in turn, out of the corner of her eye she could see the crowd moving in closer so that they wouldn’t miss what she had to say. She straightened and stepped back to the center of the semicircle of councilmen so that she could make sure that everyone could hear her.
“While I don’t have any idea how long the dream walker was hidden there in my mind, watching, listening, his presence became all too obvious once he decided to rip me apart from the inside.” She slowly shook her head as she turned her back on the council to look out into the frightened eyes of all the silent people watching her. “You cannot imagine the pain of it.”
The spectators stared in silent anxiety.
Weston broke the silence. “Do you expect us to trust—”
“No,” she said without looking back at him. “I expect you to look with your own eyes at the result of what was being done to me by the dream walker who had slipped into my mind, here, in the Keep, where we thought we were safe. We are not safe.” She held out the skirt of her dress. “As I fell to my knees, dying, blood running from my ears, blood choking me, I could feel the dream walker break each rib, one at a time.” Some in the crowd gasped. “The pain was beyond endurance, yet there is no way to avoid enduring it.”
She walked slowly across the dais to be sure that everyone out in the crowd, as well as all those behind the desk, could get a good look at the blood all over her. The sound of her shoes on the wooden floor of the rostrum echoed through the room.
“The blood you see all over me,” she said, “is the evidence of the torture he was inflicting. If it is shocking to see, I promise you, you would not have wanted to hear my screams as I lay in a pool of my own blood and on the brink of death.”
“And so I guess that the good spirits swept in and saved you at the last moment?” Councilman Guymer asked, bringing a smattering of laughter.
“No,” she calmly answered as she gazed out at the crown. “Though I prayed they would, the good spirits did not come to my rescue. I saved myself.”
“And how, may I ask, did you do that,” Sadler asked, fingers skyward, “if the dream walkers are in fact such fearsome beings?”
“You’re right. They are fearsome. They are also powerful. But I invoked magic even more powerful and as a result I was protected from the dream walkers.”
“You are not gifted,” Guymer scoffed.
“You don’t have to be gifted to be protected,” she said out to the crowd watching, addressing them rather than the council. “You must choose, though, to accept the solution. At the last moment before I was about to die, I came to understand that, and I chose to do what was needed to save myself.
“That’s why I’m here. I want all of our people to know that there is protection for them, for all of them. Believe me, the dream walkers can steal into the minds of anyone and they will show no mercy. But none of you need fear them. None of you needs to suffer and die.”
“And how do you know that you really are protected?” Guymer asked.
“If I wasn’t protected, the dream walkers would have torn me apart where I stood so they could prevent me from coming here to tell you how to protect yourselves and our people from their abilities.”
Concerned chatter rippled through the room. People among the onlookers shouted out over the noise, wanting to know what was needed to be protected from the dream walkers.
Magda let the worry build for a time before she finally lifted her arm, pointing to the back of the room near the great doors. Everyone turned to look where she pointed.
“There stands Lord Rahl, the key to your survival,” she said in a voice loud enough that all could hear her. “He alone created a protection that shields him from the dream walkers. That protection constructed of magic is powerful enough to protect anyone bonded to him.”
“Lord Rahl!” Guymer shouted. “Not that nonsense again! Lord Rahl has already come before us with his plans to rule the world.”
Magda turned a glare on the man. “And since when is toiling to protect your life and the lives of all the other innocent people of the Midlands as well as the D’Haran Lands interpreted as wanting to rule the world?”
“This is about the oath he insists we must swear to him, isn’t it?” Elder Cadell asked.
Magda spr
ead her hands. “We are all on the same side in this. We of the Midlands and those of the D’Haran Lands share a common interest as well as a common threat. Those in the Old World want to subjugate all of the New World. They don’t care about our internal boundaries. They want to rule us all. If they win, there will be no Midlands, no D’Haran Lands. We will all be either dead or their slaves. This is about our survival, not petty matters of rule.”
“Petty?” Sadler asked. “I don’t see bowing to the rule of Lord Rahl as petty.”
“You will think it petty enough,” Magda said, “if a dream walker silently slips into your mind and becomes your master, if he makes you do his vile bidding. They can make you betray those you care about, even kill people you love. If you’re lucky, that master will choose instead to rip you apart from the inside.”
Sadler licked his lips but didn’t speak up to argue.
The whispers in the crowd fell silent as a man who had been watching from the shadows at the back of the room behind the councilmen stepped out into the light.
It was Prosecutor Lothain. His menacing gaze was fixed on Magda.
Chapter 16
Lothain’s smile looked every bit as deadly as a skeleton’s grin. “And how do you know, Lady Searus, that it was not really Alric Rahl’s own magic that was in fact tearing you apart from the inside, as you put it?”
“Lord Rahl’s magic?” Magda gaped at the man. “Why would he do such a thing?”
Lothain arched an eyebrow. The grace of his smile, as mocking as it had been, vanished. “Perhaps for the exact reason that brings you to stand before us—to have you put on a show to frighten people into going along with his scheme to seize power and become the leader of all of the New World.”
He stood as motionless as a rock, challenging her to deny it.
“That is not what is happening.” Magda wished her own voice didn’t sound so inadequate and defensive.
“Because your husband had convinced you that Alric Rahl was to be trusted?”
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