The First Confessor (19 page)

“Joel’s wife had died in childbirth before I came to Grandengart. He was lonely and terribly sad. There was something about him, something beneath the sadness, that I liked, but knowing about the death of his wife and unborn child I felt uncomfortable saying much to him, other than to ask as the town’s sorceress how he was and if there was anything I could do for him. He always said that he was fine and turned down any offer of help.

“Over time, my feelings for him grew, but in light of his loss I felt that it was not my place to speak of such things. I knew that he would be a long time in getting over such a loss and felt that I had to respect the pace of grieving and felt that I shouldn’t interfere. So, as much as I longed to tell him of my feelings, I kept my distance. Yet every day he would bring me a loaf of bread, as if that was the only way he could reach out to me.

“I was exhausted by the time I reached Joel lying there on the ground in the dark beside the road. By then I could barely walk. I was in shock and covered in the blood of the people I had just helped to die.

“I fell to my knees beside Joel and took up his hand, knowing that I had to be strong enough to bring death to one last person. I held his hand to my own heart and put all my strength into sending as much comfort as I could into him.

“But in so doing I sensed that, unlike all the others, he was not entirely beyond healing. I knew that there was a small chance to save his life.

“I remember seeing his cracked lips move in the moonlight. He wanted to say something. I gave him a sip of water from a waterskin, as I had for so many others, and then bent close.

“He told me that he was sorry for my ordeal. I told him that I was shamed that I had not been there for them, that had I been there I might have done something. He said that he had been there, and he knew for certain that I could have done nothing against such brutal men.

“He said that they’d had gifted among them, men with fearsome powers. He said that had I been there, I would be hanging on a pole along with the rest of them, and then I would not be there to help end the suffering.

“Joel said that he thought it was meant to be this way so that I could help the people.

“I told Joel that I thought I could save his life, that he could be healed. I told him to hold on, to be strong. I spent several hours hunched over him in the dark, healing what I could. I knew, though, that he needed more than I could provide.

“I knew that Whitney, a town to the north, would have the healers needed. I helped him onto my horse and we started riding north to Whitney. I rode as hard as I dared push the horse. We rode the rest of the night and the next day. I often had to use my gift not only to give the poor animal endurance to continue, but to give Joel the strength to hold on to life.

“We almost made it to Whitney. Joel cried out in pain. I tried to hold him up, to keep going, but he couldn’t ride any farther and begged me to help him to the ground.

“As I knelt beside Joel, I realized then that the one person I thought I might be able to save was now beyond help. I knew through my gift that despite how desperately I had worked to help him, his internal injuries were too severe. I could sense his life slipping away. It was a cruel blow after such hope I could save him. In that moment there wasn’t anything I could do to prevent Joel from dying.

“As I bent close, clutching his hands in mine, tears running down my face, he said that he was sorry for what he had done. I asked him what he meant. Joel said he had clung to the memory of his dead wife to the exclusion of everything else. He said that he had loved her but she had passed. He should have gone on and embraced the life he had left to live. He said that he knew I was remaining silent out of respect.

“He said that if he had told me of his feelings, maybe I would have been open to him and then we both could have had happiness for that time. Instead, he had clung to the dead rather than turning to the living. He said he should have lived his life, but now it was over and it was too late.

“He wept as he told me that he was sorry that he had never given himself, or me, the chance to seek that happiness, and now it was too late and he was so sorry. His life was over without having lived what was right there all the time.

“I sobbed uncontrollably as I confessed that I, too, had lived for the dead, fearing to reach out to him. I told him that I should have known better, that I should have sought to comfort him while encouraging him to use the time he had to live his own life.

“He said that he wished he had known that I would not have pushed him away. He said he should have tried to get closer to me than to just bringing me a loaf of bread every day. I laughed through the tears at that. He said that by respecting his feelings for his dead wife, I had shown true compassion, and that he wished he had returned it.

“Joel knew that the others of the town would be with the good spirits. He told me that he would soon see his wife again in the spirit world, and regretted only that he had not lived the last couple years of his own life. He told me that one day when my time too was done in this life, I would be back with them, with the people of Grandengart, where I belonged and would be welcomed. He promised to be waiting for me where we would all be safe in the light of the Creator among the good spirits.

“Joel’s last words were for me to pray on the behalf of all those who had died that terrible night. He asked me to pray that the good spirits welcome them all and give them peace at last.

“I promised that I would use my abilities to help guide them all into the spirit world. He smiled, and as he thanked me and squeezed my hand . . . his last breath of life left him and he was gone.

“On my knees, as the gentle rain began, I hunched over him and rained my own tears down on this poor man for all that he and the others had suffered, wept for what might have been had we each had the courage to let the past go and embraced what life still had to offer.”

Magda understood all too well that desolate agony of loss.

“So, there I was beside the road to Whitney with the dead body of my friend, while back in Grandengart lay the corpses of my charges, my town. The corpses of the people I had failed.”

Magda laid a hand on Isidore’s arm. “You did not fail them, Isidore. Emperor Sulachan’s minions are as powerful as they are ruthless. Joel was right, you could have done nothing to stop it. Don’t take on the guilt that rightly belongs to the killers.

“Not many would have shown the courage you did in such a difficult situation. You did your people the greatest kindness possible. You were there for them to end their suffering when there was nothing else that could have been done.”

“I thought so too. But as it turns out, after reaching Whitney and burying Joel, that was only the beginning of the nightmare.”

Magda stroked a hand along the silky back of the sleeping cat curled up in her lap. The cat’s contented purring served to emphasize the stretch of empty silence.

“The beginning of the nightmare?” Magda finally asked. “What do you mean?”

Isidore took a deep breath. Her shoulders slumped as she let out a weary sigh. “After Joel died, I managed to lift him up and over the back of the horse.” She flicked a hand in an aside. “I used to be stronger than I am as you see me now. I’ve lost weight and muscle since then. I find that I rarely have much of an appetite.

“Anyway, I rode most of that night, stopping only for a brief nap when neither I nor the horse could go on. It was the first sleep I’d had since arriving home to Grandengart. It was also the first of the terrible dreams that haunt me to this day. The short rest was at least enough for me to be able to resume the journey. By late the next afternoon I finally reached the wheat fields and scattered farms at the outskirts of Whitney.

“A man and his wife working a field saw me and must have realized that I was having trouble. They both rushed out to the road to help. When they saw the body slung over the back of the horse, they said that he needed to be buried at once. They were kind enough to lead me to a small graveyard beside a clutch of oaks, the only trees in sight out on the plains of the southern reaches of the New World. There, they helped me lift Joel down and then bury him.

“I was in a numb daze from the whole ordeal, from traveling so long and hard with the dead body of my friend, with tormented thoughts of what might have been between us, and worse, what I might have done to stop the madness had I returned home from seeing the council just a little sooner. I hadn’t eaten in days and I was near delirious with exhaustion. Even so, I knelt beside Joel’s fresh grave and prayed earnestly to the good spirits to welcome him and all the others into their arms.

“Hunched over his grave I again promised Joel that I would keep my word, given just before he died, that I would use my abilities to help make sure that they all made it safely into the embracing shelter of the good spirits.

“After that, the man and his wife, feeling sympathy for me, gave me some food and water and then escorted me the rest of the way into Whitney. I think they thought that I might not make it on my own.

“In Whitney I learned that a few of the terrified old men from Grandengart, the ones who had been released by General Kuno to carry word of what had happened so as to spread panic, had done just that, coming through and telling everyone of the horrifying fate of Grandengart’s people. The whole town of Whitney was buzzing with the news, so the town officials were not surprised when I briefly recounted my story.

“There were gifted there and they listened with even greater interest than the officials, though they said nothing, when I told them what they had not heard yet, that I had gone from one dying person to the next, ending their suffering.

“A number of the town’s people were already packing their belongings and more yet had already left, all headed north. No one knew where General Kuno and his army would strike next, but they wanted to flee to a more distant place where they thought it would be safer. I couldn’t really fault them.

“A detachment of troops, sent by the council to look into the reports of trouble brewing to the south, happened to have just arrived in Whitney. I talked with the commander and reported what had happened. I told him that I couldn’t bury well over a thousand bodies by myself and I needed help. I didn’t want my people to lie there and rot in the open or be scavenged by animals. All I could think of was that it was my duty to at least see them buried.

“Fortunately, the commander was an understanding man. He and his troops took me with them. We rode hard all the way back to Grandengart to attend to the dead as swiftly as possible.

“When we got there, the dead were missing.”

Magda blinked, not sure she had heard correctly. “Missing? What do you mean, they were missing?”

Isidore lifted a hand in frustration and then let it drop back into her lap.

“They were gone. Not a single corpse was there by the road where I’d left them. The town had been burned down. The rain had since doused the smoldering rubble. There were no bodies in the town, nor were there any beside the road where the poles had been erected, where I had delivered them from their suffering.”

“Did the troops believe you? Believe your story?”

Isidore grunted bitter confirmation. “The ground was soaked with clotted blood. They believed me. The poles, each with the ropes still attached, were covered with blood as well. There were some remains still scattered about—the viscera of those that animals had ripped open. After inspecting the remains the commander confirmed that they were human.”

Isidore again weakly lifted a hand. “But there were no bodies. None.”

Magda hooked a lock of her short hair behind her ear, at first having expected it to be long. She still wasn’t used to it being short.

“I don’t understand. How could there be no bodies? What could have become of them?”

“Well, I saw tracks that hadn’t been there before, so my first thought was that maybe General Kuno’s army had decided to turn back to the safety of the Old World and they had come back through Grandengart. I thought that maybe on the way back through they had decided to bury the dead rather than let them decay out in the open.”

“No,” Magda said. “That doesn’t sound at all like what I know about Kuno. Baraccus told me that Sulachan personally selected Kuno to lead their forces because he was so ruthless. Kuno wouldn’t care about any such decency as burying his enemy’s dead. Like Sulachan himself, he’s the kind who would have deliberately left the bodies there in the open as a ghastly warning to anyone who had thoughts of resisting. He uses tactics of terror to sap the will of those who will eventually have to face him.”

Isidore was nodding as she listened. “Though it was the beginning of the war, before we had learned how truly brutal Emperor Sulachan and his forces were, the commander I was with harbored no delusions. He said that any army that would come in and torture and murder innocent people like that would not care about burying them. And then his men, as they searched, found evidence that the bodies had been taken.”

“Taken? What do you mean, taken?” Magda asked. The whole thing was not making any sense to her.

“The soldiers said that there were a lot of tracks showing that an army had come back through and crossed over the road, headed south. There were drag marks on the ground where it looked like the bodies had been collected into piles. The ground there was covered with even more of the gore. The drag marks ended at wagon tracks. Lots of wagon tracks.”

Magda frowned. “You’re saying that Kuno’s army came back though and . . . took them?”

“They came back and harvested the dead,” Isidore confirmed in an icy tone.

Magda’s hand paused on the cat’s back. “Harvested the dead?” She tilted her head toward the woman. “For what purpose?”

Isidore shrugged one shoulder. “The officer was only able to say that it appeared that they had taken the dead with them, south, back to the Old World.”

Magda pressed her fingertips to her forehead as she tried to make sense of it. “But why would they do such a thing? What would they want with the bodies?”