The First Confessor (42 page)

The sudden bursts of lightning lit the towering pines all around in flashes of harsh, white light that cast bizarre shadows, making the journey through the dense forest unsettling. When the lightning abruptly cut off, it suddenly plunged the woods back into blackness. It made for alternating glaring light and then total blindness. The loud crack of thunder that followed each flash was equally unsettling. Sometimes a bright flicker of lightning and the loud bang were quickly followed by deep, rolling thunder that shook the ground.

Unlike most storms, this lightning became ever more incessant. As they made their way between the towering trunks of pines and occasionally followed the trail as it tunneled through thick foliage, the lightning flashed relentlessly in a nearly continual display of crackling intensity. In fact, the lightning was often so closely stitched together that she could almost, but not quite, have made her way without the lantern’s light. The intervals of darkness between flashes were surprisingly brief, but without the lantern it would have been like being blind as they went from brightly lit to darkest night.

The air smelled like rain was imminent. Magda was resigned to getting wet. She could also smell the dry pine needles matting the ground, along with the occasional balsam trees or swaths of cinnamon ferns beside the trail.

“How much farther?” Merritt asked as they descended the back of the low ridge.

Magda stopped and pointed off to the right. “If it was light, I believe you could see the pond through the trees, down there.”

Merritt cast out his hand, as if he were tossing a pebble. A flare of light, not unlike a tiny, solid bit of the colossal light show overhead, sailed out in the direction she had pointed, illuminating the dark trunks of trees as it passed. She saw the water reflect the light before it touched down on the rippling surface and was extinguished.

“That’s too steep and wooded here down to the shore,” he said. “We need to have some open space.”

“Just up here ahead is the place I told you about,” she said. “The trail just ahead will take us to the open area at the pond’s edge.”

Magda led him onward until she reached a familiar, ancient oak. She passed just beneath a fat, low limb and warned Merritt to watch his head. He ducked under as he followed after her. The trail wound its way down across a band of open ledges and then through a narrow cut in a screen of cedar trees. Dropping down a steep but brief slope, they arrived at a broad, flat, open area with scattered tufts of grass. In the spring it was often flooded at the windward end of the pond, but by high summer it was dry and open.

Lightning flashes revealed the pond before them and the towering stands of trees to the sides that sheltered them somewhat from the wind. In the flashes of lightning, Magda could see that to the right the surface of the pond was thickly layered with lily pads riding the choppy surface. Off to the left stood a band of rushes bending and whipping with each gust. Stretching out from the gravel shoreline was the black expanse of the pond, with a short cliff backing it at the far side.

“It’s perfect,” Merritt said as he looked around.

A bright, crackling flash of lightning, followed by booming thunder, silenced all the night creatures. When the thunder rolled away into the distance it left an interlude of quiet in its wake. The only sound was the wind in the trees and the small waves lapping the shore. The quiet was quickly broken by yet more rolling thunder.

When Magda turned back, she saw Merritt down on his knees, smoothing the sandy dirt among clumps of long grass. Once he had a clean, flat area, he stood and brushed his hands clean.

“Set the lantern down over here on this rock,” he said, pointing beside the area he had just smoothed out.

As Magda was setting down the lantern, the chilly air rang with the sound of the sword being drawn. The blade coming out of the scabbard made a uniquely menacing sound that sent a chill up her spine. In the faint lantern light she could see Merritt standing with his feet spread and the sword in one hand. A bright flash of lightning cast his shadow across the area he had prepared.

“You know how to draw the Grace, right?” he asked her as he lifted his fist, showing her the ring he wore with the Grace engraved on it.

“Merritt, I’m not gifted.”

“I told you, it isn’t necessary. I will be the one doing what is needed with magic, but you will have to be the one to draw the Grace. That’s all I will need you to do.”

“Well, since I’m not gifted I never had reason to draw the Grace, but I’ve seen it often enough. It’s not that complicated. I shouldn’t have any problem at all drawing it.”

“It needs to be drawn in blood.”

She had expected as much and nodded.

He had that serious look again that had a way of making her brow bead with sweat. “The sword needs to taste the blood as well,” he said. “The blood connects the sword to the Grace.”

Magda eyed the sword. She didn’t know what he meant about the sword needing to taste blood. She folded her arms against a chill gust.

“How much blood will it take?”

He stepped into the center of the flat area and, using the sword to point, gestured in a circle around him. “The Grace needs to be big enough to surround where I’m standing. It has to be enough blood to complete the whole thing. All the lines you draw have to be complete. They can’t be a bit here, and another bit there. It has to be fully drawn with complete lines. I’m afraid that it will take quite a bit of blood to do that.”

She pulled strands of windblown hair back off her face. She had known it wasn’t going to be easy. She had insisted on being a part of it. She had to be the one to do it. She wasn’t about to back out now, no matter what it took.

“I understand,” Magda said. “I’ll do my best.”

Merritt stepped closer. He swept his hair back. Lightning cast his handsome features in stark light and black shadows.

“Listen, Magda, for the last time, you don’t have to do this. It’s dangerous. There are wizards on the teams who would—”

“Wizards we can’t be sure we can trust,” she reminded him. “Especially not with something this important.”

“I know, but you need to understand that this particular sort of conjuring requires the use of blood in order to power certain elements. Your blood would link you to the event. It ties you directly into the elements involved. Those elements contain not just Additive Magic, but Subtractive. The mixing of those elements is what got a lot of wizards killed while trying to do this very thing.”

He had told her all that before—several times—when they had been crossing through the city as he began having second thoughts about her being a part of finishing the key. She hadn’t let him dissuade her then, and she wasn’t about to let him do so now, but she also hadn’t asked for explanations of some of the things he’d said. She’d figured that what was necessary was necessary, and she would find out what she needed to know when the time came. That time had come.

“You said that before, but I don’t know what it means, actually, to be linked to the event.”

Merritt looked sympathetic. He stepped closer still, gazing down at her as he lifted his fist to show her the ring he wore.

“The Grace represents the interconnection of everything, the world of life and the world of the dead, Additive and Subtractive, as well as the spark of the gift that runs through it all. The Grace does more, though, than simply represent Additive and Subtractive magic, Creation and obliteration, life and death; it connects them into a cohesive whole.

“By using your blood to draw the Grace, you are the one providing those living elements, that cohesive whole, to the completion of the key. What was missing before was the breach formulas that are supposed to guard those new links in the sword while the combination routines allow the elements to coalesce. Those breach formulas are meant to keep the whole thing stable while the Additive and Subtractive parts are fusing. They do that by actually breaching the nature of the Grace long enough for the elements to fuse into the target—in this case the key.

“That’s how the others were killed; there was nothing breaching the Grace until the two sides could combine in a stable fashion. That’s what happens in life, when a wizard with both sides of the gift is born, both sides are fused into him, but we’re trying to do that same thing artificially, and we didn’t have the formula to create the breach that would allow it to take place. Now, with the breach open, the whole process can draw what it needs from you, through the Grace drawn in your blood, as it uses both sides—life and death—that are inherent in your existence.”

Much to her amazement, Magda was actually beginning to understand the principles involved. That wasn’t making it any easier to work up the nerve to do it, but at least she was grasping the true nature of the danger.

“So I would be providing the power of death as well?”

“Yes. We all will die one day, so I think that we also carry latent death within us from the moment we come into existence. Your spark of life is what powers the Grace you draw with your blood. That Grace thus contains both the power of life and the power of death because you do.

“The power of Orden deals with life, death, and the whole nature of existence, so the key also needs to have both sides. It needs both Additive and Subtractive, life and death, to be complete.

“Through the Grace, you would be providing those forces. As I invest those elements in the sword, with the breach open, it will draw strength from your life force.

“But if something goes wrong because the formulas I use have flaws, or I make a mistake in conjuring spell-forms, or if the seventh-level breach doesn’t open and then close properly, you could be caught beyond the veil to the underworld, just like those wizards Baraccus sent to the Temple of the Winds in the underworld. They were caught beyond the veil and never returned.”

Magda twined her fingers together. “I trust you, Merritt. You’ve been working on this for a long time. No one knows more about it than you. If it can be done, you can do it. I could be in no better hands.”

“And what if I’m wrong about some part of it?” He gestured vaguely. “Look, Magda, you don’t need to do this. I can get a wizard from one of the teams to try it first. This kind of thing is their job. They’ve devoted their lives to creating such dangerous things. I’m not so sure that you should—”

“We’ve had this argument already and it’s settled. This is more important than my life and you know it. This is the only life I have and I don’t want to lose it, but there are profoundly important things at stake here this night, things I care deeply about, things I believe in, like not letting harm come to all our people.

“The boxes of Orden are here, in the world of life. Someone stole them. They obviously must want to use those boxes and when they do they will intentionally—or even unintentionally—bring all of our lives to an end. Stopping that from happening is what matters. What good will it do to worry about a possible danger to me tonight, at the cost of all of us tomorrow?

“Who else but you can stop that from happening? Who else but you can complete the key? Who else but me can we trust to help you?

“I have to do this, Merritt. I trust you to take care with my life, but if I lose it in the attempt, then I will have died trying to save all life and I don’t want you to blame yourself. This is worth doing. I’d rather die trying to preserve the value of life than watch it all end because I failed to do what only I can.

“Trust in yourself, Merritt. Do what no other but you can do. Use me for what you need to complete the key.”

He watched her eyes for a long time as lightning flashed and thunder boomed.

“You’re something else, Magda Searus.” He slowly shook his head. “You really are.”

She realized that she was glad he was having a difficult time putting her life at risk. She wouldn’t want him to be indifferent.

Merritt finally held out a hand, palm up. “Give me your arm.”

Magda held her arm out for him. Merritt closed a big hand around her wrist and held it in a firm grip.

“Be still, now,” he said. “I don’t want you to jerk or I might cut too deep.”

Magda took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to steady her racing heart. It wasn’t the blade she feared as much as the unknown of the ordeal that was to follow. She glanced around, briefly wondering if she would ever see the world of life again. She met Merritt’s gaze.

“I’m ready. Do it.”

Without preamble he drew the blade across the inside of her forearm, close to her wrist. She felt the razor-sharp edge bite into her flesh as he dragged it across her arm, carefully controlling how deeply he cut. It sent a shock of pain through her. Blood immediately began gushing down her arm. He had cut deeper than she had expected. She felt faint. She fought the feeling. She knew that she had to remain conscious.

Magda watched the blood flood down her arm, her wrist, down over her palm, to finally engulf and run off her fingers. She was shocked to see how much blood there was.

“Hurry, now,” Merritt said, “before you lose too much blood.”

Feeling like she was watching herself in a dream, Magda took a couple of steps away to begin drawing the outer circle, the one representing the beginning of the world of the dead.

“No,” Merritt said, holding her shoulders as he guided her back, “I need you to start in the center. You need to draw the star first.”

She looked up at the shadow of his face. “But I thought—”

“I know what you thought and ordinarily you would be right, but it can’t be drawn the way you were taught. This is for something entirely different than the Grace is usually used for. We’re altering the elements involved.” He nodded his encouragement. “Draw the star first.”

Magda had been taught that a Grace was always started with the outer circle, then moved inward through the square to the inner circle to the central eight-pointed star, and then finally the rays of the gift were drawn from the star to cross that inner circle, the square, and finally across the outer circle out into the underworld. She had always been told that the Grace was never to be drawn in any other way, not even casually. The Grace was a serious device that carried great importance as well as powerful magic if done by the right people, and especially if done by them in blood.