“By agreeing to marry him during the ceremony tomorrow when he is named First Wizard, that at least keeps people from dying tonight. But that’s all the time it buys. If I refuse, a lot of innocent people are going to die immediately, but I hold no illusions; once he uses me to win the popular support in the Keep and has an iron grip on rule, he will purge the army and the officials of anyone who doesn’t fully support him and then I will encounter an unfortunate end. I am only an expedient means to his ends, and my value to him is very short-lived.
“If we don’t do something, and do it now while I’m still useful to him, then we and a lot of our people are going to die. I now know the truth about him, but half the Keep doesn’t.
“Many people believe that Lothain is fighting for the good of mankind by prosecuting those he says are traitors. They think he is our savior. If I tell them otherwise, that he is often prosecuting people who can reveal his true intent, like Naja, most people won’t believe it. They will believe the lies Lothain tells them.
“People aren’t going to believe me if I try to tell them what is really going on. They believe the word of Lothain, an important man, the head prosecutor. When Lothain makes the accusation that Baraccus conspired with those in the Old World to defeat us, they believe him. No matter what I say, they would think I am the real traitor for siding with Baraccus.
“People need the truth. I’m the only one who can deliver truth. But I’d be dead before I could finish making the accusation.
“The way things stand, I don’t have any way to stop him.”
Merritt eyed her suspiciously. “But you said that you have a plan.”
“Yes, I have a plan. It’s true that I’m so exhausted I can hardly stand. I understand that. But we have only one chance. We have to take it. I came looking for you for a reason.”
Merritt’s expression turned unreadable. “What reason?”
Magda gathered her resolve.
“I want you to use me to create a Confessor.”
Chapter 87
Merritt tilted his head toward her as his eyes narrowed. “You want me to alter you into a Confessor?”
“Yes,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of time. We need to hurry.”
Merritt walked off a distance to stand beneath one of the enormous limbs spreading from an ancient oak. With his back to her, the moon cast cold light over his broad shoulders.
Looking grim, he finally turned back.
“Please don’t ask that of me, Magda.”
She stepped closer under the massive limbs of the oak. “I had always thought that changing a person’s nature with magic was a cold, calculating, callous thing to do for the sake of creating a weapon. I could never understand how people could allow wizards to alter them. I thought that it was a perversion of our existence.
“Isidore taught me that it isn’t always the case. She taught me that if it’s done for the right reasons it can actually be a chance to make the best of ourselves. Done in the right way, it is adding to who and what we already are and what we already believe. In that way it’s not altering a person’s nature, but adding to it. Such a purpose can be the moral thing to do.
“Even more, though, you’re not only a wizard. You’re Merritt. You may not see the difference in that, but I do. Though we haven’t known each other for long, it has been long enough for me to know you, to know your heart.”
“That’s reassuring to hear, but knowing me isn’t enough.”
“I realize that, but I’ve thought this through. You may not believe that, but I have. It’s not just that this is the only way, it’s that it’s the right thing. While creating weapons out of people can be a terrible deed, done in the right way by the right person and for the right reasons, it can be a wondrous thing.
“You envisioned the idea of a Confessor for the right reasons. Life is truth. Truth is life. You wanted a way to seek truth. Such a cause, in the promotion of life, is noble.
“Killing is a terrible thing, too. I hate killing. But killing isn’t necessarily wrong.” She gestured back down the trail. “Killing those men tonight was the right thing to do, for the right reasons. It was done for good. It was done to preserve innocent life. In this instance, not killing would have been immoral.
“You intend the Confessors to stop evil, just as my killing those men stopped them from doing evil. That makes both the right thing to do.
“Merritt, I want that person, that Confessor that you create, to be me. I understand the nobility of purpose in the creation of a Confessor. I know precisely what to do with that opportunity. Please, give me the chance to do what only I can do. Give me the means to help stop evil and preserve life. Don’t let me fail to do what only I can do.
“It’s my life. I want it to have this purpose.”
“There’s more to it, Magda. We need time to consider all the implications.”
“Ordinarily, that would be the right thing, but we have no time. It has to be now. It has to be tonight. I have to use that Confessor power to expose the truth. I wish it could wait, but it can’t. This is our only chance.
“Baraccus told me that my destiny is to find truth—”
Merritt threw an arm up, gesturing angrily. “Life is not about fulfilling a destiny. Your life has no destiny but what you make of it.”
“And this is what I want to make of it. Baraccus also told me to live the life that only I can live. He told me to have the courage to take up that calling. He was asking me to choose my destiny. Prophecy is not only about destiny, but the balance—free will. Becoming a Confessor is my calling. But it’s not preordained. It’s a chance, a fork in the road of my life. I have to have the courage to take it on of my own free will. In that way, the balance of prophecy and free will is the magic of the future.”
He looked to have calmed down considerably. “I have to admit, you have that much of it right.”
“Merritt, this is the life that only I can live. I’ve always been the person trying to uncover the truth of things.
“I found you for a reason. Destiny brought me to you so that the choice could be laid before me to make. I rejected any such choice for my life until I came to know you and to understand the real nature of what such a choice means. I found you because I need to make that choice for my life. Since then I’ve come to understand that I need this mission for my life.
“I am that person, Merritt. I’ve made the choice.
“I am your Confessor.”
Merritt looked down and turned away.
After a moment he cleared his throat. “Magda, you don’t know all that is involved, all that it means. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Then tell me, and tell me now, because we are rapidly running out of time.”
He turned to look her in the eye. “This would alter the nature of who you are. The Confessor power would become part of you, much as eyesight and hearing are part of your nature. You would be a Confessor in much the way I am a wizard.
“That means that just as any child you have would carry other traits from you, such as sight and hearing, they would also carry this trait. Any child you bear would be a Confessor. Their children would inherit the same power, and theirs, and so on. Once created, the power is part of you, it is you.”
Magda paced off a short distance, chewing a thumbnail, thinking. “It would be part of them by birth?”
“Yes. You would be deciding not only for you, but for them as well. In a way, you would be creating their destiny.”