“I see what you mean. That’s the kind of thing that’s too obvious in pointing people to the sword as the key. I know,” Quinn said as he swiped a finger across the first words, making them disappear, “I’ll change this part so that it says, ‘The third attempt at forging a Sword of Truth failed today.’ How’s that sound? That way it disassociates the key from the sword and makes the sword look like a special object of its own.”
Merritt smiled. “Perfect. That adds credibility to the sword being something other than the key.”
“I’ll add some real magic to the book,” Quinn said, “so that it seems even more real. Some occult spells and spell-forms will make for a sinister book.”
“You are a devious man, Quinn,” Magda said with a grin.
Quinn arched an eyebrow. “If you think so now, wait until you see The Book of Counted Shadows.”
Chapter 101
Magda rushed into the sliph’s room. Merritt followed close behind her.
Lord Rahl, leaning back against the low wall of the well, looked up when he heard them come through the doorway, and swept his long blond hair back off his face. He looked rather disoriented and euphoric after his journey in the sliph. It had that effect on a lot of people. Magda had to admit that it had had the same effect on her. Despite that, she still didn’t like the sliph.
“I came as fast as I could.” Lord Rahl gestured to Quinn. “Quinn filled me in on everything. Sounds like quite an eventful ordeal.” He grinned at Magda. “Confessor, eh? Seems to fit.” His gaze traveled the length of her white dress and back up again. “I must say, so does that dress. Quite well, in fact.”
“Thank you,” she said, not knowing exactly what to say.
“When I first got the message, I was pretty worried that for some crazy reason you were actually going to marry that pig of a prosecutor. I should have known better. Good job, Magda. Good job. You indeed did have a reason to stay at the Keep, as you told me the last time I saw you.”
Merritt nodded his agreement. “Even though Magda uncovered the plot and brought Lothain’s treason to light, I’m afraid that we still have a lot of work to do, and a difficult war ahead of us. Did Quinn tell you about the half people as well?”
Alric Rahl sighed as he nodded. “And these walking dead people things.”
“We wanted you to know what your soldiers were facing,” Merritt said. “They’re going to be hard to fight. I haven’t worked out a method, yet, to keep them away from us. I would suggest that you do something about any places the dead are buried, like the catacombs.”
“I always worried about men with a weapon in their hand, or a gifted conjuring magic. I never thought I’d have to worry about the dead people.”
“I can assure you, it’s not a thought I like either,” Quinn said from his writing desk.
A thought tickled at the back of Magda’s mind, but she couldn’t quite bring it forward.
“Say,” Lord Rahl said, stretching his neck to look out the door to make sure no one was near. “I have to bring up something rather important. But it has to be kept a secret among just us in this room.”
It seemed to Magda like a day of secrets. “What is it?”
Lord Rahl scratched his jaw as he searched for words. “We found something, something quite important.”
“You ‘found’ it?” Merritt asked suspiciously. “Where did you ‘find’ this important something?”
Lord Rahl heaved a sigh. “It was on a man we killed. Well, actually, we killed a whole bunch of men until we finally killed this particular one. By how well he was being protected, we knew that he had to be an important person, or have something mighty important on him. It turned out to be the latter.”
“So, what was it?” Magda asked.
Lord Rahl put his hands on the short stone wall of the sliph’s well and leaned back to look up at them with blue eyes.
“It was covered in jewels.”
Merritt was still looking suspicious. “You’re telling us that you found important treasure?”
“You might say so. These jewels were covering a box.” He gave them each a meaningful look.
“A box,” Merritt repeated carefully. “What sort of box?”
Alric Rahl arched an eyebrow as he folded his arms. “A box as black as the Keeper’s heart, and containing great power, if you catch my drift.”
Magda glanced at Merritt before looking back at Lord Rahl. “And what makes you think that this box contains great power? Did you try to open it?”
He frowned indignantly. “Do you take me for a fool?”
“No,” Magda said. “But you said that it contained great power. What do you know about this box?”
He shot her a look. “Are you forgetting that Baraccus and I were good friends? He told me about how the power of Orden was contained in three inky black boxes covered in jewels. The thing is, he said that the boxes had been sent away to the Temple of the Winds.” He looked from Magda to Merritt and back again. “So if they’re in the Temple of the Winds, what is one of them doing in this world in the possession of a dead man?”
“We’d better tell him,” Merritt whispered to her.
Magda nodded as she let out a long sigh. “The boxes were stolen from the Temple of the Winds.”
“Obviously. But who took them?”
Merritt shrugged. “I’d say Sulachan’s people if I had to venture a guess.”
“What about the other two?” Magda asked.
Lord Rahl, arms still folded, sighed unhappily. “Don’t know. I only have the one. And you would have a hard time believing how many men we had to kill to get this one.”
“I can only imagine,” Merritt said. “But if it was Sulachan who had it, you had better believe that a lot more men than that are going to come to get it back.”
“No doubt,” Lord Rahl said.
“We have to hide it,” Magda said to Merritt. “Trying to protect it is too risky. It must be hidden.”
“That sounds well and good, but where?” Merritt asked. “I don’t know a place safe enough that Emperor Sulachan couldn’t get to it. After all, it was hidden—in the Temple of the Winds in the underworld—and he managed to get to it.”
“Well,” she said, “if he didn’t know where to look he—”
Magda went silent as the thought tickling at the back of her mind suddenly became clear. She blinked. She wondered if it could work. She wondered if it was even possible.
She seized Merritt’s shirtsleeve. “A gravity spell?”
Lord Rahl’s face scrunched up into a frown. “A what?”
“A gravity spell,” Merritt said, ignoring Lord Rahl, his attention focused on Magda because he realized from the look in her eyes that she was on to something important. “What about a gravity spell?”
“That little gravity spell you created and gave to me draws those little clay figures to it.”
“Right,” he said in a drawl as it started to dawn on him.
“What if you created a bigger gravity spell that would draw the dead that Sulachan’s forces have animated, and draw the half people to it as well? Naja helped create them. She knows how they function and how their spirits have been manipulated, so maybe she could give you information on the spells involved and then you could create a gravity spell specifically designed to draw them both in, right?”
“For someone born without the gift,” Merritt said with a smile, “you sure have some pretty interesting ideas of how to use it. You make a pretty good maker’s match.”