“Merritt was not cowed when they told him that the existence of such templates were only speculation. In a clear, quiet voice he told them that he knew what he was doing. He said that he had been able to learn through his research that such occulted calculations would have to exist. He said that he was sure that the formulas from before the star shift had survived. He said that at the least there had to be charts for a seventh-level breach from which he could plot his own templates.
“Merritt assured them that if he could get the rest of what he needed, he could create a weapon, a person, who could infallibly pull truth from any lie.
“All the councilmen started talking at once. The elder interrupted them and told Merritt that, based on what he had heard and what he knew, the attempt to create such a weapon would likely result in the death of the subject. He said that the enemy took such risks with lives, but we did not.
“Merritt didn’t answer. He stood with his back straight and let the other councilmen similarly denounce his ideas. By the things they were saying, I’m not sure that the council even understood Merritt’s concepts. The things he was talking about were well over my head, yet I was able to grasp sparks of his brilliance in the things he said. But I don’t know enough to judge the accuracy of Merritt’s claims. The council certainly didn’t seem to think highly of them.
“The elder asked if he was correct about the danger to the subject. Merritt was silent for a time and then quietly said that while he was confident that he could do it, he had always been honest about the lethal risks involved. But, he asked them, how many would die without his weapon. They sat back in their chairs, unable, or unwilling, to say.
“The elder finally leaned forward again and said that there was nothing they could do to help him because they didn’t know if such seventh-level rift calculations even existed, but if they did, the council didn’t possess them. Merritt then said that since the council wasn’t able to provide him with the zenith formulas he needed, he would have go to the First Wizard himself. Several councilmen laughed and said that he could try.”
Magda now knew why she had recalled the name Merritt when she had heard it back in the passages on the way to see the spiritist. She remembered Baraccus coming home after a private meeting that had unsettled him. Magda had asked what troubled him. He had stood at the window looking out at the moon for a long time before he finally said that a brilliant wizard had come to him seeking some valuable and rare rift calculations for creating a seventh-level breach. Magda hadn’t known what that meant, but there was no doubt in her mind as to the seriousness of the issue. She asked if Baraccus had given the man what he needed.
Baraccus had said, “I couldn’t give Merritt the formulas he needs. I wish I could, but all the breach calculations are locked away in the Temple of the Winds, out of reach in the underworld.”
Magda knew, in Isidore’s story, that Merritt was not destined to get what he needed by visiting the First Wizard.
“Finally,” Isidore went on, “the elder suggested to Merritt that he go back to work on lesser tasks until he could come up with something worthwhile, something not outside the realm of possibility.
“When Merritt passed me on his way out, I could see that his jaw was set and his teeth were clenched. His fist was tightly gripped around the wire-wound hilt of his sword. I felt sorry for him because I heard something in his voice that I liked.”
Magda came out of her thoughts and glanced over at the woman. “What do you mean?”
Isidore shrugged. “I don’t know. Sincerity. Competence. I could tell that he knew what he was talking about even though the council wasn’t taking him seriously.
“And his eyes . . .”
“What about his eyes?”
Isidore shrugged self-consciously. “I don’t know. They were an unusual color for one thing—on the green side of hazel. But it was what I could see in his eyes that caught me up.
“When he looked at me, I was stopped dead by his gaze. It was like he could look right into my soul. Even though he was quietly angry at the council’s rejection of his request, there was still something gentle about his eyes. Through the anger in them, I could also see his compassion.”
Even in the soft candlelight, Magda could see that Isidore was blushing. “He made you feel safe,” she guessed.
Isidore nodded. “And I felt bad for him. I thought they were failing to recognize his true ability, his potential. I guess that because I’m a young sorceress I know what it feels like to have people not take you seriously when you really do know what you’re talking about. Sophia had taken me seriously, but few others ever did.”
“What about your meeting with the council?” Magda asked. “Did they agree to help you?”
Isidore let out a deep sigh. “When my turn came, the council sympathized with my story, but said that there was nothing they could do about the tragedy.
“I suspected that they didn’t entirely believe me. I can’t say that I blamed them. Most people, even most wizards, don’t really know much about the underworld, so the council couldn’t grasp the significance, the danger, of the things I was telling them any more than they could grasp the insights Merritt had brought them. My father would have, but these men hadn’t spent a lifetime studying the underworld the way he had.
“The council’s view was that as tragic as it was, the people from Grandengart were dead and therefore beyond help. The elder said that they needed to worry about the living.
“No one on the council could see that my discovery had a direct bearing on the living, and especially on keeping the living alive.
“The elder looked me in the eye and said that they had a great many important things to worry about. Though he didn’t say it, I got the distinct impression that he meant to scold me for wasting their time.
“I said that with the war growing day by day I completely understood, but, as a sorceress and a spiritist, I believed that this had something important to do with that war and that it was somehow tied into it all. I said that I feared there was more going on than anyone was aware of and that we were all at far greater peril than anyone realized.”
Magda had been before the council a number of times and knew full well their capacity for detachment.
“What did they say?”
“Well, after a moment’s thought, the elder leaned back in his chair and suggested that perhaps I could find a wizard willing to help me. He said that if I could find such a wizard, I was welcome to his help.
“One of the other councilmen chuckled and suggested that I seek the help of young Wizard Merritt, that maybe I could take his mind off his daydreaming.”
Magda was afraid that she knew all too well what had happened next.
Chapter 34
“So,” Isidore said, “considering the possibilities of what the enemy could be doing with the bodies they had harvested and what they might be doing to prevent the spirits of those poor people from finding their rightful way into the spirit world, and why they would do such ghastly things, I decided that my best chance was to look for Wizard Merritt.”
Magda was not liking where the story was going, especially since she already knew that a wizard had taken Isidore’s eyes, and it seemed that Merritt was a man already engaged in the secretive business of altering people with magic into something other than the way they were born. She knew that some such alterations were relatively minor, but some, like the sliph, were monstrous transformations.