“No,” Magda said with an emphatic shake of her head. “Baraccus told me that there was much wrong at the Temple. He said that it would be thousands of years before anyone again set foot there.”
“That sounds ominous. I wonder why he said that?”
“I don’t know, but if Baraccus said it he must have known what he was talking about. That means that you or anyone else wouldn’t be able to get in.”
Merritt thought for a moment. “The Temple was supposed to be brought back to this world after the war is over and it’s safe again here.”
Magda looked up at him from under her brow. “Baraccus was a war wizard. Part of that was his ability for prophecy. Maybe he meant that it wouldn’t be safe in this world for thousands of years, and so it will have to remain banished.”
“That’s a grim thought.”
“Maybe it’s because of the other thing he said, though, that there is something seriously wrong there. Maybe it’s not because of what’s happening here in this world that it can’t return, but because of the trouble there.”
“I suppose that could be,” Merritt said, deep in thought.
“That means that those things you need are never going to be within your reach.”
Merritt’s shoulders sagged in frustration.
“That still doesn’t explain anything about what happened to the boxes of Orden. If they aren’t there, then they have to be here, in this world.”
“It would seem so,” she agreed.
“The Temple team put the boxes there, in the Temple,” he said as he reasoned it through out loud. “Lothain tried to get into the Temple to fix what the Temple team had sabotaged, but he couldn’t get in. Then, when Lothain’s attempt to enter the Temple failed, Baraccus sent some of his best men to try to get in to find out what the Temple team had done. When none of them returned, he finally went there himself. He confirmed the trouble there.”
“That’s right,” Magda said.
He gestured with the sword. “That would seem to indicate that the boxes of Orden were never actually placed in the Temple in the first place. That must have been part of the team’s treachery.”
“There has to be more to it that that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“If the boxes were never there, and no one else got in, then why did the Temple of the Winds turn the moon red in warning that something had gone terribly wrong there long after the Temple team had been tried and executed for treason? Something made the moon turn red in warning. Baraccus sent wizards who failed to return and then went himself to answer the Temple’s call for help and find out what was wrong. Something had to have happened that made the moon turn red.”
“I can’t imagine what. Did Baraccus give any hint?”
Magda’s gaze dropped. “He killed himself before I had a chance to really talk to him about it.” She looked back up at Merritt. “Maybe the boxes really were there in the temple all along, right where they belonged. Maybe someone else got in and took them, and that’s why the moon turned red.”
Merritt looked disturbed by the thought. “Someone else? Like who? You mean the enemy?”
Magda shrugged. “I don’t know. But maybe someone got in and stole the boxes of Orden and caused the other trouble that Baraccus spoke of. Maybe that’s why the moon turned red.”
Merritt ran a thumb along his jaw as he considered. “I suppose that’s possible.”
“Maybe it was the enemy. Someone Emperor Sulachan sent.”
Merritt looked over at her. “That’s a troubling thought.”
“Besides that troubling thought, as I told you, there are a number of troubling things going on at the Keep. I heard rumors of some of our wizards bringing the dead back to life. Do you know anything about such efforts?”
“I’ve heard that they’re working to try to learn about the weapons Sulachan has developed,” he said. “I think that Isidore was helping with just that sort of thing. She was dealing with matters from the spirit world.”
“Other strange things are going on. Enemy forces are harvesting the dead. They took all the dead from Isidore’s town of Grandengart. Reports I’ve heard say that they’ve taken bodies from other places as well, and from battlefields. Why would they do such a thing?”
Merritt heaved a sigh. “I don’t know.”
Magda went to the wicker couch and retrieved the bundle she had brought along. “Take a look at this.”
Chapter 54
Magda unfurled the wispy cloth bundle and held it up so he could see it the way it had looked when it had hung in the maze of hallways outside Isidore’s place.
Merritt set the sword back down on the red velvet and crossed the room, drawn by what he was seeing. She could make out his silhouette through the silky cloth as he ran his fingers over the spell-forms drawn on it.
“This is remarkable,” he whispered.
“I certainly think so. It saved my life.”
Merritt pulled the edge of the cloth aside to peer at her. “What do you mean?”
“The monster who killed Isidore came after me. He was no less intent on killing me than he had been on killing Isidore. He chased me through your maze. I was lost and trying my best to stay out of his reach. He finally trapped me in a dead end behind this cloth, but he couldn’t pass it to get at me. This cloth somehow stopped him.”
Merritt lifted the side of the cloth out so that he could examine all the symbols crudely painted on it.
“I can see why,” he said as he studied the symbols.
“Isidore told me that the spells she drew were derived from her work as a spiritist, and that they were both powerful and significant.”
He was still studying the drawings on the cloth. “There is no doubt of that.” He shook his head as his gaze wandered from one symbol to another. “I taught her the basics of these spell-forms, but she has added some very peculiar elements to them.”
“Isidore told me that the dead must heed them.”
Merritt glanced her way but didn’t say anything, so she did. “I can testify to the truth of what she said.” Magda joggled the cloth. “This is what stopped that monster, that dead man, from getting at me. He wouldn’t go past it. Isidore said that the dead must heed the things she drew. That’s another reason that I believe that this man who killed her and was trying to kill me was actually dead. He heeded this warning.”
Merritt glanced her way. “That might be true, but it’s not necessarily the case.” He took the cloth, draping it over an arm as he paced across the room, pulling folds aside one at a time as he considered the symbols lying across his arm.
“This is very disturbing, though,” he muttered. “These are keeper spells, meant to ward the dead.”
“Keeper spells? Merritt, why was Isidore worried about dead people? Why did she have these keeper spells drawn on hangings in the hallways around her that stopped the dead?”
He looked back at her a moment. “Perhaps because she had reason to fear them, or perhaps it was only a precaution. She was dealing with the world of the dead after all. That was her profession. Besides that, she was searching for spirits that are trapped in this world. Those spirits belong to the corpses that General Kuno took from Grandengart.”
“But those are spirits of the dead. Not the dead themselves.”
“What are you getting at?”
“What if what I’ve heard is true, and some of those wizards down there really are able to bring the dead back to life, or not really life, but, well, you know what I mean. What if they are creating monsters out of dead people? Mindless slaves to do their bidding?”
Merritt arched an eyebrow as he handed her back the silky cloth. “I have learned not to dismiss things that sound preposterous, but do you really believe that?”