Magda pulled off her cloak and wrapped it around the woman, covering her as best she could even though the woman still had one arm trapped and hanging from the chain pinned in the ceiling. The woman’s lips moved as she whispered her thanks. It was a voice as gracefully feminine as the rest of her.
Merritt tried to work the sword in under the other manacle, but it wouldn’t go. “Can you lift her any? Her weight is pulling her hand into the top of the shackle and I can’t get the sword through.”
Magda nodded and strained to lift the dead weight. “Can you help at all?” she asked the limp woman. “Can you use your legs to lift just a little? For just a moment?”
The woman strained to put weight on her legs. It was just enough of a help for Merritt to start to get the sword through. Magda could feel the woman shaking with the effort.
As soon as Merritt was able to get the blade fully under the manacle, he immediately gave the sword a mighty yank. The iron band shattered with a loud bang. Pieces of iron clanged against the stone walls. One piece hit Magda’s arm. The metal felt hot when it hit her skin and bounced off, but fortunately it didn’t cut her.
The woman collapsed into Magda’s arms. Controlling the descent, Magda went to the ground with the weight of the woman, keeping her from falling hard and hurting herself. Once safely down on the ground, Magda hugged the woman close and pulled the cloak around her, trying to cover her and begin to warm her icy flesh.
“Who did this to you?” Magda asked, unable to contain her anger. “Who put you in here and ordered this done?”
The woman looked up and shook her head. “I don’t know them. Men. Some men.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment in a stitch of pain. “I came to help. They wouldn’t let me. They hurt me instead. They said they were going to send me back in pieces to show others what would happen to them as well if they tried to do the same as me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Magda whispered.
Looking rather mystified, the woman frowned as she reached up and touched her finger to a tear rolling down Magda’s cheek.
Magda quickly wiped her cheek. “We’re going to get you out of here,” she told the woman.
The woman laid a hand on Magda’s shoulder. “Thank you, but you can’t help me.”
“Yes, we can,” Magda insisted. “Do you think you can stand?”
“You don’t understand. You must not help me. I am lost. You must leave me. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. The dream walkers will tell their contacts here and then they will do this to you as well.”
Magda shared a look with Merritt.
“We have a way to stop dream walkers from doing that,” Magda said.
“Dream walkers are powerful.” The woman turned her eyes up. “Are you so sure?”
“We’re sure,” Magda said. “Now, can you stand, just until we can get you out of here?”
The woman nodded. “If it kills me I want to walk out of this place.”
Magda had to smile at that. She could easily understand the sentiment.
“I’m Magda, by the way. This is Merritt. He’s gifted. As soon as we get you out of here we’ll protect you from the dream walkers so that they can’t enter your mind, and then when you’re safe, Merritt can heal you.”
The woman reached out and squeezed his hand.
With a finger, Magda lifted some of the jet black hair back off the woman’s face. “What’s your name?”
“Naja Moon.”
It was a name as exotic as the woman’s looks.
“Well, Naja, can you tell me why you came here, to the Keep?”
Naja looked up at Merritt and then back to Magda. “I came because Emperor Sulachan must be stopped or he will destroy the world of life.”
Magda straightened a little as she glanced up at Merritt standing over them with the light sphere. She leaned in again toward Naja.
“How do you know this, Naja?”
“I was his spiritist.”
Chapter 73
Before Magda could ask anything else, Naja’s eyes winced closed as she endured a shudder of pain. When the stitch of agony eased up, she struggled to catch her breath as she rested, huddled in Magda’s warm embrace.
Steam from her labored breathing rose into the still air of the small stone cell. Instead of asking anything else for the moment, Magda rubbed the woman’s hands, letting her rest while working some warmth into her icy fingers. The chill of being deep underground was an insidious killer, over time sapping a person’s energy and eventually their life.
Magda knew that the woman needed to gather her strength after having her arms freed. No longer hanging from the ceiling, she was at last able to breathe properly. Her wrists had finally stopped bleeding, but she had other, more serious wounds that Magda knew needed tending as soon as possible.
Merritt was impatient to get out of the dungeon—to be away from the shields so that he could heal her, but also to get them all away from the ever-present threat of the guards. By the way he kept checking the corridor outside the outer door, it was clear that he was concerned that the longer they waited, the more suspicious the guards would get.
They also had to worry that someone else might show up, possibly even those who had captured Naja, had put her in the dungeon, and had been torturing her. Getting trapped down in the dungeons would be the end of them all. No one knew they were there, and if they were locked in, no one would be coming to help them.
After catching her breath for a short time, Naja, without being asked, started to try putting weight on her legs. She looked to be even more impatient than Merritt to get out before the guards returned.
Naja finally stood to her full height. The woman’s clothes were nowhere to be found in the cell, but fortunately Magda’s cloak was big enough to wrap around her. Naja was thankful to have it, and clutched it to herself as she stood, testing her legs. She was proving to be stronger than Magda had expected.
The cloak would have to do for the time being. She was close to the same height and build as Magda, so Magda would be able to give her some of her own clothes. First they needed to get out of the dungeon.
“How is it that your blade did not cut me?” Naja asked Merritt as she moved her arms about, working the circulation back into them.
He looked back after checking out the doorway. “It has magic that prevented it from cutting you.”
“Magic does not work down here. I tried. I tried very hard.”
“This magic is not obstructed by the shields down here. It’s somewhat similar to the way the magic of the light sphere isn’t blocked by the shields. It’s complicated, and I don’t want to oversimplify it, but basically the sword’s magic won’t harm an innocent or a person believed to be a friend. I don’t consider you the enemy, so the sword didn’t cut you. I hadn’t tested that aspect of it, though, so I had to be careful. It appears to work as it should. It also appears, by the way it cut through those iron manacles, that the other side of its magic is working as well.”
This was news to Magda. He hadn’t told her the part about its magic not being able to harm innocent people. Merritt was full of wonders.
“Why are you two helping me?” Naja’s voice was clearly laced with pain, and justifiably, some suspicion.
“We’re actually hoping that you can help us,” Merritt said. “I heard that you wanted to join our cause. When we found out where you were, we knew we had to get you out.”
“I thought that the people here did not want my help. I thought I was wrong about the New World and the wizards who live and work here. Instead of my help, they chained me up in this awful place. They said that I was a spy and I was to eventually be put to death.”