The First Confessor (Sword of Truth 0)

Not a full moon before, everyone had been stunned when Lothain had brought charges of treason against the entire Temple team, the men who had, at the direction of the Central Council, gathered dangerous items of magic together into the Temple of the Winds and then sent it all into the underworld for safekeeping until after the war. The trial had been a sensation. In it, Lothain had revealed that the men had gone far beyond their mission and not only locked away more than they were supposed to, but made it all but impossible to recover.

In their defense, some of them said that they believed in the Old World’s efforts to save mankind from the tyranny of magic.

The convictions had ensured that Lothain’s reputation had an edge to it that was as razor-sharp as the axes that had beheaded the hundred convicted wizards of the Temple team.

In a bold effort to try to undo the damage done by the traitors, Lothain himself had on his own authority then gone beyond the veil, into the underworld itself, to the Temple of the Winds. Everyone feared for him on such a journey. Everyone feared to lose a man of such ability and powers.

To everyone’s relief, Lothain had returned alive, if shaken by the journey. Unfortunately, the damage done by the Temple team had proven to be greater than even he had suspected, and he had not found a way in, so he had returned without being able to repair the damage done by the Temple team he had convicted.

Lothain strolled in closer to Magda and gestured, indicating the formality of his preamble.

“Lady Searus, may I offer my condolences on the unfortunate and untimely death of your husband.”

One of the council members leaned in. “He was a great man.”

Lothain’s sidelong glance moved the man back in line with the others.

“Thank you, Prosecutor Lothain.” She glanced at the councilman who had spoken. “My husband was indeed a great man.”

Lothain lifted a dark eyebrow. “And why do you suppose that such a great man, a man beloved by his people as well as his alluring young wife, would throw himself over the Keep wall to drop several thousand feet down the side of the mountain to meet his death on the rocks below?”

Magda kept her voice steady and spoke the simple truth. “I wouldn’t know, Prosecutor. He sent me away for the day on an errand. When I returned, he was dead.”

“Really,” Lothain said in a drawl as he touched his chin and gazed off in thought. “Are you saying that you suspect that he didn’t wish you to be here, to see the terrible damage a fall from that height to the rocks below would do to him?”

Magda swallowed. She had been unable to prevent herself from imagining it a thousand times in her mind’s eye. By the time she had returned, people had already seen to having him sealed in a stately coffin.

That morning, scant hours after she had learned of his death, the ornately carved maple coffin with her husband’s remains had been placed on a funeral pyre on the rampart outside the First Wizard’s enclave. Because his body had been sealed in the coffin, she wasn’t able to look upon his face one last time. She didn’t ask to have it opened. She knew why the coffin was sealed.

The pyre burned for most of the day as hundreds of solemn people stood silently watching the flames consume their beloved leader, and for many, their last hope.

Instead of answering such a tasteless question, Magda changed the subject. “May I inquire as to your business here, Prosecutor Lothain?”

“If you don’t mind, Lady Searus, I will be the one to ask the questions.”

His tone had an edge to it that took her by surprise.

Seeing the shocked expression on her face, he offered a brief, insincere smile. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your grieving, but you see, with the war threatening our very existence, there are matters of pressing concern to all of us that I’m afraid I must ask about. That’s all I meant.”

Magda was not in the mood to answer questions. She had her own pressing concern. But she knew this man well enough to know that he wouldn’t leave her to her own business until he saw to his.

She saw no choice but to answer his questions.

Chapter 3

Magda smoothed the front of her dress as she gathered her composure. “And what pressing concerns would you need to ask me about?”

He flicked a finger out toward the shutters. “Well, there is the matter of the moon turning red.” Lothain strolled off a few paces and then turned back. “After I failed to gain access to the Temple of the Winds, others, presumably with abilities more effective for such a specialized undertaking than I, also made the journey. None of them returned.”

Magda was baffled as to what he was getting at. “They were good men, talented men, valuable men. It was a great loss.”

Lothain strolled back close to her. His black-eyed gaze glided over items on the table, like the eyes of a vulture looking among bones for scraps. He turned a notebook with a finger to see what was written on the spine before addressing her again.

“Your husband selected those men.”

“They were volunteers.”

He smiled politely. “Yes of course. I meant to say that your husband selected the men who were to go to the Temple and ultimately their death from among a group of volunteers.”

“My husband was First Wizard.” Her brow tightened. “Who would you expect to select men for such a dangerous mission? The council? You?”

“No, no, of course not.” He gestured offhandedly. “It was clearly First Wizard Baraccus’s responsibility to select the men who would go.”

“Then what is your point?”

He smiled down at her. That smile might have been on his lips, but it was not in his eyes.

“My point,” Lothain finally said, “is that he selected men who failed.”

Hard as she could, Magda slapped the man across his face. The six council members gasped as they drew back. Her hand probably stung more than Lothain’s solid face, but she didn’t care. The sound of the slap seemed to hang in the air for a moment before fading.

Lothain dismissed the slap with a polite bow of his head. “Please accept my apology if it sounded like I was making an accusation.”

“If it was not an accusation, then what was it?”

“I am simply trying to get to the truth.”

“The truth? The truth is,” she growled, “that while you were in the underworld, attempting to gain entrance into the Temple, the moon each night and each night since turned red in a warning, the most serious warning possible from the Temple, that there is some sort of grave trouble—”

He cut her off, dismissing the issue with a flick of his hand. “The appearance of repeated red moons was probably because of the damage done by the Temple team.”

“And when you returned, after failing in your attempt to undo that damage, the First Wizard had the terrible duty to select a volunteer to answer the Temple’s nightly call of a red moon. And when the first man failed to return, the First Wizard had to send another, more experienced wizard, and when that one failed to return, he had the grim duty to select yet another, even more skilled man, all of them friends and close associates.

“I stood beside him at the rampart each night as he stared off at the red moon, inconsolable, as one friend after another failed to return from the underworld. Inconsolable that he had sent valuable men, his friends, men who were husbands and fathers, to their death.

“Finally, when no one else had succeeded, my husband undertook the journey himself, and in the end paid for it with his life.”

Lothain let the ringing silence go on for a moment before speaking softly. “Actually, he did not pay for it with his life. He took his own life after returning.”

Magda glared at him. “What is your point?”

Lothain tapped his fingertips together for a moment as he studied her wet eyes. “My point, Lady Searus, is that he took his own life before we learned what had happened on his journey to the Temple of the Winds. Perhaps you can tell us?” He cocked his head. “Did he make it in?”

“I don’t know,” Magda said. But she did know. Baraccus had told her that he had, and told her a lot more. “I was his wife, not a member of the council or—”

“Ah,” Lothain said as he tipped his head back. “His young, exquisitely beautiful, but so very ungifted wife. Of course. So obviously a wizard of such great ability would not discuss matters of profound power with someone who had none.”

Magda swallowed. “That’s right.”

“You know, I’ve always been curious. Why would . . .” His frown returned as his black eyes again fixed on her. “Well, why would a man of such extraordinary ability, a gifted war wizard, a man whose talents included everything from combat to prophecy, why would a man like that marry a woman who had no ability at all? I mean, other than . . .” He let his gaze wander down her body.