But it was something. The whole world felt as if it was crushing in on her. She knew that once a new First Wizard was named, she had to tell him what she knew.
She reminded herself that she might be jumping to conclusions. She wished she could slow her racing heart.
Merritt sprang up and went to a side table. He hurriedly poured a glass of water. He handed her the glass and then sat again on the stool in front of her, watching her with great concern.
“Take a drink. It will help.”
“Thanks.” Magda took a sip. “I’m fine. Please, go on with what you were telling me.”
Merritt watched to make sure she took a few more sips before continuing the story. “Well, since the chests are safely locked away in the Temple of the Winds, there is no longer any point in me attempting to complete the investment of magic in the key to unlock their power. But even more importantly, even if I wanted to, it can’t be done.”
Magda needed time to think. She couldn’t be sure, after all, that he was talking about the same thing. There were a great many things, important things, all dangerous, that had been sealed away in the Temple of the Winds.
“You mean it can’t be done because of the rare rift calculations for creating a seventh-level breach that Baraccus couldn’t give you?”
Merritt leaned back and blinked in surprise. “You know about that?”
Magda worked to keep her voice under control. “Baraccus told me about it some time back when you went to see him. I remember him saying that you had wanted the rift calculations for such a breach. Apparently, he thought a lot of you because he told me that he wished he could have given you what you needed, but he couldn’t because the formulas were sealed away in the Temple of the Winds and no one could get to them.”
Merritt was staring at her, so she knew that she had to say something.
“So, is that why you can’t complete the magic for this key?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Magda was struck by the sincerity of his frustration. She watched his eyes look away as he went on, almost as if talking to himself, opening again the wound of his disappointment.
“I’ve spent years working on the details of the conjured structure. No one else understands it the way I do. They don’t understand its true purpose.” He looked up. “You see, I don’t believe that it was ever supposed to be just a key.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
He leaned in more intently. “I’ve come to believe that what is contained in these receptacles, these chests, is the only form of power known to exist that predates the star shift.”
“You really believe that’s what in the chests?”
“Yes. That’s why I was so sure in the first place that there have to be formulas for a seventh-level breach. Baraccus confirmed their existence when he told me that they were locked away in the Temple of the Winds.”
Merritt’s gaze was locked on her eyes. “If I’m right, which I am, then this power is an order of magnitude beyond what anyone understands. If I’m right, it contains enough power to destroy the world of life.”
Magda took a sip of water for the chance to look away from the intensity of his hazel eyes. She couldn’t make her fingers stop trembling.
“Dear spirits . . . is that really even possible? Do you actually think such a thing could be true, that something could have that much power?”
“I do. I think the key was originally intended to contain the seventh-level-breach code in order to harness that power. That’s why the breach code exists. It has no other purpose. Same with the rift calculations.”
“You mean, as in a rift in the world of life? And the breach code cracks the egg?”
He betrayed what he thought of her analogy with a small smile before he went on.
“After years of tracking down everything I could about the origins of the power and what it really is, I think I have come to understand it as no one else does.”
“And what have you come to understand?”
“Well, first and foremost, I know enough not to fool myself into thinking I know everything. But from what I do know, I believe that any number of people would have enough knowledge or ability to misuse it and cause great harm. What they likely don’t understand, though, is that in pursuing their own ends, they could inadvertently annihilate all life.
“But that’s if it’s misused. I’m convinced that this power needs more than a simple key if it is to function properly. I’ve found bits and pieces in ancient texts that give me cause to believe that the key, in a way, also has to be a caretaker of the power, a kind of protector.”
Chapter 49
“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Magda said, absently, as she tried to corral her galloping thoughts.
She had never felt so lonely. She didn’t know what to do, who she could turn to. Merritt seemed the obvious choice, but there was too much she didn’t know about him. If anything she’d heard turned out to be true, telling him could very well turn out to be the worst decision she could make.
Her only hope was if the new First Wizard was named soon. The new First Wizard would need to know what she knew. He would know what to do.
“After a great deal of research and work, I finally have every aspect of my theory worked out and in place,” Merritt was saying. “I’m convinced that I know how to create this unique power for the key if only I could get my hands on the rift calculations and breach formulas. If I could, I could then make a key that would function as it should.
“This magic I would create with the help of the formulas, would at the same time function for something else of great importance that I came up with along the way.”
That caught her attention.
He lifted an arm in a gesture of frustration, then sighed as it dropped back to rest on his leg. “But without all the parts, the magic can’t be formatted and thus initiated.”
“Are there no substitutes that would work well enough?”
“No. It needs the correct parts, and all the parts, simple as that.”
Magda steered him back to the thing that had caught her attention. “So is this unique magic also what would allow you to create in a person the ability to pull truth from lies? Is that the other thing of great importance you wanted to create?”
He looked surprised. “Yes, as a matter of fact it is.”
“So then the key these people want that you know how to make and the person you described to the council that you wanted to alter to be able to pull truth from lies, are linked with common elements and share some base form of this magic?”
“That’s right—at inception, anyway. They differ as they develop, and in the end of course, but they do need to have certain base elements from the rift calculations in common.”
“You mean they both need yeast to make the dough rise?”
Merritt frowned suspiciously. “For someone ungifted, you seem to have a knack for grasping the inherent logic in the nature of magic. And for someone who described herself as a nobody, you also seem to know a great deal about some of the most secret projects in the Keep.”
Magda tilted her head, peering at him from under her brow. “You may think that they’re secret, but Isidore knew about the person you want to alter with this magic. If she knew, then the dream walkers know. If the dream walkers know, that means Emperor Sulachan knows. If they know about the person, then they very well may know about the key you’re trying to make. If they know about the key, they know what it is meant to unlock.”
Merritt let out a troubled sigh. “I suppose that’s all possible, but it can’t do them any good. It would be impossible for them to reconstruct my work, and without those occulted calculations that are locked away in the Temple of the Winds, the magic that I was working on can’t be completed.
“Besides, the key would do them no good because
the power itself is sealed away and inaccessible.”
Magda had to force herself to hold her tongue. She instead asked a question. “Why would these repositories containing this great power not have a key in the first place? What would be the purpose of creating something without a way to make it work?”
“Good question. Unfortunately I don’t have a good answer. People take history at face value and assume it’s accurate, but often it really isn’t. Accounts of past events differ. You don’t know the honesty or the motives of the person who wrote the chronicle. Accounts from antiquity may have been lost over time, leaving critical gaps that would change the picture. Some of what we do have may actually have been rumor or even false charges that over time were wrongly assumed to be true. Some historical accounts are biased or distorted viewpoints, while others were embellished along the way. It’s a mistake to indiscriminately assume historical accounts are true.
“All that is meant to say that I don’t know the truth about an original key. The repositories holding this power were a relatively recent creation intended to safeguard the power in its resting state. The key doesn’t actually open them, it’s actually meant to unlock the ancient power contained within them. For all I know, it may be that when the power was created it had a key. All I know for sure is that the power itself still survives today and there is no known key for it.
“That creates a problem because while the key doesn’t exist, the power does and even without the key this power is still profoundly dangerous.
“That’s one reason I’ve been working so hard to complete the key. Everyone else thinks the key is supposed to simply unlock the power, but from bits of surviving books and scrolls from before the star shift, I’ve come to believe that the key was an object intended to protect the power, not merely unlock it.”