The word “protect” stuck out to her. He said it with a kind of natural ease. She remembered what the men down in the lower reaches of the Keep had been working on when they were killed.
Her gaze went to the object on the table.
“Protect. Like a sword,” she said.
“Yes,” he finally admitted. “The existing references and formulas we still have led people to believe that the key must be made in the form of a sword. So, those trying to make the key try to make it in the form of a sword.
“They don’t know why, and they don’t really care. They simply try to make the key in the form of a sword as is implied in the reference material in order that it might work to unlock the power.”
“And you think,” she guessed, “that there is meaning to the prescription that the key take the form of a sword.”
“I do. That the magic is supposed to be invested in a sword implies its purpose, does it not? Besides working to unlock what it protects, I believe it was intended to have the power to prevent the wrong person from meddling with the power.”
“So, if there’s no key, and the power is that incredibly dangerous, that’s why the chests containing the power were shut away in the Temple of the Winds in the first place?”
“Very likely so,” he said. “The problem is, if anything should go wrong, the key would be the only chance to bring us all back from the brink of annihilation.”
He leaned in and lowered his voice, even though there was no one who could possibly overhear him. “You see, the key I would create isn’t simply coded to the power, it’s coded to work with the person using it. It has to be the right person, for the right reasons, or it won’t work. The magic can read not only the key, but the intentions of the one holding the key.”
Magda knew from Baraccus that dangerous magic often had multiple layers of protection. Books of magic usually had wards and safeguards to protect them. According to Isidore, Merritt made just such bindings for books of magic. He was apparently employing that principle in his design for the key to the power.
“But all of this is only theoretical, since you can’t make the key and prove your theories.”
“Well, yes, I suppose that’s true. The problem is,” he said, “there are those here in the Keep—”
“You mean the council.”
His mouth twisted as he finally gave in. “Good guess.”
She was getting tired of dancing with shadows. “Not all that difficult.”
He flashed a brief smile before turning serious again. “The council wants it done anyway. They want the key to be made.”
Magda had to take another drink of water to compose her voice. “Why? If everyone knows that the power is locked in the Temple, why would the council want the key made?”
“They’ve given me a long list of reasons, none of which make a lot of sense to me, but they’re very insistent. They wish it to be done, period. Ultimately, they don’t need to explain themselves. They wish it to be done so they command that it be done. But wishing and commanding doesn’t mean that it can be done and they won’t listen to reason.”
“I’m well aware of how inflexible the council can be.”
“They certainly are in this case.”
Magda’s mind was racing. “Which councilmen want it done?”
“All of them, but Weston and Guymer seem to be the ones forcing the issue most of the time.”
“Weston and Guymer. It would be them,” Magda murmured to herself. She looked up again. “I thought the council didn’t want you to use this same basic conjuring to create this, this person who could pull truth from lies.”
His hazel eyes again locked on her.
“The Confessor,” he said.
Chapter 50
“Confessor?” Magda asked.
“That’s right.”
She leaned forward, puzzled by the name. “Confessor?”
“Yes, that’s what I call the person I would create because with the power I would invest in them, they could make anyone—anyone—confess the truth, no matter how abhorrent the truth may be, no matter how desperately they previously may have wanted to conceal it, no matter the lies they’ve told or hidden behind. The touch of a Confessor’s power would change all that.”
“So, the council wants you to make the key, for which there would be no use, but not this Confessor for which there could possibly be great use?”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
“To say the least.” She wondered if something more than irony was involved. “I still don’t understand why both the key and this Confessor could require the same base elements.”
“Because at their core they both serve the cause of truth.”
“How can the key serve the cause of truth? I get the Confessor, but not the key.”
“At their root, the key and the Confessor both authenticate truth. The Confessor’s power would force the subject to reveal the truth, while all of the coded alignments of the key involve proofing it against reality. Reality is truth. Therefore, both the Confessor and the key need the same formulas to initiate their ultimate function.
“In much the same way that a verification web authenticates a spell, the base elements of this new form of magic I’m trying to create gauges, or measures, matters at hand against reality. In the case of the Confessor, the subject is left unable to speak anything other than the truth.
“The key, as well, follows a verification sequence. By building in authentication routines, it prevents a person from using it, for example, if they are lying about their reason for unlocking the power.”
“Maybe the council doesn’t want you to create the Confessor because they fear the truth,” Magda said.
“You may have just arrived at the heart of it.”
“But they still want the key.”
“Right,” he said. “They want a simple key to make the power work, but I didn’t think I could trust anyone with a key to that much power, even the council, so I intended to make the more complex key. That has been a great deal harder to devise, but if I ever get the chance to finally ignite the web, it will be worth the years of extra work.
“Yet neither the one I envision nor the simple one the council wants can be created because they both would need the information that is out of reach in the Temple of the Winds. Without those formulas, I can’t make the key, or the Confessor. At least it doesn’t matter about the key because the power, like the formulas, is safely out of reach.”
Magda thought she might be sick. She gulped a drink of water. She wondered why the council would fear the truth. But more immediate questions sprang to mind as she stalled for time to think it through.
“How would this person, this Confessor, be able to force someone to speak only the truth?”
He looked uncomfortable as he searched for the words. “You have to understand, Magda, that a Confessor would be a last resort to get at the truth. For example, to get a killer to confess to murders he committed so that we would know the extent of his victims, know beyond a doubt his guilt. Or imagine if a man had snatched a child for ransom, or worse. A Confessor could pull the truth from his lies and deception.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Or a traitor could be made to give a true confession?”
“Without question or hesitation.”
Magda touched her fingers to her forehead, trying to grasp the enormity of what he was telling her.
“But how would this Confessor actually get the person to confess?”
“Basically,” he said, “the magic I would invest in them, much like the key, would contain elements of both Subtractive and Additive Magic.”
“So you would need a gifted person to create a Confessor.”
“Actually, no, not at all. The person would be the vessel into which I would place this ability, this unique form of power.”
“But if they aren’t gifted—”