The cat meowed as if to answer. Before long, Shadow was in Magda’s lap, hoping for more chicken. Magda pulled off pieces, giving her a much-needed meal. When the cat had had her fill, she curled up and started cleaning herself.
“How long have you been a spiritist?” Magda asked as she stroked the warm little cat. Shadow purred in appreciation.
Isidore feigned shock. “Me? A spiritist? No, I am only—”
“You are the spiritist, Isidore.”
Isidore had wanted to be protected herself, but had not asked for protection for the spiritist. In her alarm at hearing about the threat, and then with the distraction of the cat showing up, she had forgotten to keep up the pretense. That told Magda what she had suspected all along, that there was no one else. Isidore was the spiritist.
Isidore stiffened a little, falling back into her role. “I am flattered that you would think I am such a woman, Magda, but I am merely her humble servant.”
“You play the role of aide to the spiritist so that you will not have to entertain appeals directly. That insulates you and gives you an easy way to turn people away, saving time and trouble. You work with the gifted, so you need to be able to keep others at arm’s length without having to turn down the appeals directly. More than that, you are empathetic and don’t like to disappoint people, but you have more important work and this small deception enables you to remain focused on that work without the streams of supplicants who would be eager to contact deceased loved ones if word got out that you were a spiritist and you would be willing to help them.”
Isidore sat quietly, hands nested in her lap, not offering any comment.
“I will not betray your secret, Isidore. But there is no one else. You are the spiritist. Your eyes are covered to help hide this world from your vision so that you may look into another world. That is what you do. You look into the spirit world.
“I have helped you to be safe from the dream walkers as you go about your important work. Please, Isidore, my work is important as well. Let’s not play games.”
As Isidore finally released a deep sigh, her posture sagged a bit. She was apparently relieved to no longer have to lie.
“You have it mostly right.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is more than a blindfold keeping me from seeing this world.”
Magda reached out and laid a hand over Isidore’s. “Show me.”
As the cat curled up for a warm nap in Magda’s lap, Isidore nodded, then reached up behind her head to the leather thongs holding on the blindfold. When at last it was untied, she slipped it away and sat a bit stiffer, nesting her hands again, letting Magda look at her face.
Isidore’s eyelids were closed over sunken sockets where her eyes should have been. They were not sewn shut. There were no eyelashes. It looked as if she had never had eyes, or as if they had been injured and healed over.
Magda knew better. She knew that Isidore had not been born this way, nor had she been injured.
“How did you lose your eyes?” Magda asked, fearing that she already knew the answer, fearing that this was wizard’s work.
“Is that the question you have come to ask the spiritist?”
“No. It is a question I would ask from one woman to another, because the reason for it greatly concerns me.”
Isidore thought a moment, her head turning blindly as if trying to see Magda.
“My eyes were taken from me so that I could see.”
“You were altered by wizards.”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry for your loss,” Magda said in soft sincerity.
The woman’s brow bunched with the ache of tears that could not flow.
She cleared her throat. “No one has ever been sorry for my loss.”
“That makes it even worse, then, doesn’t it?”
The young woman nodded. “In a way. But the loss is far greater than you could suspect.”
“Tell me why you would allow this to be done to you.”
“I did not allow it, the way you may think. I sought to have it done, asked to have it done, so that I could see into the spirit world.”
Magda was incredulous. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“I had need enough.”
“Need enough? Why would you request wizards to alter you in such a way? Why would you have him take away your eyes?”
“It’s not a pretty story. Either to tell, or to hear.”
“I imagine not.” Magda steeled herself. “But I would hear it, if you are willing.”
Chapter 25
Isidore nodded, then started to reach up as if to wipe away tears. Her hand paused when she realized that she could no longer make tears any more than she could see. The hand sank to her lap.
“I lived in Grandengart. The name means ‘guardian at the gates.’ It’s an old name that signifies Grandengart’s place at the southern fringe of the New World and long standing as an outpost in the trackless lands of the wilds. The Old World lies beyond to the south.
“Because of its location it has long been a crossroads of trade routes in the New World. Rare trade goods also came up from a few distant places down in the Old World. Grandengart had for ages been an outpost as well, the place where people first come over from the Old World. Trade relations with peoples of the wilds and distant places to the south had always been good.
“The several thousand people who lived there mostly made their living in one way or another because of the trade. For many of the peoples who inhabit vast stretches of inhospitable land of the wilds, and the merchants who dealt with them, we were a trusted place to do business. As a result, with all the different kinds of people and goods passing through, it was an exciting, vibrant place to live, with different cultures and beliefs, as well as plenty of fascinating stories of far-off places from all the travelers.
“A while back we began to see the first signs of trouble. Rare spices, foodstuffs, and other commodities from the South began to slow and then halted altogether. Everyone considered that a worrisome sign in and of itself. For a time there was no word. Then trickles of people fleeing the new rule down in the Old World began to come through, headed north.
“When trade stopped, timber coming down from the North, a scarce commodity down in that part of the world, began piling up, awaiting transport to arrive from buyers in the South. That transport never arrived. Foods waiting to be moved rotted.
“With all that trade halting, people began to worry about how they would make a living. They worried, too, about what the distant signs of trouble could mean, not just for themselves, but for people they know to the south.
“I was the sorceress assigned to serve the people of Grandengart. People from the South, down in the Old World, didn’t hold much with magic. They always stayed well away from me as they passed through. But the people of Grandengart relied on me for my abilities, my skills, but mostly for protection from shapeless worries.
“To most people I possessed inscrutable abilities, so in a way I was not exactly one of them. As a result I sometimes felt that I was little more than their talisman meant to somehow keep shapeless evil from their door. People seemed to think that merely having a sorceress’s powers nearby was a vaguely beneficial thing, that it would somehow ensure good fortune, much like their prayers to the good spirits for a safe journey.
“Their worries about the increasing signs of trouble to the south, though, were not so shapeless. They looked to me for help with this troubling development.
“I didn’t know exactly what I could do about it. Magic didn’t offer any solution that I could see, although it seemed as if it must to those who knew little about it. In the end I traveled here, to the Keep, to see the council, hoping they could help. They told me that they would take the concerns of the people of Grandengart, as well as the details I had offered, under consideration, along with other reports they were receiving. They suggested that the unrest would likely soon calm down and trade would resume. One of them even suggested that perhaps a bridge had washed out and it was nothing more than that. I told them that from what I had heard from people fleeing from the South, there was a new ruler and his forces were the source of the unrest. They seemed disinclined to see such a change in rule as necessarily a bad thing, because the old rule was so fragmented and inefficient.
“While I could get no immediate help from the council, they did promise that as soon as troops were available they would send a detachment to investigate the situation. I decided that until the troops could be sent, it would be best if I returned home at once. I knew how nervous people were, and I wanted to be there for them.
“I arrived home the day after General Kuno and his forces from the Old World flooded across the border and swept through Grandengart. Even if some of us saw the storm building, until the day Kuno arrived, the world had been at peace.”
Magda stiffened in alarm. “General Kuno? Right hand to the emperor?”
Isidore nodded. “Emperor Sulachan himself sent Kuno north and through my home place.”
Magda took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. She knew from Baraccus that General Kuno was ruthless. He struck fear into the hearts of anyone in his path.
Emperor Sulachan wanted the world under one rule, the rule of the Old World. He wanted everyone to bow to him as emperor of it all. She knew, too, that the start of the war had been both swift and violent. Apparently, it had started in Isidore’s hometown.
“General Kuno had everyone brought to the town square,” Isidore said, “where he told them that this was a new day, that the world order was about to change, and they had been selected to be given the opportunity to join the cause of the Old World, and bow to Emperor Sulachan. He told the men that the choice was theirs to choose for their families to either stay a part of the New World, or join the empire of Sulachan. He asked for a show of hands of those who would side with the emperor, or those who would decline the offer.
“Remember, we were not yet at war, so people mostly didn’t yet realize the danger of choosing to side against Emperor Sulachan. This was to be the day that the world would learn of that danger.
“The men with General Kuno kept track of how each person voted, then they divided up the people of the town. Those choosing to bow to Emperor Sulachan were put on one side of the town square, those against on the other. It was then that people began to panic. Soldiers grabbed anyone who tried to run and kept the two crowds packed together, surrounded by a ring of steel. A number of those trying to flee were brutally cut to pieces before everyone’s eyes to discourage anyone else from attempting to escape.
“Soldiers took the people who had voted against bowing to the emperor out to dig holes along the side of the road into Grandengart. They then made the people erect poles with the timber that the townspeople used for trade.
“To the full, screaming panic of the people, most of the men who had voted against, along with their family members, were hoisted by their wrists up onto the poles. A small number of old men were made to watch as General Kuno’s soldiers walked up both sides of the road, slashing the terrified people hanging by their wrists. The soldiers pulled down strips of their flesh, leaving muscles and ribs exposed. Other people were stabbed in the legs or stomach, but left alive in their panic to hang there in helpless agony.
“The townspeople who were left, those who had chosen to side with Emperor Sulachan, after watching what was done to their friends and neighbors, were taken as slaves and sent south.
“The small group of old men who had been made to watch were released. They fled to later recount the terror far and wide so that other places would panic before the advancing forces of General Kuno and dare not resist Emperor Sulachan’s will.
“When I arrived the next day after Kuno’s forces had left, the road into Grandengart was lined on each side with poles, each holding a victim. Men, women, children—all were treated the same. There were over fifteen hundred poles, each holding a person, each person alone in their agony, but close enough to their neighbors, friends, and family to see them suffering and dying.
“Mothers, watching their children screaming in terror and pain, blamed husbands for voting against joining the side of the Old World. Husbands had to endure the dying hatred of their wives and unimaginable suffering of their children for the decision they had made.
“Beyond the poles, at the end of the road, smoke from the smoldering ruins of the town rose in the still air high into the blue sky. Not one building was left standing. Everything had been burned to the ground by Kuno’s men.
“Dogs and coyotes hounded the condemned, pulling and tearing at the strips of skin still attached to them. They set upon the already dead. I threw sparking flashes of fire to chase them away. Flocks of birds had come to feast as well. I used booming bolts of air and scattered most of those as well.
“In the bright sun, exposed rib bones of the victims stood out white against the red meat still left on them. Many of the bones had been picked clean. Most of the people were clearly dead, their middles torn open so that scavengers could get at their organs. Between the blood, the fluids, and all those who had lost control of their bodily functions, the stench was staggering.
“While a number had died over the course of the night, many of the victims, perhaps one in every four people, were still alive. Most of those had long since lost their voice from screaming. But they moaned, they cried, and they whispered prayers that went unanswered.”
“I walked up that road, between those poles as those still alive watched me, hoping that I, their trusted sorceress, could do something for them. Some cried out with their last breath for help.
“Inky black ravens perched on the poles, warily watching me as I came up the road, waited for me to pass before they resumed the feast. Some cawed loudly, hoping to drive me away from what they had claimed as theirs.”
Isidore’s head turned to the side a bit, as if she was staring off into another place in her mind’s eye. Her breathing was ragged and labored.
“What did you do about the people on the poles who were still alive?” Magda finally asked. “Could anything be done to help them? Could you use your gift to save some of them, at least?”
Isidore sat motionless for a time, staring at nothing in her lonely blindness, as if reliving the vision of what she had seen that terrible day.
“They were beyond healing,” she whispered at last. “Those still alive used all their strength to beg me to deliver them from the unendurable pain. They begged for death.”
“Could you heal none of them?”
“All but one were well beyond healing of any kind, even from wizards far more talented than me. There was nothing I could do to save their lives. Nothing.”
Magda leaned in. “So what did you do, then?”
Isidore turned blindly toward Magda. “All I could do was spare them their remaining suffering so as to ease their souls’ final journey into the spirit world. As I hurried up the road, I first used a slash of my power to sever the ropes holding each of them up on the poles. Hanging there like that had made it difficult to breathe. Many of the dead had suffocated. Each person in turn collapsed to the ground as I parted the ropes.
“Then, I went from one of those still alive to the next and held their hand for a moment as I offered each a few quiet words of comfort, sympathy, and a promise of a gentle end to their agony.
“It felt as if I were outside my own body, watching myself moving from one person to the next, holding their hand, offering words of comfort, and then stopping their heart. I couldn’t believe I was doing such things. I had never envisioned my abilities being put to such a use as to have to end the lives of those I was supposed to be protecting.
“But I knew that I had to do it. I was there to serve these people, people who had rarely thanked me for my efforts, and this was the only service I could now offer them. To think, after living among them, each person thanked me more than ever before for what I was about to do to each of them. They wept with joy and whispered their deepest appreciation that I was about to end their life.”
Isidore’s breathing came with difficulty as she labored to continue the story. “Then I used my gift to stop their hearts, each one in turn, one at a time, over and over. I had to do it more than four hundred times in all.
“It took until long after nightfall before I had delivered all but one of the people of Grandengart from their agony. I was not quite through with my work. I had silenced the moans, and stopped all but one heart.”
Chapter 26
“It was long after the moon should have been high in the sky when I finally reached the last man,” Isidore said. “But there was no moon because a thick overcast had gradually covered the sky, like a shroud of gray darkness pulled over the dead. I knew that it would soon begin to rain.
“The last man alive was trembling and having difficulty breathing. His name was Joel. He was a baker. Every day he had used to bring me a small loaf of bread. He would never accept payment. Joel said that it was his small part to make sure that Grandengart’s sorceress did not want for a meal.
“Truth be told, Joel had feelings for me, though he never spoke of those feelings or acted on them, except to bring me that loaf of bread. I think it was an excuse for him to see me.
“Joel’s wife had died in childbirth before I came to Grandengart. He was lonely and terribly sad. There was something about him, something beneath the sadness, that I liked, but knowing about the death of his wife and unborn child I felt uncomfortable saying much to him, other than to ask as the town’s sorceress how he was and if there was anything I could do for him. He always said that he was fine and turned down any offer of help.
“Over time, my feelings for him grew, but in light of his loss I felt that it was not my place to speak of such things. I knew that he would be a long time in getting over such a loss and felt that I had to respect the pace of grieving and felt that I shouldn’t interfere. So, as much as I longed to tell him of my feelings, I kept my distance. Yet every day he would bring me a loaf of bread, as if that was the only way he could reach out to me.
“I was exhausted by the time I reached Joel lying there on the ground in the dark beside the road. By then I could barely walk. I was in shock and covered in the blood of the people I had just helped to die.
“I fell to my knees beside Joel and took up his hand, knowing that I had to be strong enough to bring death to one last person. I held his hand to my own heart and put all my strength into sending as much comfort as I could into him.
“But in so doing I sensed that, unlike all the others, he was not entirely beyond healing. I knew that there was a small chance to save his life.
“I remember seeing his cracked lips move in the moonlight. He wanted to say something. I gave him a sip of water from a waterskin, as I had for so many others, and then bent close.
“He told me that he was sorry for my ordeal. I told him that I was shamed that I had not been there for them, that had I been there I might have done something. He said that he had been there, and he knew for certain that I could have done nothing against such brutal men.
“He said that they’d had gifted among them, men with fearsome powers. He said that had I been there, I would be hanging on a pole along with the rest of them, and then I would not be there to help end the suffering.
“Joel said that he thought it was meant to be this way so that I could help the people.
“I told Joel that I thought I could save his life, that he could be healed. I told him to hold on, to be strong. I spent several hours hunched over him in the dark, healing what I could. I knew, though, that he needed more than I could provide.
“I knew that Whitney, a town to the north, would have the healers needed. I helped him onto my horse and we started riding north to Whitney. I rode as hard as I dared push the horse. We rode the rest of the night and the next day. I often had to use my gift not only to give the poor animal endurance to continue, but to give Joel the strength to hold on to life.
“We almost made it to Whitney. Joel cried out in pain. I tried to hold him up, to keep going, but he couldn’t ride any farther and begged me to help him to the ground.
“As I knelt beside Joel, I realized then that the one person I thought I might be able to save was now beyond help. I knew through my gift that despite how desperately I had worked to help him, his internal injuries were too severe. I could sense his life slipping away. It was a cruel blow after such hope I could save him. In that moment there wasn’t anything I could do to prevent Joel from dying.
“As I bent close, clutching his hands in mine, tears running down my face, he said that he was sorry for what he had done. I asked him what he meant. Joel said he had clung to the memory of his dead wife to the exclusion of everything else. He said that he had loved her but she had passed. He should have gone on and embraced the life he had left to live. He said that he knew I was remaining silent out of respect.
“He said that if he had told me of his feelings, maybe I would have been open to him and then we both could have had happiness for that time. Instead, he had clung to the dead rather than turning to the living. He said he should have lived his life, but now it was over and it was too late.
“He wept as he told me that he was sorry that he had never given himself, or me, the chance to seek that happiness, and now it was too late and he was so sorry. His life was over without having lived what was right there all the time.
“I sobbed uncontrollably as I confessed that I, too, had lived for the dead, fearing to reach out to him. I told him that I should have known better, that I should have sought to comfort him while encouraging him to use the time he had to live his own life.
“He said that he wished he had known that I would not have pushed him away. He said he should have tried to get closer to me than to just bringing me a loaf of bread every day. I laughed through the tears at that. He said that by respecting his feelings for his dead wife, I had shown true compassion, and that he wished he had returned it.
“Joel knew that the others of the town would be with the good spirits. He told me that he would soon see his wife again in the spirit world, and regretted only that he had not lived the last couple years of his own life. He told me that one day when my time too was done in this life, I would be back with them, with the people of Grandengart, where I belonged and would be welcomed. He promised to be waiting for me where we would all be safe in the light of the Creator among the good spirits.
“Joel’s last words were for me to pray on the behalf of all those who had died that terrible night. He asked me to pray that the good spirits welcome them all and give them peace at last.
“I promised that I would use my abilities to help guide them all into the spirit world. He smiled, and as he thanked me and squeezed my hand... his last breath of life left him and he was gone.
“On my knees, as the gentle rain began, I hunched over him and rained my own tears down on this poor man for all that he and the others had suffered, wept for what might have been had we each had the courage to let the past go and embraced what life still had to offer.”
Magda understood all too well that desolate agony of loss.
“So, there I was beside the road to Whitney with the dead body of my friend, while back in Grandengart lay the corpses of my charges, my town. The corpses of the people I had failed.”
Magda laid a hand on Isidore’s arm. “You did not fail them, Isidore. Emperor Sulachan’s minions are as powerful as they are ruthless. Joel was right, you could have done nothing to stop it. Don’t take on the guilt that rightly belongs to the killers.
“Not many would have shown the courage you did in such a difficult situation. You did your people the greatest kindness possible. You were there for them to end their suffering when there was nothing else that could have been done.”
“I thought so too. But as it turns out, after reaching Whitney and burying Joel, that was only the beginning of the nightmare.”
Chapter 27
Magda stroked a hand along the silky back of the sleeping cat curled up in her lap. The cat’s contented purring served to emphasize the stretch of empty silence.
“The beginning of the nightmare?” Magda finally asked. “What do you mean?”
Isidore took a deep breath. Her shoulders slumped as she let out a weary sigh. “After Joel died, I managed to lift him up and over the back of the horse.” She flicked a hand in an aside. “I used to be stronger than I am as you see me now. I’ve lost weight and muscle since then. I find that I rarely have much of an appetite.
“Anyway, I rode most of that night, stopping only for a brief nap when neither I nor the horse could go on. It was the first sleep I’d had since arriving home to Grandengart. It was also the first of the terrible dreams that haunt me to this day. The short rest was at least enough for me to be able to resume the journey. By late the next afternoon I finally reached the wheat fields and scattered farms at the outskirts of Whitney.
“A man and his wife working a field saw me and must have realized that I was having trouble. They both rushed out to the road to help. When they saw the body slung over the back of the horse, they said that he needed to be buried at once. They were kind enough to lead me to a small graveyard beside a clutch of oaks, the only trees in sight out on the plains of the southern reaches of the New World. There, they helped me lift Joel down and then bury him.
“I was in a numb daze from the whole ordeal, from traveling so long and hard with the dead body of my friend, with tormented thoughts of what might have been between us, and worse, what I might have done to stop the madness had I returned home from seeing the council just a little sooner. I hadn’t eaten in days and I was near delirious with exhaustion. Even so, I knelt beside Joel’s fresh grave and prayed earnestly to the good spirits to welcome him and all the others into their arms.
“Hunched over his grave I again promised Joel that I would keep my word, given just before he died, that I would use my abilities to help make sure that they all made it safely into the embracing shelter of the good spirits.
“After that, the man and his wife, feeling sympathy for me, gave me some food and water and then escorted me the rest of the way into Whitney. I think they thought that I might not make it on my own.
“In Whitney I learned that a few of the terrified old men from Grandengart, the ones who had been released by General Kuno to carry word of what had happened so as to spread panic, had done just that, coming through and telling everyone of the horrifying fate of Grandengart’s people. The whole town of Whitney was buzzing with the news, so the town officials were not surprised when I briefly recounted my story.
“There were gifted there and they listened with even greater interest than the officials, though they said nothing, when I told them what they had not heard yet, that I had gone from one dying person to the next, ending their suffering.
“A number of the town’s people were already packing their belongings and more yet had already left, all headed north. No one knew where General Kuno and his army would strike next, but they wanted to flee to a more distant place where they thought it would be safer. I couldn’t really fault them.
“A detachment of troops, sent by the council to look into the reports of trouble brewing to the south, happened to have just arrived in Whitney. I talked with the commander and reported what had happened. I told him that I couldn’t bury well over a thousand bodies by myself and I needed help. I didn’t want my people to lie there and rot in the open or be scavenged by animals. All I could think of was that it was my duty to at least see them buried.
“Fortunately, the commander was an understanding man. He and his troops took me with them. We rode hard all the way back to Grandengart to attend to the dead as swiftly as possible.
“When we got there, the dead were missing.”
Magda blinked, not sure she had heard correctly. “Missing? What do you mean, they were missing?”
Isidore lifted a hand in frustration and then let it drop back into her lap.
“They were gone. Not a single corpse was there by the road where I’d left them. The town had been burned down. The rain had since doused the smoldering rubble. There were no bodies in the town, nor were there any beside the road where the poles had been erected, where I had delivered them from their suffering.”
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