“The things I do that have never been done before are different. I study the problem and rationally analyze if it is really possible. Then and only then I work on how to do it. I develop a plan based on facts, not wishes. I know each step, each element’s nature, and I know where the lines are. To an outside observer it may seem that I’m attempting impossible things, but that’s not the case.”

He gestured across the room toward a statue. “It’s like carving. Before you make a cut you know why, you know what to cut away. That’s not what they’re doing in this case. They are trying to carve, as it were, by hacking away without knowing what they’re doing. They’re substituting wishing for knowing.

“Some of the men, I know, understood the dangers involved and were worried about attempting to make this key. But the council insisted. Even in the face of deaths, they insisted that the effort to craft this sword continue. They’ve put all their hopes into wishing it to work. I refused to be a part of it.”

Magda frowned. “I don’t understand something. Is it a secret that the chests containing this power are locked away in the Temple of the Winds and no one can get to them?”

“No. Everyone involved in the attempt to make the key knows it. The chests were listed on the Temple team’s manifest.”

“Then why is the council so insistent that the key be made when they know that there is no use for it?”

Merritt lifted his hands in a gesture of frustration. “Exactly. I made the same argument. They didn’t want to hear it. Elder Cadell offered that it was a safety measure should the power ever be returned to the world of life. He said that we couldn’t wait for something to go wrong and only then find out that we are unprepared to deal with it.”

“Elder Cadell said that?”

“That’s right. The council wanted me to lead the team that was to make the key. I agree with their motive, but that doesn’t mean it can be done. When I told them that it was impossible and would only get people killed, they became angry. They questioned my loyalty to the cause of the Midlands.

“They said that if I refused to help them and anyone was killed, it would be my fault. They thought that by putting me into such a position I would have to go along, and if I went along, then I would somehow find a way to make it work.”

“They apparently have a great deal of faith in your ability as a maker,” Magda said.