“You heard Naja. Those in power in the Old World seek to end the world of life. Even if their ideas are crazy, even if their plans are completely unworkable and impossible and they fail at accomplishing their ultimate aim, they are still slaughtering our people just the same. They still intend to rule the world of life one way or another. Untold thousands of innocent people will die in their attempts, and even more will die if they succeed in winning the war. If they win, at the very best, the people of the New World will be enslaved.

“And what if they really can succeed at what Sulachan wants to accomplish? What if he has the boxes of Orden and he uses them to end the world of life as we know it?

“The war is going badly. I believe it’s because the Keep is infected with spies and traitors helping the enemy. That’s what Baraccus wanted me to uncover. I now know who is at the center of it, anyway. It’s Lothain. He’s been hiding right under our noses, posing as our champion, prosecuting traitors.

“But if we kill him, his secrets die with him. If we capture him instead and he gives other names under torture, how would we ever know if they are really his accomplices? He might hold back the names of important spies, or accuse innocent people. How could we be sure? With something this important, how could we be sure that we have rooted out the entire nest of traitors and spies?

“If we don’t get all those who are helping him they will still be able to work from inside the Keep to undo our cause, still activate the dead to assassinate key people. If we kill the man at the head of it, we’ll never know who the rest are until it’s too late.

“But if I can get a confession out of Lothain, a true confession, and we can expose the extent of the subversion within our ranks, then we might have real a chance to counter it. We would have a chance to save the Keep.

“Think of what is going to happen to us and our people if we don’t stop the enemy wizards among us. They will breach the Grace. We won’t merely die. Our souls will be kept from crossing over into the underworld.

“We’ll be like those people of Isidore’s town of Grandengart. Our bodies will be used by the wizards from the Old World while our spirits are trapped between worlds. Our spirits will wander, lost, in this world. How many innocent people will be doomed to such a fate?

“So, are you trying to tell me that you think such a grim fate would somehow be better than the danger of trying, even if it means I die in the attempt? How? How is that better?