Chapter 10

“You must speak to the council and let them know of the threat, make them understand how serious it is,” Alric Rahl told her. “With Baraccus dead, it’s up to us, and we’re running out of time.”

“What threat?”

A bit surprised, he cast her a suspicious look from under a lowered brow. “Surely, Baraccus must have told you about the dream walkers.”

Magda stilled. She wanted to help the man, but she didn’t like the idea of talking about anything Baraccus had told her in confidence. The two of them had always had an understanding that, because of his position, the things he discussed with her were meant to remain strictly confidential. She never spoke about such matters without her husband explicitly telling her that it was all right.

She remembered, then, the note in her pocket, the note Baraccus had left for her up on the battlement. Those were his last words to her.

Your destiny is to find truth. It will be difficult, but have the courage to take up that calling.

It seemed clear that Baraccus meant for her to act. His note didn’t ask her to keep silent, or to stay out of things. He said that she must have the courage to act.

Magda realized that with Baraccus gone she needed to trust someone. While she knew a number of the people her husband had worked with and trusted, she never heard him speak about his trust in anyone the way he spoke of his trust of Alric Rahl.

“He did,” she said at last.

“Good. Tell me what you know about them, anything Baraccus said.”

Magda took a deep breath to gather her thoughts. “Well, when enemy gifted in the Old World not long ago created dream walkers, Baraccus told me that such weapons, made out of people, could mean the end of us all. He said that there was only a small window of opportunity to act. In secret, he worked tirelessly on the problem. In the course of that work he discovered that the dream walkers were created through the use of a constructed spell.”

Lord Rahl nodded. “He told me that much of it when he traveled through the sliph to warn me about the dream walkers.”

Magda bristled at the mention of the sliph. She hated that creature made from a woman. The sliph took Baraccus away from her to travel great distances in a short time. Yet one more of the abominations created by wizards out of human beings.