As in the outer halls, people quietly discussing business fell silent as they spotted Magda marching resolutely along the long ribbon of carpeting through the center of the chamber. Most of these people knew her. Most of them had seen her standing before the flames that had consumed her husband and their beloved leader. Many had come to her to offer their condolences.
Atop the dais, the council sat at a long, ornate desk that curved around in a half circle. Staff and assistants sat at the desk beside them. Even more sat behind. People stood in the center of the dais, with that desk curving halfway around them and the audience at their back, to be heard by the council.
Magda recognized the woman standing in that spot, speaking passionately to the council. Her words trailed off as she looked over her shoulder to see Magda step up behind her.
The woman first quickly took in the length of Magda’s hair and then scowled down at her bloody clothes. “I don’t appreciate being interrupted when I am addressing the council.”
“I’m talking to them now, Vivian,” Magda said as she showed the woman a very brief smile. “You can speak to them later.”
Vivian pulled a long lock of hair forward over her shoulder. “What makes you think that you can—”
“Leave,” Magda said in a voice so calm, so quiet, so deadly that Vivian flinched.
When the woman made no move to leave, Magda leaned even closer and spoke in a confidential tone that no one else could hear.
“Either you walk out now, Vivian, or you will have to be carried out. I think you know that I’m not bluffing.”
At seeing the look in Magda’s eyes, Vivian turned and dipped a quick bow to the council before hurrying away.
A hush fell over the room.
“What is the meaning of this interruption?” a red-faced Councilman Weston asked. “What matter could be important enough for you to dare to think you can intrude in this fashion?”
Magda clasped her hands. “A matter of life and death.”
Behind her, whispers rippled through the room.
“Life and death? What are you talking about?” Weston demanded.
Magda met the gaze of each councilman, now that one of them had made the mistake of inviting her to speak on the subject.
“The dream walkers are in the Keep.”
Chapter 15
The room erupted with noise and confusion as everyone behind Magda started talking at once. Some people yelled questions. Others called out their disbelief. Yet others shouted denunciations. Many, gripped by fear, remained silent.
Elder Cadell, ever the arbiter of decorum in the council chambers, held up a gnarled, arthritic hand, calling for silence.
When the crowd quieted, Councilman Weston went on. “Dream walkers? Here in the Keep?” His eyes narrowed. “That’s absurd.”
Elder Cadell ignored Weston’s charge. “Lady Searus,” he said with practiced patience, “first of all, the council is in session and—”
“Good,” Magda said, not at all patient. “That means I don’t have to hunt you all down. Better that you are all gathered to hear this. Time is short.”
Councilman Guymer shot to his feet. “You have no standing to speak before this body much less to interrupt us! How dare you dismiss someone who was speaking on important matters and—”
“Whatever matter Vivian was wound up about this time can wait. I told you, this is a matter of life and death. I was just invited by Councilman Weston to speak. I intend to do so.” She arched an eyebrow. “Unless you want to have me dragged away before I can make known the mortal danger to our people as well as how the council can help to protect them?”
Assistants shared looks. Some of the councilmen shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. Not all of them wanted to so publicly silence her before she could reveal what the council could do to help to protect people. That reluctance gave her a window of opportunity.
Councilman Hambrook leaned back and clasped his hands together over his ample middle. “Dream walkers, you say?”
Guymer shot to his feet and turned his wrath on his fellow councilman. “Hambrook, we’re not going to be diverted from our agenda to allow this outrageous interruption to continue!”
Magda closed the distance to the desk in three long strides, placed her hands on the polished wood, and with a glare, leaned toward Councilman Guymer.
“Sit down.”
Taken aback by the calm fury in her voice, and somewhat stunned to be spoken to in such a way, he dropped into his chair.
Magda straightened. “Dream walkers have made their way into the Keep. We must—”
This time it was Weston, to her right, who interrupted her. “Disregarding your bursting in here in such an insolent fashion, what makes you think we would believe such a claim?”
Magda slammed the flat of her hand on the desk before the man. The shock of the loud smack made all of them jump. She could feel her face going red with rage.
“Look at me! This is what a dream walker did to me! What you see—the blood all over me—is what your countrymen and loved ones are going to look like before they die in unimaginable agony! This is what is coming for all of us!”
“I am not going to sit here and—”
“Let her speak,” Elder Cadell said with quiet authority.
Magda bowed her head to the elder in appreciation before collecting herself and going on. “A dream walker entered my mind without my being aware of it. I don’t know how long he was hidden there. I fear to think what he overheard while he was lurking in my mind without my knowledge.”
“What could he have overheard?” Councilman Sadler asked in a suspicious tone.
“For one thing, the reason I was coming here today: the solution to prevent the dream walkers from having free run of the Keep and destroying us all. Once he heard that solution, and knew that I was going to come here for the council’s help in implementing it, he acted. His intent was to kill me so that I couldn’t speak to you. His intent was to keep you in the dark so that we would all be vulnerable.”
As Magda looked at each councilman in turn, out of the corner of her eye she could see the crowd moving in closer so that they wouldn’t miss what she had to say. She straightened and stepped back to the center of the semicircle of councilmen so that she could make sure that everyone could hear her.
“While I don’t have any idea how long the dream walker was hidden there in my mind, watching, listening, his presence became all too obvious once he decided to rip me apart from the inside.” She slowly shook her head as she turned her back on the council to look out into the frightened eyes of all the silent people watching her. “You cannot imagine the pain of it.”
The spectators stared in silent anxiety.
Weston broke the silence. “Do you expect us to trust—”
“No,” she said without looking back at him. “I expect you to look with your own eyes at the result of what was being done to me by the dream walker who had slipped into my mind, here, in the Keep, where we thought we were safe. We are not safe.” She held out the skirt of her dress. “As I fell to my knees, dying, blood running from my ears, blood choking me, I could feel the dream walker break each rib, one at a time.” Some in the crowd gasped. “The pain was beyond endurance, yet there is no way to avoid enduring it.”
She walked slowly across the dais to be sure that everyone out in the crowd, as well as all those behind the desk, could get a good look at the blood all over her. The sound of her shoes on the wooden floor of the rostrum echoed through the room.
“The blood you see all over me,” she said, “is the evidence of the torture he was inflicting. If it is shocking to see, I promise you, you would not have wanted to hear my screams as I lay in a pool of my own blood and on the brink of death.”