The Pillars of Creation (44 page)

Near the end of one row, he spotted the handle of his knife. Behind the knife was a mound of the tattered clothes that he had taken from Althea’s house so that he could make it across the Azrith Plains. His boot knife was there, too. Piled in front were the cloth and leather pouches containing his considerable fortune.

He was relieved to have his money back. He was even more relieved to once again curl his fingers around the smooth wooden handle of his knife.

“You two will be my escorts,” Oba informed the guards.

“Where shall we escort you?” one asked.

Oba mulled over the question. “This is my first visit. I wish to see some of the palace.” He restrained himself from calling it his palace. That would come in time. For now, there were other matters that must come first.

He followed them up stone stairwells, through corridors and past intersections and myriad flights of stairs. Patrolling soldiers, off in the distance, saw his guards and paid little attention to the man between them.

When they came to an iron door, one of his guards unlocked it and they stepped through into a corridor beyond with a polished marble floor. Oba was taken by the splendor of the hall, the fluted columns to the sides, and the arched ceiling. The three of them marched onward, around several corners lit by dramatic silver lamps hung in the center of marble panels.

The hall turned again to open into a grand courtyard of such staggering beauty that it cast the hall they had been in, that had been the finest place Oba had ever seen, as little more than a pigsty by contrast. He stood motionless, his mouth hanging, as he stared out at pool of water open to the sky, with trees—trees—growing on the other side, as if it were a woodland pond. Except that this was indoors, and the pond was surrounded by a low benchlike enclosure of polished rust-colored marble, and the pond was lined with blue glazed tiles. There were orange fish gliding through the pond. Real fish. Real orange fish. Indoors.

In his whole life Oba had never been so struck dumb by the grandeur, the beauty, the sheer majesty of a place.

“This is the palace?” he asked his escorts.

“Only a tiny part of it,” one answered.

“Only a tiny part,” Oba repeated in astonishment. “Is the rest as nice as this?”

“No. Most places are much more grand, with soaring ceilings, arches, and massive columns between balconies.”

“Balconies? Inside?”

“Yes. People on different levels can look down on lower levels, down on grand courtyards and quadrangles.”

“On some levels vendors sell their wares,” the other man said. “Some areas are public areas. Some places are quarters for soldiers, or staff. There are some places where visitors may rent rooms.”

Oba took this all in as he stared at the well-dressed people moving through the place, at the glass, marble, and polished wood.

“After I’ve seen some more of the palace,” he announced to his two big, uniformed D’Haran escorts, “I will want a quiet and very private room—luxurious, mind you, but someplace out of the way where I won’t be noticed. I will first want to purchase some decent clothes and some supplies. You two will stand watch and make sure that no one knows I’m here while I have a bath and get a good night’s rest.”

“How long will we be watching you?” the other man asked. “We will be missed if we’re away for too long. If we’re gone even longer, they will search for us and find your cell empty. Then they will come looking for you. They will soon know you are here.”

Oba considered. “Hopefully, I can leave tomorrow. Will you be missed by then?”

“No,” one of the two said, his eyes empty of everything but the desire to do Oba’s bidding. “We were just leaving at the end of our guard watch. We shouldn’t be missed before tomorrow.”

Oba smiled. The voice had chosen the right men. “By then, I’ll be on my way. But until then, I should enjoy my visit and see some of the palace.”

Oba’s fingers glided over the handle of his knife. “Maybe tonight, I might even like the company of a woman at dinner. A discreet woman.”

Both men bowed. Before he left, Oba would leave the two as nothing more than a stain of ashes on the floor of a lonely passageway. They would never tell anyone why his cell was empty.

And then…well, it was nearly spring, and in spring, who could tell where his fancy might turn?

One thing for sure, he was going to have to find Jennsen.

Jennsen’s astonishment was wearing off. She was becoming numb to the sight of the endless expanse of men, like some dark flood of humanity across the bottomland. The vast army had churned the broad plain between the rolling hills to a drab brown. Inestimable numbers of tents, wagons, and horses were crowded in among the soldiers. The drone of the horde, cut through with yelling, hoots, calls, whistles, the rattle of gear, the clatter of hooves, the rumble of wagons, the ringing rhythm of hammers on steel, the squeals of horses, and even occasional odd cries and screams of what almost sounded to Jennsen like women, could be heard for miles.

It was like gazing down on some impossibly huge city, but without buildings or pattern, as if all of man’s ingenuity, order, and works had magically vanished, with the people left behind reduced to near savages under the gathering dark clouds, trying to make do against the forces of nature and having a grim time of it.

Nor was this the worst of the conditions Jennsen had seen. Several weeks before and farther to the south, she and Sebastian had passed through the very place where the army of the Imperial Order had wintered. An army of this size wore heavily on the land, but she had been shocked at how much worse it was when they stopped for any length of time. It would be years before that vast, festering wound in the landscape healed.

Worse still, throughout the long harsh winter, men by the thousands had fallen ill. That dismal place would be forever haunted by an endless expanse of haphazardly placed graves marking those left behind when the living had marched on. It was horrifying to see such a staggering loss of life to sickness; Jennsen feared to imagine the far worse carnage to come in the battle for freedom.

With the frost finally out of the ground, the muddy soil had dried and firmed enough that the army had at last been able to strike out from those befouled winter quarters, to start their drive toward Aydindril, the seat of power in the Midlands. Sebastian had told her that the force they brought up from the Old World was so huge that while the leading edge was stopping here to set up camp, it would be hours before those at the tail end caught up and halted for the night. In the morning, the head of the great army would have to start off, stretching itself out, long before the end could have room to begin to move.

While their spring march north was not yet swift, their advance was inexorable. Sebastian said that once the men smelled their prey, their pulse, and their pace, would quicken.

It was a terrible shame that Lord Rahl’s greed for conquest and rule made this all necessary, that such a peaceful valley should be given over to men at war. With spring, the grasses were at last coming back to life, so that the hills rising up to each side of the valley looked as if they were covered in living green velvet. Forests took over on the steeper slopes beyond the hills. In the distance, off to the west and north, stone peaks still wore heavy mantles of snow. Headwaters swollen with the snowmelt roared down the rocky slopes, and, farther to the east, emptied into a mighty river that meandered out into a great, lush plain. The dirt there was so black, so fertile, that Jennsen imagined even rocks planted there might sprout roots and grow.

Before she and Sebastian had come upon the vast stain of the army, the land had been as beautiful as any Jennsen had seen in all her life. She longed to explore those enchanting forests, and fancied she could contentedly spend the rest of her life among such timber. It was hard for her to cast the Midlands as a place of evil magic.

Sebastian had told her that those woods were dangerous places where beasts roamed, and where those who wielded magic lurked. With the things she was learning, she was almost tempted to risk it. She knew, though, that even in those trackless and seemingly endless forests, Lord Rahl would still find her. His men had already demonstrated their ability to locate her in even the most remote areas; her mother’s murder was only the first proof of that. Ever since that terrible day, his merciless assassins had somehow been able to hound her up through D’Hara and halfway across the Midlands.

If Lord Rahl’s men caught her, they would take her back to the dungeons where Sebastian had been held, and then Lord Rahl would have her tortured endlessly before he granted her a slow, agonizing death. Jennsen could have no safety, no peace, as long as Lord Rahl pursued her. She intended to catch him, instead, and seize a life for herself.

Another clot of sentries spotted her and Sebastian riding over the open ground and moved down the slope from their observation post at the top of a hill to intercept them. When she and Sebastian were closer, and the men saw his spikes of white hair and the casual salute he gave them, they turned and swarmed back up the hill to their campfire and cooking their dinner.

Like the rest of the Imperial Order army she had seen, the men were a rough-looking lot, in tattered clothes, furs, and hides. Down in the broad valley, many sat around small campfires outside little tents made of hides or oiled canvas. Most looked to have been set up wherever their owners had found enough space, rather than to any order. Randomly set among the tents were local command centers, mess tables, arms stockpiles, supply wagons, paddocks packed with livestock or horses, tradespeople laboring, and even blacksmiths working at transportable forges. Scattered here and there were small trading markets where men gathered to barter or buy small goods.

There were even agitated, angry, rawboned men standing among the throngs preaching to smatterings of vacant onlookers. What exactly the men were preaching, Jennsen couldn’t hear, but she had seen men preach before. According to her mother, the tempestuous body language prophesying doom and proselytizing salvation was as unmistakable as it was unchanging.

As they rode closer in to the immense encampment, she saw men at their tents occupied with everything from laughing and drinking to working at cleaning weapons and gear. Some men stood in crooked lines, arms thrown over the next fellow’s shoulders, singing songs together. Others cooked by themselves, while still others crowded around mess areas, waiting to be fed. Some men were occupied with chores and tending animals. She saw some men gambling and arguing. The entire place was dirty, smelly, noisy, and frighteningly confusing.

As uncomfortable as she had always felt around crowds, this looked more terrifying even than a fevered nightmare. Descending toward the churning mass of humanity, she wanted to run in the opposite direction. Only her single, burning reason for being there, and nothing else, kept her from doing so.

She had reached the brink within, and crossed over. She had embraced the need to kill and resolved with cold deliberate calculation to do it. There could be no turning back.

The uniforms the soldiers wore were not that—uniform—but seemed to be a mismatched collection of leather set with spikes, fur, chain mail, wool cloaks, hides, and filthy tunics. Almost all the burly men she saw were unshaven, grimy, grim. It was readily apparent why Sebastian was so easily recognized and why no one ever challenged him, yet she remained awed at how, without fail, every man who laid eyes on him gave him a salute. Sebastian stood out like a swan among maggots.

Sebastian had explained how difficult it was to amass a huge army to defend their homeland and what an arduous undertaking it was to send them on such a long journey. He said that they were men far from home with a grisly job to do; they couldn’t be expected to look presentable for womenfolk or pause in their life-and-death battles to be mannerly and make tidy camps. These were fighting men.

So were D’Haran soldiers. These men certainly didn’t look anything like D’Haran soldiers looked, nor were they as disciplined, but she didn’t say so.

Jennsen could understand, though. As hard as she and Sebastian had been traveling, all the while taking precautions to evade Lord Rahl’s men by riding until they nearly dropped with exhaustion, often backtracking and working hard at making false trails, she had little time to worry about looking her best. Added to that, it had been a long and difficult journey across mountains in winter. It often rankled her that Sebastian should see her with her hair all tangled, when she was as filthy and sweaty as her horse and smelling no better. Still, he never seemed fazed by her all too often unkempt appearance. Rather, he usually seemed ignited by the mere sight of her, and often wanted nothing so much as to do whatever he could to please her.

The previous day they had taken a shorter route across hill country in order to make their way toward the head of the army, and had come across an abandoned farmhouse. Sebastian had indulged her wish to stay there for the night, even though it was early to make camp. After bathing and washing her long hair in the old tub in the tiny washroom, she put the water to use to wash out her clothes. Sitting before the warm fire Sebastian had built in the hearth, Jennsen brushed her hair as it dried. She was nervous about meeting the emperor and wanted to look presentable. Sebastian, leaning back on an elbow, watching her before the flickering glow of flames, had smiled that wonderful smile of his and said that even if she went unwashed and with tangled hair, she would be the most beautiful woman Emperor Jagang had ever seen.

Now, as they rode along the fringes of the Imperial Order encampment, her stomach was in knots, even if her hair was not. From the looks of the turbulent clouds moving in past the mountains to the west, a spring storm would be on them before long. Off above distant valleys, lightning flickered through the dark clouds. She hoped the rain didn’t arrive to drench her hair and dress right before meeting the emperor.

“There,” Sebastian said, leaning forward in his saddle to point. “Those are the emperor’s tents, and those of his important advisors and officers. Not far beyond, up the valley, will be Aydindril itself.” He looked over with a grin. “Emperor Jagang hasn’t moved to take the city yet. We’ve made it in time.”

The huge tents were an imposing sight. The largest was oval, its tripeaked roof pierced by three lofty center poles. The tent’s sides bore brightly colored panels. Standards and tassels hung from the eaves. High atop the three poles, colorful yellow and red banners flapped in the gusty wind, while long pennants streamed out, undulating like airborne serpents. The emperor’s congregation of tents stood out among the drab little quarters of the regular soldiers the way a king’s palace towered over surrounding huts.

Jennsen’s heart raced as they urged their horses down into the thick of the encampment. Both Rusty and Pete, their ears alert, snorted their misgivings about entering such a noisy and busy place. She urged Rusty ahead in order to take Sebastian’s hand when offered it.

“Your hand is all sweaty,” he said, smiling. “You aren’t nervous, are you?”

She was water at a boil, a horse at a gallop. “Maybe a little,” she said.

But her purpose stiffened her will.

“Well, don’t be. Emperor Jagang will be the one to be nervous, meeting such a beautiful woman.”

Jennsen could feel her face heat. She was about to meet an emperor. What would her mother think of such a thing? As she rode, she considered how her mother, as a young servant girl on the palace staff—a nobody—must have felt when she met Darken Rahl himself. Jennsen could, for the first time, truly begin to empathize with the enormity of such an event in her mother’s life.

As she and Sebastian trotted their horses into camp, men everywhere peered Jennsen’s way. Mobs of men crowded closer to see the woman riding in. She saw that there were a number of soldiers with pikes forming a rough line along their route, holding back the press of men. She realized that the guards were clearing the way and preventing any of the more celebratory men from getting too close.

Sebastian watched her as she took note of the way the soldiers opened a clear path for them.

“The emperor knows we’re coming,” he told her.

“But how?”

“When we encountered scouts a few days ago, and then sentries this morning as we got closer, they would have sent runners on ahead to inform Emperor Jagang that I’ve returned, and that I’m not alone. Emperor Jagang would want to insure the safety of any guest I would bring.”

It appeared to Jennsen that the guards were meant to keep the great mass of regular soldiers away from the two of them. She thought it an odd thing to do, but by the drunken nature of some of the soldiers, and the rough looks and leering grins of others, she couldn’t say that she was sorry about it.

“The soldiers look so…I don’t know…brutish, I guess.”

“And as you are about to plunge your knife into Richard Rahl’s heart,” Sebastian said without pause, “do you intend to curtsy and say please and thank you so that he will see how well mannered you are?”

“Of course not, but—”

He turned his halting blue eyes on her. “When those brutes came into your house and butchered your mother, what sort of men would you have wished were there to protect her?”

Jennsen was taken aback. “Sebastian, I don’t know what that has to do—”

“Would you trust dressy soldiers with polished leather and polite manners—like some pompous king would have at a fancy dinner party—to be the ones to make a desperate last stand protecting your beloved mother against the onslaught of vicious killers? Or would you want men even more brutish to be the ones to stand before your mother, protecting her life? Wouldn’t you want men steeped in the most brutal traditions of combat, to be the ones standing between her and those savage men intent on killing her?”

“I guess I see what you mean,” Jennsen admitted.

“These men are serving in that role for all their loved ones back in the Old World.”

The unexpected encounter with that terrible memory was so chilling, so painful, that she had to work at putting it out of her mind. She felt humbled, too, by Sebastian’s heated words. She was here for a reason. That reason was all that mattered. If the men arrayed against Lord Rahl’s forces were tough and mean, so much the better.

It wasn’t until they reached the heavily defended compound around the emperor’s tents that Jennsen saw other women. They were an odd mix, from young-looking to some who were stooped with age. Most peered curiously, some frowned, and a few even appeared alarmed, but all watched as Jennsen rode closer.