The Pillars of Creation (46 page)

Jennsen felt an unexpected pang at the thought of the two of them standing together as the end came. It was completely out of character for a Lord Rahl to care for any woman, much less to stand by one as she was about to lose the war for her homeland, and her life as well. Lord Rahl would be more concerned about preserving his own life and land.

Still, the thought of him being this close was too tantalizing to dismiss, and had her pulse racing. “If he is this close, then I wouldn’t need the help of the Sisters of the Light. I wouldn’t need a spell. I would only have to get a little closer, to be with you when you make your drive into the city.”

Jagang’s grim, humorless smile was back. “You will ride with me; I will deliver you to the Confessors’ Palace.” His knuckles were white around his knife again. “I want them both dead. I will see to the Mother Confessor, personally. I grant you permission to be the one to plunge your knife into Richard Rahl.”

Jennsen felt a wild swing of emotion, from giddy elation that the deed was close at hand, to sickening horror. For an instant, she doubted that she could really carry out such a grisly, cold-blooded act.

Jennsen
.

But then she remembered her mother lying in a pool of blood on the floor of their home, bleeding to death from those awful ripping stab wounds, her severed arm not far away, a house full of Lord Rahl’s brutes standing over her. Jennsen remembered her mother’s eyes, as she lay dying. She remembered how helpless she felt as her mother’s life slipped away. The horror of it was as fresh as ever. The rage was as white-hot as ever. Jennsen lusted to plunge her knife into her bastard brother’s heart.

That was all she wanted.

In the searing haze of righteous anger, as she saw herself slamming the knife into Richard Rahl’s chest, she only distantly heard Jagang speak.

“But why is it you wish to kill your brother? What is your reason, your purpose?”

“
Grushdeva
,” she hissed.

Behind her, Jennsen heard a glass vase hit the floor and shatter. The sound startled her back to where she was.

The emperor frowned at the woman off in the shadows. Her brown eyes were fixed on Jennsen.

“I apologize for Sister Perdita’s clumsiness,” Jagang said as he glared at the woman.

“Forgive me, Excellency,” the woman in the dark gray dress said as she backed out between the hangings, bowing all the way.

The emperor’s frown turned back to Jennsen.

“Now, what was it you said?”

Jennsen hadn’t the slightest idea. She knew she’d said something, but she wasn’t sure what. She thought that maybe her grief had tied her tongue in knots right when she went to answer. Her sorrow returned, like a great, grim weight on her shoulders.

“You see, Excellency,” Jennsen said as she stared down at her uneaten dinner, “all my life, my father, Darken Rahl, has been trying to murder me because I was his ungifted offspring. When Richard Rahl killed him and assumed rule over D’Hara, he took up in his father’s place, and part of that place was to murder his ungifted siblings. But in this duty, he was even more vicious than his father had been.”

Jennsen looked up through watery vision. “Just after I met Sebastian, my brother’s men finally caught up with us. They brutally murdered my mother. If not for Sebastian being there, they would have had me, too. Sebastian saved my life. I intend to kill Richard, because, if I don’t, I can’t ever be free. He will always send men to hunt me. Besides saving my life, Sebastian helped me to see that.

“Perhaps even more importantly, I must avenge the murder of my mother if I am ever to be at peace.”

“Our purpose is the welfare of our fellow man. Your story saddens me, and is the very reason we fight to eradicate the blight of magic.” The emperor finally shifted his gaze to Sebastian. “I am proud of you for helping this fine young woman.”

Sebastian had turned moody. She knew how ill at ease he felt under the weight of praise. She wished he could feel proud about his accomplishments, his importance, his stature with the emperor.

He laid his knife down across the scraps of his meal. “Just doing my job, Excellency.”

“Well,” Jagang said with an encouraging smile, “I’m glad you’ve returned in time to see the culmination of your strategy.”

Sebastian leaned back, nursing a mug of ale. “Don’t you want to wait for Brother Narev? Shouldn’t he be here to witness it, if this turns out to be the blow that ends it?”

With a thick finger, Jagang pushed an olive around in a little circle on the table. It was a time before he spoke quietly without looking up.

“I’ve not heard from Brother Narev since Altur’Rang fell.”

Sebastian came up against the table. “What! Altur’Rang fell? What do you mean? How? When?”

Jennsen knew that Altur’Rang was the emperor’s homeland, the city he came from. Sebastian had told her that Brother Narev and the Fellowship of Order were there, in that great shining city of hope for mankind. A great palace would be built there in homage to the Creator and as a symbol to solidify the unity of the Old World.

“I received reports not long ago that enemy forces overran the city. Altur’Rang is very distant, and it was cut off. Partly because of winter, the reports were a very long time in reaching me. I await news.

“Given this inauspicious turn of fate, I don’t think it wise to wait for Brother Narev to make it up here. He will be busy throwing the invaders back. If the Mother Confessor and Richard Rahl are in Aydindril, we must not wait; we must strike back swiftly, and with withering force.”

Jennsen laid a sympathetic hand on Sebastian’s forearm. “That must have been what you told me about. When I first met you and you told me that Lord Rahl was invading your homeland, that must have been what he was after—Altur’Rang.”

Sebastian stared at her. “It may be that he isn’t in Aydindril. It may turn out that he’s still to the south, Jenn, in the Old World. You have to keep that in mind. I don’t want you to invest all your hopes only to have them dashed.”

“I hope he is here and it can finally be ended, but, as His Excellency said about moving on Aydindril, there is nothing to lose. I didn’t expect to find him here. If he isn’t in Aydindril, then I’ll still have the help for which you brought me here in the first place.”

“And what is the nature of that help?” Jagang asked.

Sebastian answered for her. “I told her that the Sisters might be able to help with a spell—so that she can get past all of Lord Rahl’s protection and get close enough to him to act.”

“One way or another, then. If he is in Aydindril, you shall have him.” Jagang plucked up the olive he had been rolling around and popped it in his mouth. “If not, then you shall have the sorceress at your disposal. Whatever help you need from the Sisters is yours. You have but to ask, and they will provide it—my word on that.”

His raven eyes were deadly serious.

Outside, thunder rumbled. The rain had picked up. Lightning flickered, lighting the tent from the outside with eerie light that made the candlelight seem all the darker when each flash of lightning ended, leaving them again in near darkness, waiting for the roll of thunder.

“I just need them to cast me a spell to divert those protecting him, so I can get close enough to him,” Jennsen said after the thunder had died out. She drew her knife from its sheath and held it up to look at the ornate letter “R” engraved in the silver handle. “Then I can put my knife through his evil heart. This knife—his own knife. Sebastian explained how important it is to use what is closest to an enemy to strike back at them.”

“Sebastian has spoken wisely. That is our way, and why, with the Creator’s guidance, we will prevail. Let us pray that we at last have them both and it can finally be ended, that the scourge of magic will finally be ended, and that mankind will at last be allowed to live in peace as the Creator intended.”

Jennsen and Sebastian both nodded at the invocation.

“If we catch them in Aydindril,” Jagang said, looking her in the eyes, “I promise that you will be the one to put your blade through his heart, so that your mother may finally rest in peace.”

“Thank you,” Jennsen whispered in gratitude.

He didn’t ask how she could accomplish such a task. Maybe the conviction in her voice had betrayed the fact that there was more to this than he knew—that she had some special advantage that would enable her to accomplish such a thing.

And there was more to this than he knew, or Sebastian knew.

Jennsen had been thinking long and hard about it, putting all the various elements together. Her whole life had been devoted to thinking about this problem. But in the past, her thoughts always revolved around how insoluble it was, how it was only a matter of time until Lord Rahl caught her and the nightmare began in earnest.

She had always been focused on the problem.

Now, since meeting Sebastian and the death of her mother, events had accelerated at a breathtaking pace, but those events had also added, bit by bit, to her understanding of the larger picture. Questions were beginning to have answers, answers that seemed so simple, now, looking back on them. She almost felt as if, deep down inside, she must have known all along.

Now, she was turning her focus away from the problem; she was beginning to think in terms of the solution.

Jennsen had learned a great deal from Althea—as it turned out, more, even, than the sorceress knew she was revealing. A sorceress of Althea’s power would not be trapped there all those years unless what she said about the beasts in the swamp were true. The snake was different. Friedrich had said that the snake was just a snake.

But the beasts were magic.

Those beasts kept even a sorceress of Althea’s power locked in her prison. Friedrich said that no one, not even he, could come in by the back way. Tom had also said that he had never heard of anyone going in the back way and returning to tell about it. No one used the meadow, either, because of the things that came out of that swamp. The things in the swamp were real and they were deadly. All the facts but one were consistent in supporting that.

Jennsen had gone in and come out again without ever being approached, much less attacked or harmed. She had seen nothing of any beasts created from the very substance of the gift. That was the one piece that hadn’t fit, at the time. It did, now.

There had been other indications, too, such as in the People’s Palace, when Jennsen had touched Nyda’s Agiel without it harming her. It had certainly harmed both Sebastian and Captain Lerner. Nyda had been dumbstruck. She said that not even Lord Rahl was immune to the touch of an Agiel. Jennsen was.

And, Jennsen had been able to bend Nyda’s will to helping, rather than what, by all rights, she should have done, which was to stop this stranger who couldn’t be touched with the power of an Agiel, stopped a woman who raised so many unanswered questions, until it all could be sorted out and confirmed. Even when Nathan Rahl tried to stop her, Jennsen had been able to get Nyda to help protect her—from a gifted Rahl. Jennsen knew now that it was more than just a good bluff. A bluff might have been the kernel, but there was much more wrapped around it.

All of those things and more, over the course of the long and difficult journey to Aydindril, had at last come together, so that Jennsen finally saw the true extent of her unique status and why she was the one to kill Richard Rahl.

Jennsen had come to understand that she was the only one able to do this—that she was born to do this—because, in a central, critical, cardinal way…she was invincible.

She knew, now, that she had always been invincible.

From atop Rusty, the chill, gusty breeze ruffling her hair, Jennsen gazed off at the splendor of the Confessors’ Palace crowning a distance rise. Sebastian sat beside her on a nervous Pete. Emperor Jagang, his magnificent dappled gray stallion pawing the road, waited on the other side of Sebastian, a cadre of officers and advisors huddled close, but silent. Jagang’s forbidding scowl was fixed on the palace. Dark, menacing shapes, like a gathering storm, drifted across the surface of his black eyes.

The advance into Aydindril had, so far, been unlike anything anyone had expected, leaving everyone tense and on edge.

Arrayed behind was a contingent of Sisters of the Light who kept to themselves, apparently concentrating on matters of magic. Although none of the Sisters, as of yet, had had the chance to speak to Jennsen, they were all acutely aware of her, and kept a close eye on her. Yet more of them had ridden off in various directions as the emperor had led the detachment of Imperial Order cavalry, like some dark floodwater, across farms, roads, and hills, around buildings and barns, ever onward up roads and then in around buildings, to seep into the outermost fringes of Aydindril. The great city now lay spread out before them, silent and still.

The night before, Sebastian had slept fitfully. Jennsen knew, because, on the eve of such a momentous battle, she had slept hardly at all. Yet, with the thought of finally being able to use the knife sheathed at her belt, she was wide awake.

Behind the Sisters, more than forty thousand of the Imperial Order’s elite cavalry waited, some with pikes and lances poised at the ready, some with swords or axes in hand. Each wore a ring through his left nostril. While most wore beards, and some had long, dark, greasy hair, with good luck charms tied in, there were quite a few with shaved heads, apparently out of open fealty to Emperor Jagang. They were all a tightly coiled spring, destroyers, poised to storm into the city.

Besides being elite members of the cavalry, trusted officers, or Sisters of the Light, every person there, except Jennsen and Sebastian, had one essential thing in common: they knew the Mother Confessor by sight. From what Jennsen was able to gather, the Mother Confessor had led raids on the Order’s camp and had been at battles where she had been seen by a number of the men, as well as the Sisters. All those chosen to ride into Aydindril with the emperor had to know the Mother Confessor by sight. Jagang didn’t want her slipping out of their snare by hiding in crowds of people, or escaping by pretending to be a lowly washwoman. Such a worry had evaporated in the light of what they had so far found.

Chilled not only by the breeze, but by the lust for battle gleaming in the soldiers’ eyes, Jennsen gripped the horn of her saddle tight in an attempt to make her hands stop trembling.

Jennsen
.

For the hundredth time that morning, she checked that her knife was clear in its scabbard. After reassuring herself, she pressed it back down, feeling the satisfying metallic click as it seated. She was there with the army because she was a part of this, with a job to do.

Surrender
.

She thought about the irony of how this was the very knife that Lord Rahl had given a man he sent to kill her, and now she was bringing that same knife, a thing close to him, back to defeat him.

At last, she was the hunter, and not the hunted.

Whenever she felt her courage waver, she had but to think of her mother, or Althea and Friedrich, or Althea’s sister, Lathea, or even Jennsen’s unknown half brother, the Raug’Moss healer, Drefan. So many lives had been ruined or forfeit because of the House of Rahl, because of Lord Rahl—first her father, Darken Rahl, and now her half brother, Richard Rahl.

Surrender your will, Jennsen. Surrender your flesh
.

“Leave me be,” she snapped, annoyed that the voice wouldn’t leave her alone and at having to repeat it so often when she had important things on her mind.

Sebastian frowned over at her. “What?”

Chagrined that she had inadvertently said it aloud this time, Jennsen simply shook her head as if to say it was nothing. He turned back to his own thoughts as he watched the city spread out before them, studying the imposing maze of tight buildings, streets, and alleyways. There was only one thing missing from the city, and that had everyone tense and jumpy.

From the corner of her eye, Jennsen saw the Sisters all whispering among themselves. All except one, Sister Perdita, the one in the dark gray dress and the salt and pepper hair loosely tied back. When their eyes met, the woman smiled in that knowing, self-satisfied smirk of hers that seemed able to look right into Jennsen’s soul. Jennsen thought that it probably looked different to her than the woman intended, so she bowed her head slightly in acknowledgment and smiled all the smile she could muster before turning away.

Along with everyone else, Jennsen watched the palace in the distance, on a hill overlooking the city. It was hard not to look at it, the way it stood out against the gray walls of mountains like snow on slate. Tall windows fronted the building between towering white marble columns topped with gold capitals. To the rear, at the center, a domed roof with a belt of windows rose up well clear of the high walls. Jennsen had trouble reconciling the splendor of such a beautiful building with the wicked rule of the Mother Confessor.

The sinister specter of the Wizard’s Keep, high up on a mountain behind the palace, seemed like it would be more fitting for the Mother Confessor. Jennsen noticed that no one liked looking up at that baleful place; their eyes were always quick to turn to less unnerving sights.

The Keep watching down on them was larger than any man-made thing Jennsen had ever seen, save the People’s Palace in D’Hara. Ragged gray clouds floated past dark stone exterior walls that soared to staggering heights. The Keep itself, behind those lofty walls, appeared to be a complex collection of battlements, ramparts, crenellated walls, towers, spires, and connecting bridges and walkways. Jennsen had never imagined that anything made of stone could look so alive with menace.

In the quiet, her gaze sought solace in Sebastian’s spikes of white hair, his knowing eyes, the familiar contours of his face. His handsome features were comforting to her, even if he didn’t look her way. What woman wouldn’t be honored to have the love of a man like him? If not for him being there with her since her mother’s death, Jennsen didn’t know what she would have done, how she would have gotten by.

Sebastian wore his cloak laid back to expose some of his weapons. He surveyed the scene with studied calm. She wished she could feel so calm. It frightened her, unexpectedly, to contemplate him having to draw those weapons, of him having to fight for his life.

“What do you think?” she whispered as she leaned closer to him. “What could it mean?”

He gave her a brief shake of his head along with a harsh glance. He didn’t want to discuss it. That curt gesture told her that she was supposed to be quiet. She had known, of course, by the silence of tens of thousands of men right behind her that she was supposed to be quiet, but the anxiety was twisting her insides into a knot. She had only wanted a small token of reassurance. Instead, his abrupt snub cut her down, making her feel like a small nobody.

She knew that he had important things on his mind, but his brusque dismissal still stung like a slap, especially after the night before when he had so desperately wanted her comfort, wanted her as fiercely as he had ever wanted her. She had understood. She hadn’t turned him away, even though she found it distressing that they weren’t alone, but had guards standing right outside who she suspected could hear everything.

Of course, she knew that this was not the time or place he could afford to give her comfort; they were all on the brink of battle. Still, it hurt.

Over the sound of the wind moaning through the bare branches of majestic, mature maple trees lining the road, she picked up the sound of hooves at a gallop. All eyes turned to watch bearded, long-haired men, streamers of fur and hides trailing out behind as they hunched forward over their horses’ withers, charging in from the road on the right. Jennsen recognized them by the lead horse’s patchy white, pied coloration. They were one of the small reconnoitering parties the emperor had sent ahead hours before. In the distance to the west, their counterpart was returning from the opposite direction, but they were yet tiny specks riding down out of the far foothills.

As the first group of horsemen came storming in before the emperor and his advisors, Jennsen covered her mouth with the edge of her cloak to mask her coughing on the cloud of dust.

The husky man at the lead of the riders pulled his pied horse around. His greasy strings of hair whipped around like the horse’s white tail. “Nothing, Excellency.”

Jagang, looking in a foul mood and near the end of patience, shifted his weight in his saddle. “Nothing.”

“No, Excellency, nothing. No sign of troops anywhere to the east, or on the far side of the city, or all the way up the slopes of the mountains. Nothing. The roads, the trails—all deserted. No people, no tracks, no horse dung, no wagon ruts…nothing. We could find no sign that anyone has been here for a good long time.”

The man went on with a detailed account of where they had looked, but without result, as the other knot of men thundered in from the west, their horses lathered and in a high state of excitement.

“No one!” the man at the front called out as he hauled in on the reins, laying his horse’s head over. The horse, eyes wild and keyed up from the hard ride, pivoted around to a halt before the emperor, snorting through flared nostrils. “Excellency, there are no troops—or anyone—to the west.”

Jagang glared at the Confessors’ Palace. “What about the road up to the Keep?” he asked in a quiet growl. “Or are you going to tell me that my scouts and patrols were ambushed by the ghosts of all the vanished people!”

The brawny man, layered in hides, looked as fierce as anyone Jennsen had ever seen. His top teeth were missing, adding to his savage aspect. He cast a cautious look back up at the wide ribbon of road that wound its way up from the city toward the Wizard’s Keep. He turned back to the emperor.

“Excellency, there were no tracks on the road up to the Keep, either.”

“Did you go all the way up to the Keep to check?” he asked, his dark gaze turning on the man.

The man swallowed under the hot scrutiny of Jagang’s glower. “There is a stone bridge, not far from the top, that crosses a great crevasse. We went that far, Excellency, but still saw no one, nor any tracks. The portcullis was lowered. Beyond, the Keep showed no sign of life.”

“That means nothing,” a woman not far behind scoffed.

Jennsen turned, along with Sebastian, most of the advisors, officers, and Jagang, to look at her. It was Sister Perdita who had spoken. At least she managed to keep most of the superior smirk off her face as everyone stared at her.

“It means nothing,” she repeated. “I’m telling you, Excellency, I don’t like this one bit. Something is wrong.”

“Something? Like what?” Jagang asked, his voice low and surly.

Sister Perdita left the company of several dozen Sisters of the Light and walked her horse forward to speak more privately to the emperor.

“Excellency,” she said only after she was close, “have you ever walked into a wood, and realized that there were no sounds, when there should be? That it had suddenly gone quiet?”

Jennsen had. She was struck by how accurately the Sister had hit upon the peculiar, uneasy feeling she was having—a kind of portent to doom, yet without definable cause, that made the fine hairs at the back of her neck stand on end like when she would be lying in her bedroll, almost asleep, and every insect, all at once, went silent.

Jagang glared at Sister Perdita. “When I walk into a wood, or anywhere, it always goes silent.”

The Sister didn’t argue, but simply started over. “Excellency, we have fought these people long and hard. Those of us with the gift know their tricks with magic. We know when they are using their gift. We’ve learned to know if they’ve used magic to set traps, even if those traps are not themselves magic. But this is different. Something is wrong.”

“You still have not told me what,” Jagang said with restrained, impatient irritation, as if he didn’t have time for someone who wouldn’t come to the point.

The woman, noting his annoyance, bowed her head. “Excellency, I would tell you if I knew. It is my duty to advise you of what I know. We can detect no magic being used—none. We sense no traps that have ever been touched by the gift.

“But that knowledge still does not set my mind at ease. Something is wrong. I’m telling you, now, my warning, even though I admit that I don’t know the cause of my concern. You have but to search my mind for yourself and you will see I’m speaking the truth.”

Jennsen had no idea what the Sister meant, but after staring at her for a moment, Jagang visibly cooled. He grunted dismissively as he looked back toward the palace. “I think you’re just nervous after a long idle winter, Sister. As you said, you know their tactics and tricks with magic, so if it was something real, you and your Sisters would know it and know the cause.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Sister Perdita pressed. She cast a quick, troubled glance at the Wizard’s Keep up on the mountain. “Excellency, we know a great deal about magic. But the Keep is thousands of years old. Being from the Old World, that place is outside my experience. I know next to nothing about the specific kinds of magic which are likely to be kept in that place, except that whatever magic is kept there will be dangerous in the extreme. That is one purpose of a Keep—to safeguard such things.”

“That’s why I want the Keep taken,” Jagang shot back. “Those dangerous things must not be left in the enemy’s hands to later deal us murder.”

With her fingertips, Sister Perdita patiently rubbed the creases in her brow. “The Keep is strongly warded. I can’t tell how; the wards were set by wizards, not sorceresses. Such wards could easily have been left untended—no one needs stand guard. Such wards can be triggered by simple trespass—much as with any trap without magic. Such wards can be cautionary, but, just as likely, they can be deadly. Even if the place is deserted, those wards could easily kill anyone—anyone—who so much as tries to get close, much less take the place. Such defensive measures are timeless; they do not wear away. They are just as effective whether they’ve been there for a month or a millennia. The attempt to take a place so warded could deal us the murder we are trying to avoid.”