The Pillars of Creation (59 page)

Jennsen and Sebastian rushed to follow after Sister Perdita, who had disappeared over the top of the ridge. As they reached the edge, they saw her, already far below them. Jennsen looked back, in the direction of the trailhead, but didn’t see the lone man. She did see, though, that a bank of dark clouds had rolled in over the expanse of barren plains.

“Hurry!” Sister Perdita called back up to them.

With Sebastian’s hand at the small of her back, urging her on, Jennsen dashed down the steep trail. The Sister moved as swiftly as the wind, the black robes flying out behind her as she raced along a trail cut into the slope of steep rock. Jennsen had never worked so hard to keep up with anyone. She suspected that the woman was using magic to aid her.

Whenever Jennsen started to lose her footing on the loose scree and reached out for support, the rough rock rasped the skin on her fingers and the palms of her hands. The trail was as arduous as any she had ever climbed down. Loose rock atop layers of solid ledge constantly slipped and gave way underfoot, and she knew that if she grabbed the wrong handhold, the rock, in many places as sharp as shattered glass, would slice her hands open.

Jennsen was soon panting and trying to catch her breath, as well as the distant Sister. Sebastian, right behind, sounded just as winded. He, too, lost his footing a number of times and, once, Jennsen cried out and grabbed his arm just before he went over the edge of a precipitous drop of thousands of feet.

The look in his eyes expressed the relief that he was too winded to voice.

Finding herself closer to the bottom, after a seemingly unending, arduous descent, Jennsen was at least relieved to note that the walls and towers were blocking the broiling sunlight. She glanced up at the sky, something she hadn’t had the luxury to do for quite a while, and realized that it wasn’t just the shadows cast by rock darkening the day. The sky, that only hours before had been so clear and bright blue, was now roofed with churning gray clouds, as if the entire valley of the Pillars of Creation were being sealed off from the rest of the world.

She forged onward, rushing to keep up with Sister Perdita. There was no time to worry about clouds. As exhausted as Jennsen was, she knew that when the time came, she would find the strength to plunge her knife into Richard Rahl. That time was almost at hand. She knew that her mother, with the good spirits, would inspire her and thus help give her the strength. She knew, too, that other strength had been promised.

Rather than filling her with dread, knowing that the end of her life was so close left Jennsen with an odd, numb sense of calm. It seemed almost sweet, that promise of the end of struggle, the end of fear, the end of needing to care about anything. Soon, there would be no exhaustion, no insufferable heat, no pain, no sorrow, no anguish.

At the same time, when, for only an instant here or a moment there, she actually comprehended the staggering reality that she was about to die, her mind blanked out with overwhelming terror. It was her life, her only precious life, that was inexorably dwindling away, that would soon end with the cold embrace of death itself.

Flickering lightning skipped across a darkening sky, traveling under the clouds. Distant, intense flashes came again, lacing though the heavy clouds, lighting them from within with spectacular green light. Distant thunder boomed, rumbling out across the vast deserted valley. The hesitant rolling sound of the thunder seemed to match the way the landscape wavered in the heat.

As they descended, the towering rock columns became larger, at first growing up from splits along the ridges, until down at the bottom they seemed rooted in the floor of the valley itself. Now, as the three of them moved at last ever farther away from the cliffs and out into the valley, those columns rose up like an ancient stone forest. Jennsen felt like an ant moving among them.

As their footsteps echoed among the rock walls, chambers, and tiers, she couldn’t help marveling at the smooth, rippled sides of the pillars, that looked as if the rock had been worn smooth, like stones in a river. Different layers within the vertical rock appeared to be of varying density, making them wear at different rates, leaving the stone towers rippled up along their entire length. In places, huge sections of the columns perched atop narrow necks.

All the while, the heat felt like a great weight pressing down on her as her feet dragged through the jagged gravel at the bottom. The light among the columns cast eerie shadows, leaving dark places lurking farther back in among the towers. In other places, light seemed to come from behind the stone. As she looked up, it was like looking up from the depths of the world, seeing the rock itself, lit green at times by the flickering lightning within the clouds, reach up as if beseeching salvation.

Sister Perdita glided among the maze of rock, like a spirit of the dead, her black robes billowing out behind. Even Sebastian’s presence behind was not a comfort for Jennsen among such silent sentinels to the power of Creation itself.

Lightning arced across above their heads, above the tops of towering rock, as if searching the forest of stone. Thunder shook the valley with violent shudders that brought crumbling rock down on them so that they had to run or dodge to the side to avoid being stoned. Jennsen saw, here and there, where some of the enormous pillars had previously come crashing down. They lay toppled, now, like fallen giants. In places they had to pass beneath the monumental stone lying across the path, walking through passages left where the colossal pieces spanned weathered gaps. She hoped the lightning that was streaking all across the sky didn’t decide to hit a stone pillar right above them and send unimaginable weight crashing down on them.

Just when Jennsen thought that they would be forever lost in among the tight spaces among soaring rock, she saw an opening between the towers that revealed the expanse of the rest of the valley floor. Winding their way along the bottom, among the crowded stone columns, they began to wend their way out into more open ground, where the pillars stood as individual monuments rather than being tightly crammed together.

Down at the bottom, the valley, that had looked so flat from above, was a jumble of rolling low rock and scree, cut through with jagged rock formations and lifted slabs of smooth stone that ran for miles. Out from the fingers of tapering ridges coming in from the sides stood lofty pillars both separated, and in small clusters.

The thunder was becoming unnerving as it boomed and shuddered and rumbled almost continually through the forest of stone. The sky had lowered until the boiling clouds brushed along the surrounding walls of rock. Off at the far end of the valley, the darkest clouds threw out almost constant flickers and flashes, some startlingly bright, spawning jarring thunderclaps.

Coming past a broad stone spire, Jennsen was startled to see a wagon in the distance making its way across the valley floor.

Jennsen turned to tell Sebastian about the wagon, and there, behind them, towered the stranger.

Her gaze took in his black shirt, his black, open-sided tunic decorated with ancient symbols snaking along a wide gold band running all the way around its squared edges. The tunic was cinched at his waist with a wide, multilayered leather belt with leather pouches attached along each side. The small, gold-worked leather compartments on the belt bore silver emblems of linked rings, matching those on wide, leather-padded silver bands at each wrist. His trousers and boots were black. In contrast, his broad shoulders bore a cape that appeared to be made of spun gold.

He had no weapon but a belt knife, but he needed none to be the embodiment of threat itself.

Looking into his gray eyes, Jennsen knew instantly and unequivocally that she was staring into the raptor gaze of Richard Rahl.

It felt as if a fist of fear seized her heart, and squeezed. Jennsen pulled her knife free. She clutched it so tightly that her knuckles were white around the silver hilt. She could feel the ornately engraved letter “R,” for the House of Rahl, biting into her palm and fingers as the Lord Rahl himself stood right there before her.

Sebastian spun around and saw him, then moved around behind her.

Her emotions in a jumble, Jennsen stood paralyzed before her brother.

“Jenn,” Sebastian whispered from behind, “don’t worry. You can do this. Your mother is watching. Don’t let her down.”

Richard Rahl scrutinized her, not seeming to notice Sebastian, or even Sister Perdita, farther back. Jennsen stared at her brother, equally oblivious of the other two.

“Where is Kahlan?” Richard said.

His voice was not what she expected. It was commanding, to be sure, but it was so much more, so full of emotion, everything from cold fury, to unwavering resolve, to desperation. His gray eyes, too, reflected the same sincere and terrible determination.

Jennsen could not take her eyes from him. “Who is Kahlan?”

“The Mother Confessor. My wife.”

Jennsen could not move, so conflicted was she in what she was seeing, in what she was hearing. This was not a man looking for a monster cohort, a brutal Confessor who ruled the Midlands with an iron will and an evil hand. This was a man motivated by love for this woman. Jennsen could clearly see that little else mattered to him. If they did not get out of his way, he would go through them like he went through those thousand men. It was as simple as that.

Except, unlike those thousand men, Jennsen was invincible.

“Where is Kahlan?” Richard repeated, his patience at an end.

“You killed my mother,” Jennsen said, almost defensively.

His brow twitched. He seemed truly puzzled. “I only just learned that I have a sister. Friedrich Gilder just told me, and that your name is Jennsen.”

Jennsen realized she was nodding, unable to take her eyes off his, seeing her own eyes in his.

“Kill him, Jenn!” Sebastian whispered urgently in her ear. “Kill him! You can do it. His magic can’t hurt you! Do it.”

Jennsen felt a kind of tingling dread working its way up her legs. Something was wrong. Gripping the knife, she gathered her courage of purpose as the voice filled her head, until there was no room for anything else.

“The Lord Rahl has been trying to murder me my whole life. When you killed your father, you took his place. You sent men after me. You’ve hounded me just like your father. You sent the quads after us. You bastard, you sent those men who murdered my mother!”

Richard listened without argument, and then spoke in a calm, deliberate voice. “Don’t lay a cloak of guilt around my shoulders because others are evil.”

Jennsen was jolted, realizing that was very close to the words her mother had used the night before she died. “
Don’t you ever wear a cloak of guilt because they are evil
.”

The muscles in his jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. “What have you done with Kahlan?”

“She’s my queen, now!” came a voice echoing through the columns.

Jennsen vaguely recognized the voice. As she looked around, she didn’t see Sister Perdita anywhere.

Richard passed her, already moving toward the voice, like a shadow moving by, and then he was suddenly gone. She had missed her chance to stab him. She couldn’t believe that he had been standing right in front of her, and she had missed her chance.

“Jenn!” Sebastian called, pulling at her arm. “What’s the matter with you? Come on! You can still get him!”

She didn’t know what was wrong. Something was. She pressed her hands to her head, trying to stop the drone of the voice. She no longer could. She had made a bargain, and the voice was mercilessly demanding that she hold to it, crushing her mind with pain unlike any she had ever suffered.

When Jennsen heard laughter echoing through the forest of stone pillars, she moved swiftly, the heat and her exhaustion forgotten. She and Sebastian ran toward the sound, weaving their way among the disorder of towering rock. She no longer knew where she was, which way was which. She raced through stone passageways that opened up to others, along their twisting course, under archways of rock, among columns, and through shadows and light. It was like moving through a strange and confusing combination of corridors and woods, except that these walls were stone, not plaster, and the trees were rock.

As they came around an immense pillar, there, among others standing like sentinels, was an open area of undulating smooth rock in a jumble of curves, with smaller stone columns as thick around as ancient pines.

A woman was tied to one of the columns.

There was no doubt in Jennsen’s mind that this was Richard’s wife, Kahlan, the Mother Confessor.

Off in another direction came the echoing laughter, teasing, leading Richard away from what he sought.

The Mother Confessor didn’t look like the monster Jennsen had pictured. She looked in bad shape, limp in the ropes around the pillar. She was not bound securely, but simply, with rope around her middle, as a child might tie a playmate to a tree.

She was apparently unconscious, some of her long mass of hair pendent around her hanging head, her arms swinging free. She wore simple traveling clothes, though neither they nor the partial veil of hair hid what a beautiful woman she was. She looked only a few years older than Jennsen. She didn’t look like she would live to be any older.

Sister Perdita appeared suddenly beside the woman, lifting the Mother Confessor’s head by her hair, taking a look, then letting her head drop again.

Sebastian ran up, pointing. “That’s her. Come on.”

As Jennsen followed, she didn’t need the voice in her head to tell her that this was the bait that had been provided in order to draw Richard Rahl in for the killing. The voice had done its part.

Girding her resolve, gripping her knife tightly, Jennsen ran over beside the Sister. She turned her back to the unconscious woman, not wanting to think about her, or to have to look at her, putting her mind instead to the task at hand. This was her chance to finish it.

The laughing man suddenly popped out from behind a pillar not far away, no doubt to help draw in the prey. Jennsen recognized his awful grin. It was the man she had seen the night the sorceress Lathea had been murdered. It was the man that had so frightened Betty, her goat. The man Jennsen thought she recognized from her nightmares.