Jennsen realized her hands were empty. Her knife was gone. On her hands and knees, she rummaged madly through the wreckage of wood, plaster, and tangled fabric of draperies, throwing things aside, searching for her knife. She thrust her arm under a nearby overturned table, groping blindly.
With the tips of her fingers, she felt something smooth. She groped along it until she touched the ornately engraved letter "R." Grunting with the effort, she shouldered the leg of the overturned table until the whole mess grated as it moved a little. At last, she was able to reach in far enough to pull her knife free.
When Jermsen was finally able to scramble to her feet, the man was long gone. She went after him anyway. When she reached the intersection of passageways, a quick look revealed only empty halls. She ran down the corridor she thought he had taken, looking in rooms, searching alcoves, making her way ever deeper into the murky palace.
She could hear people in the distance, soldiers, yelling for others to follow them. She listened for Sebastian's voice, but didn't hear him. She heard, too, the sound of magic being unleashed, like the crack of lightning, only indoors. It sometimes shook the entire palace. Sometimes, too, the screams of dying men could be heard.
Jermsen chased after the sounds, trying to find the man who had loosed the wizard's fire, but found only more empty rooms and passageways.
Some places were littered with dead soldiers. She couldn't tell if they had been there from the first, or had been left in the wake of the fleeing wizard.
Jermsen heard the sound of running soldiers, their boots rumbling through corridors. And then, she heard Sebastian's voice call out, "That way! It's her!"
Jennsen raced for an intersection and turned down a hall running off in the direction she had heard Sebastian's voice. Her footfalls were muted by a long green carpet with gold fringe running the length of a grand corridor. It was all the more startlingly beautiful after coming out of ruined areas. A window overhead lit the variegated brown-and-white marble columns that supported arches to each side, like silent sentinels watching her race by.
The palace was a maze of corridors and exquisite chambers. Some of the rooms Jennsen cut through were lavishly furnished in muted tones, while yet others were decorated with carpets, chairs, and draperies in a riot of colors. She dimly noted that the grand sights were astoundingly beautiful as she concentrated on not getting lost. She imagined the place as a vast forest, and noted landmarks along the way so as to find her way back. She had to help get Emperor Jagang to safety.
Racing down the wide passageway lined with granite recesses in the walls to each side, each holding a delicate object of one kind or another, Jennsen burst through double gold-bound doors into an enormous chamber. The sound of the doors rebounding echoed back from the room beyond. The size of place, the splendor of the sight, caught her up short. Overhead, rich paintings of figures in robes swept across the inside of the huge dome. Below the majestic figures a ring of round windows let in ample light. A semicircular dais sat off to the side, along with chairs behind an imposing carved desk. Arched openings around the room covered stairways up to curving balconies edged with sinuous, polished mahogany railings.
Jennsen knew by the imposing architecture that this must be the place from where the Mother Confessor ruled the Midlands. All the seating up in the balconies must have provided visitors or dignitaries a view of the proceedings.
Jermsen saw someone making their way among the columns on the other side of the chamber. Just then, Sebastian burst through another door not far to Jermsen's right. A company of soldiers funneled through the doors after him.
Sebastian lifted his sword, pointing. "There she is!" He was nearly out of breath. Rage flashed in his blue eyes.
"Sebastian!" Jennsen ran to his side. "We have to get out of here. We need to get the emperor to safety. A wizard came and the Sister was killed. He's alone. Huffy."
The men were fanning out, a jangling dark mass clad in chain mail and armor and gleaming weapons spreading around the edge of the vast chamber like wolves stalking a fawn.
Sebastian heatedly pointed his sword across the room. "Not until I have her. Jagang will at last have the Mother Confessor."
Jennsen peered off to where he pointed and saw, then, the tall woman across the room. She wore simple, coarsely woven flaxen robes decorated at the neck with a bit of red and yellow. Her black and gray hair was parted in the middle and cut square with her strong jaw.
"The Mother Confessor," Sebastian whispered, transfixed by the sight of her.
Jennsen frowned back at him. "Mother Confessor . . . T' Jennsen couldn't envision the Lord Rahl wedding a woman as old as his greatgrandmother. "Sebastian, what do you see?"
He flashed a smug look. "The Mother Confessor."
"What does she look like? What's she wearing?"
"She's wearing that white dress of hers." His heated expression was back. "How can you miss her?"
"She's a beautiful bitch," a soldier on the other side of Sebastian said with a grin, unable to take his eyes from the woman across the room. "But the emperor will be the one to have her."
The rest of the men, too, started across the room with that same disturbing, lecherous look. Jennsen seized Sebastian by the arm and yanked him around.
"No!" she whispered harshly. "Sebastian, it's not her."
"Are you out of your mind?" he asked as he glared at her. "Do you think I don't know what the Mother Confessor looks like?"
"I've seen her before," the soldier beside him said. "That's her all right."
"No, it's not,'9 Jennsen whispered insistently, all the while tugging at Sebastian's arm, trying to get him to pull back. "It must be a spell or something. Sebastian, it's an old woman. This whole thing is going terribly wrong. We have to get out-"
The soldier on the other side of Sebastian grunted. His sword clattered
to the marble floor as he clutched his chest. He toppled, like a tree that had been felled, and crashed to the floor. Another soldier, then another, then another fell. Thump, thump, thump they hit the floor. Jennsen put herself in front of Sebastian, throwing her arms around him to protect him.
The room exploded with a blinding flash of lightning. The sizzling arc twisted through the air, yet it unfailingly found its mark, raking down the line of men running out around the edge of the room, cutting them down in an instant. Jennsen looked over her shoulder and saw the old woman cast a hand out to the other side, toward men, and a Sister, charging across the room straight toward her. The soldiers, struck down by an invisible power, dropped in their tracks, one at a time. Their heavy crumpled bodies slid across the slick floor a short distance when they collapsed in midstride.
The Sister cast out her hands, Jennsen assumed to protect herself with magic of some kind, although she could see nothing of it. But when the Sister again thrust out an arm, Jennsen not only saw but could hear light forming at the tips of her fingers.
With all the soldiers down-all but Sebastian dead-the old sorceress turned her full attention on the attacking Sister. With weathered hands, the old woman warded the attack, sending the thrumming light back on the Sister.
"You know you have but to swear allegiance, Sister," the old woman said in a raspy voice, "and you will be free of the dream walker."
Jennsen didn't understand, but the Sister surely did. "It won't work! I'll not risk such agony! May the Creator forgive me, but it will be easier for us all if I kill you."
"If that be your choice," the old woman rasped, "then so be it."
The younger woman started to cast her magic again, but fell to the floor with a sudden cry. She clawed at the smooth marble, trying to whisper prayers between grunts of terrible agony. She left a smear of blood on the marble, but before getting far, she stilled. Her head sank to the floor as she expelled one long last rattling breath.
Knife in hand, Jennsen ran for the murderous old woman. Sebastian followed, but had taken only a few steps when the woman wheeled and cast a shimmering light at him just
as Jennsen stepped into her line of sight. Only that prevented the streak of glimmering light from hitting him square. The light glanced off his side in a shower of sparks. Sebastian fell with a cry.
"No! Sebastian!" Jennsen started for him. He pressed his hands to the side of his ribs, clearly in pain. If hurt, at least he was alive.
Jennsen swung back to the old woman. She stood immobile, her head cocked, listening. There was confusion in her manner, and a curious kind of awkward helplessness.
The sorceress wasn't looking at her, but instead had an ear turned to her. Being a little closer, now, Jennsen noticed for the first time that the old woman had completely white eyes. Jennsen stared, at first from surprise, and then with sudden recognition.
"Adie?" she breathed, not having intended to say it aloud.
Startled, the woman cocked her head the other way, listening with her other ear. "Who be there?" the raspy voice demanded. "Who be there?"
Jennsen didn't answer, for fear of giving away her exact location. The room had gone silent. Worry wore heavily on the old sorceress's weathered face. But determination, too, set her jaw as her hand lifted.
Jennsen gripped her knife in her fist, not knowing what to do. If this really was Adie, the woman Althea had told her about, then, according to Althea, she would be completely blind to Jennsen. But she was not blind to Sebastian. Jennsen crept a step closer.
The old woman's head turned to the sound. "Child? Do you be a sister of Richard? Why would you be with the Order?"
"Maybe because I want to live!"
"No." The woman shook her head with stem disapproval. "No. If you be with the Order, then you have chosen death, not life."
"You're the only one intent on bringing death!"
"That be a lie. All of you came to me with weapons and murderous intent," she said. "I did not come to you."
"Of course! Because you defile the world with your taint of magic!" Sebastian called from behind. "You would smother mankind-enslave us all-with your wicked ancient ways!"
"Ah," Adie said, nodding to herself. "It be you, then, who has deluded this child."
"He's saved my life! Without Sebastian I would be nothing! I would have nothing! I would be dead! Just like my mother!"
"Child," Adie said in a quiet rasp, "that, too, be a lie. Come away from them. Come with me."
"You'd love that, wouldn't you!" Jennsen shrieked. "My mother died in my arms because of your Lord Rahl. I know the truth. The truth is that you'd love to deliver the prize plum to Lord Rahl, at last."
Adie shook her head. "Child, I don't know what lies be filling your head, but I do not have the time for this. You must come away with me, or I cannot help you. I cannot wait a moment longer. Time be in short supply and I have used all I have."
As the woman spoke, Jennsen used the opportunity to take small quiet steps forward. She had to take this chance to end the threat. She knew she could take this woman out. If it was only a matter of muscle and skill with a knife, then Jennsen would have the distinct advantage. A sorceress's magic was useless against someone who was invincible-against a pillar of Creation.
"Jenn, take her! You can do it! Avenge your mother!"
Jennsen was still only a quarter of the distance from Sebastian to Adie. Knife held tight, she took another step.
"If that be your choice," Adie rasped at hearing the whisper of the footstep, "then so be it."
When the sorceress lifted her hand out toward Sebastian, Jennsen realized with horror what she meant: the price of her choice was that Sebastian would be forfeit.
CHAPTER 50
Sebastian was on the floor, not far away, leaning to the side, propping himself up on one arm. Jermsen saw blood on the marble floor under him. Since Adie couldn't stop Jennsen, she intended to finish him as the price. The appalling reality of seeing Sebastian in pain, of knowing he was about to be murdered, shook Jennsen to her very soul.
Sebastian was all she had.
The sorceress was but a blink away from loosing lethal magic on him. Jennsen was a great deal closer to Sebastian than to the sorceress. Jennsen knew she would never reach the sorceress in time to stop her, but she might make it to Sebastian in time to protect him. She could only kill the sorceress if she were willing to forfeit Sebastian to do it. That was the choice Adie had given her.
Jennsen abandoned her attack and instead dove for Sebastian, putting herself in the woman's line of sight, making a hole in the world where she was trying to aim her terrible conjured fire. The magic the sorceress loosed missed Sebastian, raking crackling lightning across the polished marble floor, ripping it up in a line right beside him. The air was filled with a burst of flying stone shards.
Jermsen scooped Sebastian protectively into her arms as she fell to his side. "Sebastian! Can you move? Can you run? We have to get out of here.
He nodded. "Help me up." His voice was labored, his breathing shallow.
Jennsen ducked her head under his arm and strained with the effort of lifting him to his feet. With her help, they hurriedly worked their way toward the door. Behind, Adie lifted her hands again, her white eyes tracking Sebastian's movements, if not Jennsen's. Jennsen twisted sideways, putting herself in the way. A blast of lightning laced past, missing them by inches, blowing the heavy metal-clad door off its hinges. The door went skittering down the hall.
Jennsen and Sebastian scuttled through the smoking opening and hastened down the wide hall. Jennsen realized, as she watched the heavy doors crashing down the hall, bouncing off walls, tearing out great chunks of stone, that if something like that hit her, she would be crushed. She noticed, too, that her arm was bleeding from small cuts from the stone shards that had struck her. It wasn't magic that had done it, but sharp stone, even if the sharp stone had been sent flying by magic.
She might be in some ways invincible, but if magic toppled a massive stone column on her, she would be just as dead as if it had been pushed over by brute strength instead. Dead was dead.
Jennsen suddenly didn't feel so invincible.
At the first intersection, she took them to the right, getting Sebastian out of the line of sight of Adie's gift, and her weapons of magic, as quickly as possible. Jennsen could feel his warm blood running over the arm she had around him. Despite his injury, Sebastian didn't ask her to slow to spare him any pain. Together, they rushed through halls and rooms as fast as he was able, crossing the palace, going back toward where Jennsen had left the emperor.
"Are you hurt bad?" she asked, fearing the answer.
"Not sure," he said, nearly out of breath and clearly in pain. "Feels like there's a fire burning in my ribs. If you wouldn't have prevented her from hitting me square on, I'd be dead for sure."
As they moved through the palace, they came across a squad of their men. Jennsen collapsed next to them, panting, exhausted, unable to hold Sebastian up another step. Her leg muscles trembled from the exertion.
"We're leaving," Sebastian told the men, his breathing labored with pain. "We have to get out. The emperor is hurt. We have to get him out of here." He motioned in different directions. "Some of you go each way. Collect all our men. We need to get everyone we can to protect the em
peror and then we have to get him back to safety. You two, you'll have to help me."
The bulk of the men immediately rushed off to their tasks. The two remaining behind threw Sebastian's arms over their shoulders and easily lifted him. He winced in pain. Jennsen led them through the palace, watching for the landmarks she remembered, desperate to reach Emperor Jagang and to get out of the death trap of a palace.
The Confessors' Palace was a confusion of halls, passageways, and rooms. Some of the rooms were huge, but when they came to such places, they went around, staying to the maze of passageways; Sebastian said they didn't want to be caught in one of those big rooms where they would be an easier target. Intermittently, Jennsen heard the awful thump of magic. Each time, the entire palace shuddered with the concussion.
"This way," she said
, recognizing the yawning breach in the wall at the comer of a passageway strewn with rubble. That gaping hole through the outer wall, looking out to daylight and overlooking the lawns far below, was where the wizard's fire, meant for her and Emperor Jagang, had blasted through.
Five soldiers made their way down the hall from the other direction, climbing over the tangled debris, bringing a Sister of the Light with them. From behind, nearly a dozen more men appeared. Two Sisters, their faces streaked with soot, came through a nearby room to the side, followed by yet more of the assault force. Half the men were bleeding, but all of them were able to move under their own power.
Emperor Jagang was sitting up against the wall where Jennsen had left him. The deep jagged gash was partly being held together by the curtain Jennsen had wrapped around his leg, but the meat of his muscle wasn't aligned properly and the terrible wound clearly needed attention. It appeared that the healing magic performed by the Sister, just before she had been killed, still held, and at least the emperor wasn't still losing blood the way he had been.
The blood the emperor had lost left him weak-looking and pale, but not as pale as the faces of those who for the first time saw the seriousness of his injury.
One of the Sisters knelt down to check his wound. Jagang winced when she tried to better align the two halves of his split leg.
"There's no time to heal it now," she said. "We'll need to get him to safety, first."
She immediately set to tightening the bandage of blood-soaked curtain
that Jennsen had started to apply. She snatched up more cloth from the rubble.
"Did you get her?" Jagang asked as the Sister worked at pulling the injury closed with the filthy strip of cloth. "Where is she? Sebastian!" He used a board to lever himself upright, peering this way and that around the company of soldiers as they helped Sebastian make his way through to the emperor. "There you are. Where's the Mother Confessor? Did you get her?"
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