The Pillars of Creation

by Terry Goodkind

  Jennsen smiled. “It looks like a little Grace.”

  He nodded, returning her smile. “And like the Grace, it can be beneficial, but it can also be deadly.”

  “How is it possible to be both beneficial and deadly?”

  “One of those dried flower heads, ground up and added to this drink, will help the boy sleep deeply so he can fight off the fever, help drive it from him. More than one, though, actually causes fever.”

  “Really?”

  Looking as if he had anticipated her question, he held up a finger as he leaned closer. “If you were to take two dozen, thirty for certain, there would be no cure. Such a fever is swiftly fatal. It’s for this effect that the plant is named.” He showed her a sly smile. “In many ways an apt name for a flower so associated with love.”

  “I suppose,” she said, thinking it over. “But if you ate more than one, but less than a couple dozen, would you still die?”

  “If you were foolish enough to crush up ten or twelve and add them to your tea, you would come down with a fever.”

  “And then you would eventually die, just as if you ate more?”

  He smiled at the earnest concern on her face. “No. If you ate that many, it would cause a mild fever. In a day or two you would be over it.”

  Jennsen peered carefully in at the whole collection of the deadly little Grace-like things and then set down the jar.

  “It’s not going to harm you to touch one,” he said, seeing her reaction to the jarful. “You’d have to eat them to be affected. Even then, as I said, one in conjunction with other things will help the boy’s fever.”

  Jennsen smiled her embarrassment and reached in with two fingers to retrieve one. She dropped it in the bottom of the mortar, where it looked like nothing so much as a Grace.

  “If it was for an adult who was awake, I’d just crush it between my thumb and finger,” the healer said as he drizzled honey into the cup, “but he’s little and asleep besides. I need to get him to drink it down easily, so grind it to a dust.”

  When he was finished, he added the dark dust of the little fever rose flower head Jennsen had crushed for him. Like the Grace it resembled, it could be lifesaving, or lethal.

  She wondered what Sebastian would think of such a thing. She wondered if Brother Narev would want such mountain fever roses eradicated because they could potentially be lethal.

  Jennsen put away the jars for the healer while he took the honeyed drink to the boy. Along with the mother’s help, they put the cup to his little lips and gently worked at getting him to drink. Drop by precious drop, they coaxed the sleeping boy to suckle and swallow each little bit they dribbled into his mouth. They weren’t able to rouse him, so they had to drip it into his mouth a little at a time, waiting until he swallowed as he slept, then urge him to drink a little more.

  While they worked, Sebastian returned from the barn. Before he closed the door, she saw stars outside. A wave of cold air rolled past her legs, sending a shiver through her shoulders. When the wind died like this as the sky cleared, it often meant a bone-chilling cold night.

  Sebastian made for the fire, eager to warm himself. Jennsen put another log on, using the poker to position it askew so it would catch well. The healer, his hand lying gently on the woman’s shoulder, nodded his assurance to her as she slowly gave the drink to her sick child. He left her to do the work, and, after hanging his cloak on a hook just inside the door closest to the hearth, joined Jennsen and Sebastian at the fire.

  “Are this woman and child kin?” he said.

  “No,” Jennsen said. With the warmth of the fire, she removed her cloak, too, and laid it over the bench at the table. “We saw her on the road, and she needed help. We just gave her a ride here.”

  “Ah,” he said. “She will be welcome to sleep here with her boy. I need to keep my eye on him through the night.” She had forgotten about the singular nature of the knife she wore at her belt until he noticed it. “Please,” he said, “help yourself to the stew I have cooking; we always have plenty at hand for those who may come here. It’s late to be traveling. You both are welcome to use the cabins for the night. They’re all empty at present, so you may each have your own for the night.”

  “That would be a kindness,” Sebastian said. “Thank you.”

  Jennsen was about to say that they could share one cabin, when she realized that he had said that because she had told him that Sebastian wasn’t her husband. She realized how it would look if she said anything to change the plan, so she didn’t.

  Besides, the idea of sleeping with Sebastian outdoors was only natural and innocent enough. Together in a cabin seemed somehow different. She recalled that several times on their long journey north to the People’s Palace they had taken shelter at inns. But that was before he had kissed her.

  Jennsen gestured to include the general area. “Is this the place of the Raug’Moss?”

  He smiled at her question, as if he found it amusing but didn’t want to mock her ignorance. “By no means. This is just one of several small outposts we use when we travel—shelter—and a place where people who need our services can come to us.”

  “The boy is lucky you were here, then,” Sebastian said.

  The Raug’Moss studied Sebastian’s eyes for a moment. “If he lives, I will be pleased that I was here to help him. We frequently have a brother at this station.”

  “Why is that?” Jennsen asked.

  “Outposts such as this help provide the Raug’Moss with income from serving the needs of people with no other access to healers.”

  “Income?” Jennsen asked. “I thought that the Raug’Moss helped people out of charity, not for profit.”

  “The stew, the hearth, the roof we offer, they do not appear magically because there is a need. People who come to us for the knowledge we’ve spent a lifetime acquiring are expected to contribute something in exchange for that help. After all, if we starve to death, how can we then help anyone else? Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery.”

  The healer hadn’t been speaking about her, of course, but Jennsen still felt stung by his words. Had she always expected others to help her, feeling entitled to their help simply because she wanted it? As if her wish for their assistance took precedence over the best interest of their own lives?

  Sebastian fished around in a pocket, coming up with a silver mark. He held it out to the man. “We would like to share what we have in return for your sharing what you have.”

  After the briefest of glances at Jennsen’s knife, he said, “In your case, that isn’t necessary.”

  “We insist,” Jennsen said, feeling uncomfortable knowing that this money wasn’t even really hers, something she had earned in exchange for the food, shelter, and care of their horses, but was taken from dead men.

  With a bow of his head, he accepted the payment. “There are bowls in the cupboard on the right. Please help yourselves. I must tend to the boy.”

  Jennsen and Sebastian sat on a bench at the trestle table and ate two bowls each of the hearty lamb stew from the big kettle. It was the best meal they had had since—since the meat pies Tom had left for them.

  “This turned out to our advantage,” Sebastian said in a low voice.

  Jennsen glanced to the side of the room to see the healer and the mother bent over the boy. She leaned closer as he stirred a spoon through his stew.

  “How so?”

  His blue eyes turned up to her. “Gives the horses good feed and a good rest. Us too. That gives us an advantage over anyone chasing us.”

  “Do you really think they could have any idea where we are? Or even be close?”

  Sebastian shrugged as he ate more of his stew. He checked across the room before he spoke. “I can’t see how they could, but they’ve surprised us before, haven’t they?”

  Jennsen admitted the truth of it with a nod and went back to eating her own meal in silence.

/>   “Anyway,” he said, “this gives us and the horses needed food and rest. It can only help us put more distance on them. I’m glad that you reminded me of how the Creator helps those in need.”

  Jennsen was warmed by his smile. “I hope it helps that poor boy.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “I’m going to clean up and see if they need any help.”

  He nodded as he scooped up the last piece of lamb into his spoon. “You take the next to last cabin. I’ll take the one after, on the end. I’ll go start you a fire first while you finish up, here.”

  After he put his spoon in his empty bowl, Jennsen put a hand over his. “Sleep well.”

  She basked in his private smile for her and then watched as he whispered to the healer. By the man’s nod, she guessed that Sebastian had thanked him and wished him a good night. The mother, sitting beside her boy, stroking his brow, also thanked Sebastian for the help, and hardly noticed the icy air that rushed in as he went out the door.

  Jennsen carried a steaming bowl of stew over to the woman. She accepted it politely, but absently, her attention on her small worry asleep at her hip. At Jennsen’s urging, the healer sighed in agreement and sat at the table while she served him a bowl of his stew.

  “Quite good, even if I made it,” he said with good humor as she brought him a mug of water.

  Jennsen chuckled, assuring him that she shared his conviction. She let him eat, occupying herself with cleaning the dirty bowls in a wooden wash bucket and then adding several logs to the fire. The burning logs shot showers of sparks. Oak made a good fire, but it was messy without a screen. As she arranged the logs, sparks anew swirled up the chimney amid billowing smoke. With a broom from the corner, she swept the dead ashes back into the hearth.

  When she saw that the healer was nearly finished with his meal, she sat on the bench, close to him, so that she could speak privately. “We must be leaving early, so in case I miss you in the morning, I wanted to thank you for all your help this evening, not only for the boy, but for us as well.”

  Although he didn’t look down, she knew by the expression on his face that he interpreted her need to be away early as having to do with the knife at her belt. She said nothing to dissuade that notion.

  “We appreciate the generous contribution to our sect. It will help in our efforts to help our people.”

  Jennsen knew he was just marking time until she said what was really on her mind, so she finally did. “I would like to inquire about a man that I’ve learned is living with the Raug’Moss. He may even be a healer, I’m not sure. I’d like to know if you know anything about him.”

  He shrugged. “Ask. I will tell you what I know.”

  “His name is Drefan.”

  For the first time that night, the man’s eyes revealed the fire of emotion. “Drefan was the evil spawn of Darken Rahl.”

  Jennsen had to force herself not to show any reaction at the power of his words. She reminded herself that he had seen her knife with the symbol of the House of Rahl, and that might be coloring his words. Still, he sounded emphatic.

  “I know that much. I still need very much to find him.”

  “You’re too late.” A satisfied smile ghosted across his face. “ ’Master Rahl protect us,’ “ he quoted from the devotion.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Lord Rahl, the new Lord Rahl, killed him—spared us all from that bastard son of Darken Rahl.”

  Jennsen.

  Jennsen sat stunned, feeling almost as unseen talons were coming out of a dark sky toward her throat.

  “You’re sure” was all she could think to say. “I mean, you’re sure that Lord Rahl was the one who did it.”

  “While there were polite words spoken about Drefan’s death, about how he had died in service of the people of D’Hara, I believe, as do the rest of the Raug’Moss, that Lord Rahl killed Drefan.”

  Jennsen.

  Polite words. Polite words for murder. Jennsen imagined that one did not just come right out and call it murder to Lord Rahl’s face. Ordinary people were murdered. Lord Rahl’s victims died in service to the people of D’Hara.

  Jennsen felt her chest tightening at the fright of Lord Rahl being one murder closer to her. Darken Rahl had not found Drefan. Richard Rahl had. Richard Rahl would find her, too.

  She gripped her trembling hands together in her lap, under the table. She hoped her face didn’t show anything. This man was obviously loyal to the Lord Rahl. She dared not reveal her true revulsion, her true terror.

  Surrender.

  Her true anger.

  Surrender.

  That single word echoed around in her head behind the tumbling thoughts, her frustration, her hopeless gloom, her burgeoning anger.

  Chapter 34

  Jennsen sat alone on the floor before the robust fire Sebastian had made for her, staring into the flames, her unblinking gaze absently fixed on the glowing yellow-orange coals that now and again dropped from the checkering logs. She only dimly recalled the farewells to the healer and the boy’s mother. She was hardly aware of the slow shuffle through the snow and cold that had gotten her to the empty cabin.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there, staring at nothing, as somber thoughts glided unceasingly through her mind. In his unrelenting effort to get to her, Richard Rahl had taken Jennsen’s mother from her, leaving her with no sense of family or home. Jennsen missed her mother to the marrow of her bones, missed her so much that the agony seemed unendurable, yet she had no choice but to endure it. There were no tears left. At times, even the pain of the loss seemed to grow distant.

  Ever since Althea had told her about Drefan, Jennsen had thought that if she could find this other child of Darken Rahl, her half brother, a hole in the world like her, she might find strength through that connection. She thought that they might possibly have a sense of kinship and, in their common struggle, together come up with a solution to their shared station in life. Whether or not any of that might have come to pass, she would never know, now.

  It had been her hope that it would. That hope was dead. Richard Rahl had killed Drefan. Richard Rahl would surely kill her when he found her. And he would find her. She knew that, now. Really knew it. He would find her.

  Jennsen.

  A mad torrent of thoughts cascaded through her mind, everything from hope to despair, terror to rage.

  Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du halt misht.

  The voice, too, was there, beyond the churning thoughts, beyond the turmoil of emotions, beyond the jumble of disorder, whispering to her in those strangely seductive words.

  In the end, all other thoughts melted away in the glowing heat of her anger.

  Jennsen. Surrender.

  She had tried everything else. She had no options left. The Lord Rahl had cut her off from any other hope. She had no choice.

  She knew what she had to do, now.

  Jennsen rose up, feeling the strange sensation of inner peace at having made the decision. She threw her cloak around her shoulders and marched out into the still, frigid, quiet night. The air was so cold that it hurt to breathe it. The snow crunched as she made her way through the fresh tracks.

  Shivering with the cold, or maybe the enormity of what she had decided, she knocked gently on the door to the last cabin. Sebastian pulled the door in enough to see it was her, and then, quickly, opened it to admit her. She hurried in though the opening, into the firelight and cocoon of warmth. Delicious heat embraced her.

  Sebastian was without a shirt. By his clean scent and the towel thrown over his shoulder, she realized that she must have caught him at the washbowl. He had probably filled a washbowl in her cabin, too, though she hadn’t noticed.

  Concern creased Sebastian’s brow as he stood, posture tense, waiting to see what had brought her there. Jennsen stepped up close to him, so close that she could feel the heat of him. Fists at her sides, she met his eyes boldly.

  “I intend to kill Richard Rahl.”

/>   He studied her face, accepting her determined words calmly, as if he had known all along that she would someday come to see the inescapable need. He remained silent, waiting to hear the rest of what she had to say.

  “I know, now, that you were right,” she said. “I have to eliminate him or I’ll never be safe. I’ll never be free to live my own life. I’m the only one to do it—the one who must do it.”

  She didn’t tell him why it had to be her.

  His hand came up to grip her upper arm. His intense gaze never left hers. “It will be difficult getting near such a man in order to do as you must. I’ve told you that we have sorceresses with the emperor, sorceresses fighting to end the reign of Lord Rahl. Let me take you to them, first.”

  Jennsen had been focused on the decision rather than the details of how to go about it. She had given no thought to the approach or dealing with all the layers of people who would be protecting him. She would have to get in close enough for the killing itself. She had only pictured in her mind hitting him with her fist clutching her knife, yelling at him, screaming how much she hated him, how much she wanted him to suffer for all he had done. She had only fixed on the deed, not on how she would come to be standing that close before him. There were practical matters she needed to take into account if she was to succeed.

  “Do you think these women could help me with what you said—magic used to end magic. Do you think they might be able to provide me with the means to go after him?”

  Sebastian nodded. “I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t. I know the destructive power of the magic on Lord Rahl’s side—I’ve seen it with my own eyes—and I know how our sorceresses have been able to help us fight back. Magic can’t do it all, but I think they can provide valuable help.”

  Jennsen held herself erect, her chin up. “I would appreciate it. I will gladly accept any assistance they can offer.”