The Pillars of Creation

Chapter 14

With an easy but flawlessly precise turn of his wrist, Friedrich Gilder lifted a leaf of gold on the fine hairs of his brush and laid it over. The gold, light enough to float on the gentlest breath of air, drew down onto the wet gesso as if by magic. Leaning over his workbench in concentration, Friedrich used a sheep’s-wool pad to carefully rub the freshly gilded surface of the small stylized carving of a bird, checking for any flaws.

Outside, the rain occasionally tink-tink-tinked against the window. Though midday, when the prowling clouds passed bearing fits of rain, it darkened as if to dusk.

From the back room where he worked, Friedrich glanced up, looking out through the doorway into the main room, watching the familiar movements of his wife casting her stones over the Grace. Many years ago he had gilded the lines of her Grace, the eight-sided star within a circle within a square within another circle—after she had properly drawn it all out, of course. The Grace would have been useless had he drawn it. A Grace, to be real, had to be drawn by one with the gift.

He enjoyed doing whatever he could to make the things in her life a little more beautiful. She was what made his life beautiful. He thought that her smile had been gilded by the Creator Himself.

Friedrich saw, too, the woman who had ventured to their home for a telling lean forward expectantly, absorbed in watching the fall of her fate.

If they could really see such things, people would not come to Althea for a telling, yet they always watched intently as the stones rolled from his wife’s long slender fingers and out across the board upon which was drawn the Grace.

This woman, middle-aged and widowed, was a pleasant sort, and had been to see Althea twice before, but that had been several years back. As he had concentrated on his own work, he’d absently heard her tell Althea about her several grown children who were married and lived close to her, and that her first grandchild was on the way. Now, though, it was the drop of stones, not a child, that held the woman’s interest.

“Again?” she asked. It was not a question so much as astonishment. “They did it again.”

Althea said nothing. Friedrich burnished the freshly laid gold as he listened to the familiar sounds of his wife gathering up her stones from the board.

“Do they do that, often?” the woman asked, her wide eyes turning from the Grace to Althea’s face. Althea didn’t answer. The woman rubbed her knuckles so hard that Friedrich thought the skin might come off. “What does it mean?”

“Hush,” Althea murmured as she rattled the stones.

Friedrich had never heard his wife be so uncommunicative with a customer. The stones clacking in Althea’s loose fist seemed to have an urgency to their bony knock. The woman rubbed her knuckles, awaiting her destiny.

Again, the seven stones rolled out across the board, come to divulge the holy secrets of the fates.

From where he sat, Friedrich couldn’t see the stones fall, but he could hear the familiar sound of their uneven shapes rolling across the board. After all these years, he rarely watched Althea practice her profession, that is, watched the stones themselves. He did, though, despite the years, savor watching Althea. As he looked out, seeing the side of her strong jaw, her hair still mostly a golden sweep down past her jaw, falling like sunlight over her shoulder, he smiled.

The woman gasped. “Again!” As if to make the woman’s point, thunder in the distance rolled over the house. “Mistress Althea, what could it mean?” Her voice carried the unmistakable timbre of apprehension.

Althea, on her pillow on the floor, leaning on one arm, her withered legs out to the side, used the arm against the floor to straighten herself. She finally looked at the woman.

“It means, Margery, that you are a woman of strong spirit.”

“That’s one of those two stones? Me? A strong spirit?”

“That’s right,” Althea confirmed with a nod.

“And the other, then? It can’t be good. Not there. It can only mean the worst.”

“I was about to tell you, that the other stone, which follows with each throw, is also a strong spirit. A man of strong spirit.”

Margery peered again at the stones on the board. She rubbed her knuckles. “But, but they both . . .” She gestured. “They both keep going . . . out there. To beyond the outer circle. To the underworld.” Her troubled eyes searched Althea’s face.

Althea pulled on her knees, drawing her legs before herself to cross them. Though her legs were withered and nearly useless, crossing them before her pillow on the floor helped her sit up straight.

“No, no, my dear. Not at all. Don’t you see? This is good. Both strong spirits going through life together, and together ever after. It’s the best possible outcome of a telling.”

Margery cast another worried look at the board. “Really? Really, Mistress Althea? You think it’s good, then, that they keep . . . doing that?”

“Of course, Margery. Good it is. Two strong spirits joining.”

Margery touched a finger to her lower lip as she peered up at Althea. “Who is it then? Who is this mystery man I’m to meet?”

Althea shrugged. “Too soon to tell. But the stones say you will meet a man”—she made a show of putting her first and second fingers tight together—“and you two will be fast with each other. Congratulations, Margery. It looks as if you are close to finding the happiness you seek.”

“When? How soon?”

Again, Althea shrugged. “Too soon to tell. The stones only say ‘will,’ not ‘when.’ Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year. But the important thing is that you are near to meeting a man who will be good with you, Margery. You must now keep your eyes open. Don’t hide yourself away in your house, or you will miss him.”

“But if the stones say—”

“The stones say he is strong and he is open to you, but they don’t fix it sure. That’s up to you and the man. Keep yourself open to him when he comes into your life, or he may pass without seeing you.”

“I will, Mistress Althea.” The conviction in her voice strengthened. “I will. I’ll stay prepared so when he happens into my life, I’ll see him, and he’ll see me, just as the stones foretell.”

“Good.”

The woman fished around in the leather purse hanging from her belt until she found a coin. She handed it over eagerly, pleased with the outcome of her telling.

Friedrich had watched Althea give tellings for nearly four decades. In all that time, he had never before seen her lie to someone.

The woman stood, holding out her hand. “May I help you, Mistress Althea?”

“Thank you, my dear, but Friedrich will help me, later. I want to stay with my board for now.”

The woman smiled, perhaps daydreaming of the new life waiting for her. “Well, then, I’d best be on my way before it gets any later in the day . . . before nightfall. And then it’s a long ride back.” She leaned to the side and waved through the doorway. “Good day, Master Friedrich.”

The rain rattled against the window in earnest. The sky, he noticed, had darkened, casting a gray gloom over their place in the swamp. Rising from his bench, Friedrich waved. “Let me see you to the door, Margery. You do have someone waiting to take you back, don’t you?”

“My son-in-law is up at the rim of the canyon, where the path starts down in, waiting with our horses.” She paused in the doorway and gestured to his work on the bench. “That’s a fine piece you’ve made.”

Friedrich smiled. “I hope to find a customer at the palace who thinks so, too.”

“You will, you will. You do fine work. Everyone says so. Those who own a piece of your work count themselves as lucky.”

Margery curtsied happily to Althea, thanking her again, before retrieving her lamb’s-skin cloak from the hook by the door. She smiled out at the angry sky and donned the cloak, drawing its hood over her head, eager to be on her way to find her new man. It would be a long journey back. Before closing the door, Friedrich warned Margery to be absolutely certain to stay on the path and to watch her step up out of the canyon. She said she remembered the instructions and promised to follow them with care.

He watched her hurry off, disappearing into the shadows and mist, before closing the door tight against the foul weather. Silence settled once more inside the house. Outside, thunder rumbled in a deep voice, as if in discontent.

Friedrich shuffled up behind his wife. “Here, let me help you to your chair.”

Althea had gathered up her stones. Once again, they rattled in her hand like the bones of spirits. As considerate as she always was, it was unlike her not to acknowledge him when he spoke. It was even more unlike her to cast her stones again after a customer left. Casting her stones for a telling called upon her gift in ways he could not fully understand, but he did understand how it fatigued her. Casting her stones for a telling drew down her strength so that it left her detached from the world and wanting anything but to cast them again for a while.

Now, though, she was in the spell of some tacit need.

She turned her wrist and opened her hand, casting the stones at her board as easily, as gracefully, as he handled his ethereal leaves of gold. Smooth, dark, irregular-shaped stones rolled forth, bouncing on the board, tumbling across the gilded Grace.

In their life together, Friedrich had seen her cast her stones tens of thousands of times. There were times when, much like her customers, he had tried to discern a pattern in the fall of the stones. He never could.

Althea always did.

She saw meaning no mere mortal could see. She saw in the random fall of the stones some obscure omen only a sorceress could decipher. Patterns of magic.

There was no pattern expressed through the act of the throw; it was the fall of the stones that was touched by powers he dared not consider, powers that spoke only to the sorceress through her gift. In that random motif of disorder, she could read the flow of powers through the world of life, and even, he feared, the world of the dead, although she never spoke of it. Despite how close they were in body and soul, this was one thing they could not share in their life together.

This time, as the stones rolled and wobbled across the board, one stopped in the exact center. Two stopped on opposite corners of the square where it touched the outer circle. Two ended up at opposite points where the square and the inner circle touched. The final two stones came to rest beyond the outer circle, which represented the underworld.

Lightning flashed, and seconds later thunder clapped.

Friedrich stared in disbelief. He wondered what the odds were of the stones coming to the end of their tumble at these specific points on the Grace. He had never before seen them end in any discernible pattern.

Althea, too, was staring at her board.

“Have you ever seen anything like that before?” he asked.

“I’m afraid so,” she said under her breath as she raked the stones up with her graceful fingers.

“Really?” He was sure he would have recalled such an unlikely event, such a startling orderliness. “When was that?”

She rattled the stones in her loose fist. “The four previous throws. That casting made five, all the same, each individual stone coming to rest in the identical place it had before.”

Again, she cast the stones at the board. At the same time, the sky seemed to open, letting rain roar down on the roof. The noise reverberated through the house. Involuntarily, he glanced toward the ceiling briefly before watching along with Althea as the stones rolled and bounced across the board.

The first stone rolled to a halt in the exact center of the Grace. Lightning flashed. The other stones, rolling in what looked to be a completely natural manner, came to rest in what appeared a perfectly normal way, except that they stopped in the exact same places they had before.

“Six,” Althea said under her breath. Thunder boomed.

Friedrich didn’t know if she was speaking to him, or to herself.

“But the first four throws were for that woman, Margery. You were casting them for her. This is for her telling.”

Even to himself, it sounded more like a plea than reason.

“Margery came for a telling,” Althea said. “That does not mean the stones chose to give her one. The stones have decided that this telling is for me.”

“What does it mean, then?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. At this point it is only potential—a thunderhead on the horizon. The stones may yet say this storm is to pass us by.”

Watching as she gathered up her stones, he was overcome with a sense of dread. “Enough of this—you need to rest. Why don’t you let me help you up, now, Althea? I’ll make you something to eat.” He watched her pluck the last stone, the one in the center, off the board. “Leave your stones for now. I’ll make you some nice hot tea.”

He never before thought of the stones as anything sinister. Now he felt as if they were somehow inviting menace into their lives.

He didn’t want her to cast the stones again.

He sank down beside her. “Althea—”

“Hush, Friedrich.” She spoke the words in a flat tone, not in anger or reproach, but simple necessity. The rain drummed against the roof with rabid intensity. Water cascading off the eaves roared. Darkness out the windows faltered in fits of lightning.

He listened to the stones rattle, like the bones of the dead speaking to her. For the first time in their life together, he felt a kind of defensive hatred for the seven stones she held, as if they were some lover come to steal her away from him.

From her seat atop her gold and red pillow on the floor, Althea cast the stones down onto the Grace.

As they tumbled across the board, he watched with resignation as they came to rest, natural as could be, in the exact same places. He would have been surprised only if they had fallen differently.

“Seven,” she whispered. “Seven times seven stones.”

Thunder rumbled in a deep resonant tone, like the voice of discontent of spirits in the underworld.

Friedrich rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder. A presence had come into their home—invaded their lives. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. He felt a great weariness, as if all his years had come at once to weigh him down, making him feel very old. He wondered if this was in some small way what she felt all the time when she became so weary from casting a telling. He shuddered to contemplate always swimming in such emotionally turbulent waters. His world, his work of gilding, seemed so simple, so blissful, in its ignorance of the swirl of tempestuous forces all around.

The worst of it, though, was that he could not protect her from this unseen threat. In this, he was helpless.

“Althea, what does it mean?”

She hadn’t moved. She was staring at the smooth dark stones setting on her Grace.

“One who hears the voices is coming.”

Lightning ignited in a blinding angry flash, illuminating the room with white incandescence. The scintillating contrast between bright light and smothering shadow was dizzying. The intense strike flickered on as thunder crashed with a boom that shook the ground. A ripping crash followed on its heels, the clamor adding a confusion of sound to match the flashing of light.

Friedrich swallowed. “Do you know which one?”

She reached up and patted his hand resting on her shoulder. “Tea, you say? The rain gives me a chill. I’d like some tea.”

He looked from the crinkled smile showing in her eyes to the stones on the Grace. For whatever reason, she wasn’t going to answer that question, for now. He asked another, instead.

“Why did your stones fall like that, Althea? What does something like that mean?”

Lightning struck nearby. The crack of thunder felt as if it split air made of solid stone. Fists of rain beat against the window in petulant fits.

Althea finally looked away from the window, from Creation’s fury, and turned back to the board. She reached out and placed her forefinger on the stone in the center.

“The Creator?” he guessed aloud before she could name it.

She shook her head. “Lord Rahl.”

“But, the star in the center represents the Creator—his gift.”

“It does, in the Grace. But you must not forget, this is a telling. This is different. A telling only uses the Grace, and in this telling the stone in the center represents the one with His gift.”

“Then it could be anyone,” Friedrich said. “Anyone with the gift.”

“No. The lines coming from the eight points of the star represent the gift as it passes through life, through the veil between the worlds, and beyond the outer circle into the underworld. Thus it represents the gift in a sense that it conveys with no other person: the gift for magic of both worlds, the world of life, and the world of the dead: Additive and Subtractive. This stone in the center touches both.”

He glanced back at the stone in the center of the Grace. “But why would that mean Lord Rahl?”

“Because he is the only one born in three thousand years with both aspects of the gift. In all that time, until he came into his gift, no stone I have cast has ever landed in that place. None could.

“What has it been? Two years, now, since he succeeded his father? Less, since his gift came to life in him—which in itself leaves questions with only troubling answers.”

“But I recall you telling me years ago that Darken Rahl used both sides of the gift.”

Gazing off into dark memories, Althea shook her head. “He also used Subtractive powers, but he did not do so by birth. He offered the pure souls of children to the Keeper of the underworld in return for the Keeper’s favors. Darken Rahl had to trade for the limited use of such powers. But this man, this Lord Rahl, has been born with both sides of the gift, as those of old were.”

Friedrich wasn’t sure what to make of that, what danger it could be that he so strongly felt. He remembered quite distinctly the day the new Lord Rahl had risen to power. Friedrich had been at the palace to sell his small gilded carvings when the great event had taken place. That day, he had seen the new Lord Rahl, Richard.

It had been one of those moments in life never to be forgotten—only the third Rahl to rule in Friedrich’s lifetime. He remembered quite clearly the new Lord Rahl, tall, strong, with a raptor gaze, striding through the palace, seeming completely out of place, and at the same time belonging. And then there was the sword he carried, a legendary sword not seen in D’Hara since Friedrich had been a boy, way back before the boundaries had been brought into existence, cutting D’Hara off from the rest of the new world.

The new Lord Rahl had been walking through the corridors of the People’s Palace along with an old man—a wizard, people said—and a sublime woman. The woman, with long lush hair, wearing a satiny white dress, made the grandeur and majesty of the palace seem dull and common by comparison.

Richard Rahl and that woman seemed right together. Friedrich recognized the special way they looked at each other. The commitment, loyalty, and bond in the gray eyes of that man and the green eyes of that woman was as profound as it was unmistakable.

“What of the other stones?” he asked.

Althea gestured out past the larger circle of the Grace, where only the gilt rays of the Creator’s gift dared go, to the two dark stones sitting in the world of the dead.

“Those who hear the voices,” Althea said.

He nodded at having his suspicions confirmed. In such things dealing with magic, it wasn’t often that he was able to guess the truth from what appeared to be obvious.

“And the rest?”

Staring at the four stones resting at the cusps of lines, her voice came softly, mingling with the rain. “These are protectors.”

“They protect Lord Rahl?”

“They protect us all.”

He saw then the tears rolling down her weathered cheeks.

“Pray,” she whispered, “that they are enough, or the Keeper will have us all.”

“You mean to say, there are only these four who protect us?”

“There are others, but these four are pivotal. Without them, everything is lost.”

Friedrich licked his lips, fearful of the fate of the four sentinels standing against the Keeper of the dead. “Althea, do you know who they are?”

She turned then, putting her arms around him, pressing the side of her face to his chest. It was as childlike a gesture as he could imagine, one that touched his heart and made him ache with his love for her. Gently he put protective arms around her, comforting her, in spite of the fact that in truth he could do nothing to protect her from such things as she rightly feared.

“Carry me to my chair, Friedrich?”

He nodded, lifting her in his arms as she hugged his neck. Her withered, useless legs dangled. A woman of such power as could enforce a warm and rain-swept swamp around them in winter, yet she needed him to carry her to a chair. Him, Friedrich, a mere man she loved—a man without the gift. A man who loved her.

“You didn’t answer my question, Althea.”

Her arms tightened on his neck.

“One of the four protective stones,” she whispered, “is me.”

Friedrich’s wide eyes turned back to the Grace with the stones upon it. His jaw fell open when he saw that one of the four stones had crumbled to ash.

She had no need to look. “One was my sister,” Althea said. Cradled in his arms, he felt her grieving sob. “And now there are three.”