The Pillars of Creation

Chapter 26

The palace official’s white robes flowed out behind him as he ascended the hill of steps, flanked by the two men in silver robes. Jennsen remained what she judged to be an imperious distance behind the men. When the man in white noticed how she had lagged behind, he slowed to allow her to catch up. She slowed her pace accordingly, maintaining the distance. He nervously checked behind, then slowed more. She slowed yet more, until the three robed men, Jennsen, and the soldiers behind her were all pausing ponderously on each step.

When they reached the next landing on the broad, sunlit marble steps, the man glanced over his shoulder again. Jennsen gestured impatiently. He finally understood that she had no intention of walking with him, but expected him to lead the procession. The man acceded, quickening his steps, allowing her to have the distance she demanded, resigned to being what amounted to her lowly crier.

The officer of unknown rank and his dozen soldiers climbed the stairs with mincing steps, trying to duplicate the distance she maintained in front of her. It was unanticipated and awkward for her escorts. She wanted it to be; like her red hair, the distraction gave them something to think about, something to worry about.

At intervals, the smooth ascent of marble stairs was broken by broad landings that gave the legs a rest before continuing up. At the top of the stairs, tall embossed brass doors were set back beyond colossal columns. The entire front of the palace looming over them was one of the grandest sights Jennsen had ever seen, but her mind was not on the intricate architecture of the entrance. She was thinking about what lay inside.

They passed the shadows of the towering columns and swept on through the doorway; the dozen soldiers still trailed in her wake, their weapons, belts, and mail jangling. The sound of their boots on the polished marble floor echoed off the walls of a grand entry lined with fluted pillars.

Deeper into the palace, people going about their business, or standing in twos and threes talking, or strolling the balconies, paused to watch the unusual procession, paused to see the officials in their white and silver robes and a dozen guards at a respectful distance escorting a woman with red hair. By her outfit, especially in comparison to the neat clean dress of the others, it was obvious that she had just traveled in. Rather than being embarrassed by her clothes, Jennsen was pleased that they added to the sense of urgent mystery. The reaction of the people, too, was bound to infect her escort.

After the man in white whispered to the two in silver robes, they nodded and ran on ahead, vanishing around a corner. The guards followed at her measured distance.

The procession wound through a maze of small passageways and funneled down narrow service stairs. Jennsen and her escorts made a number of turns through intersecting halls, along dim corridors to doors opening onto wide halls, and intermittently descended a variety of stairs, until she could no longer keep track of their route. By the dusty condition of some of the dingy stairs and musty-smelling, apparently little-used halls, she realized that the man in white robes was taking her on a shortcut through the palace in order to get her to where she wanted to go as swiftly as possible.

This, too, was reassuring, because it meant they took her seriously. That helped her confidence in playing the part. She told herself that she was important, she was a personal representative of Lord Rahl himself, and she was not going to be deterred by anyone. They were here for no other purpose but to assist her. It was their job. Their duty.

Since it was hopeless trying to keep track of all the turns and twists they took, she put her mind instead to the matter at hand, to what she would do and say, going over it all in her head.

Jennsen reminded herself that no matter what condition Sebastian was in, she had to keep to her plan. Acting surprised, bursting into tears, falling on him, wailing, would do neither of them any good. She hoped that when she saw him she could remember all that.

The man in white checked his charge before turning down a stone stairwell. Dull red rust showed through chipped paint on the iron railing. The uncomfortably steep flight of stairs twisted downward, finally ending in a lower passageway lit by the eerie wavering light from torches in short floor stands, rather than by lamps and reflectors that were used to light the way above.

The two men in silver robes who had gone on ahead were waiting for them at the bottom. Hazy smoke hung near the low beams of the ceiling, leaving the place reeking of burning pitch. She could see her breath in the cold air. Jennsen felt, viscerally, how deep they were in the People’s Palace. She had a brief, unpleasant memory of what it felt like sinking down beneath the dark, bottomless water of the swamp. She felt a similar pressure on her chest in the depths of the palace as she imagined the inconceivable weight overhead.

Down the murky stone corridor to the right she thought she could see evenly spaced doors. In some of the doors, it looked like there might be fingers gripping the edge of small openings. From down that hall, in the darkness, came a dry, echoing cough. As she looked off toward the unseen source of the sound, she had the feeling that this was a place where men were sent not for punishment, but to die.

Before an ironbound door sealing off the corridor to the left stood a powerfully built man, feet spread, hands clasped behind his back, chin held high. His bearing, his size, the way his cut-stone gaze locked on her, made Jennsen’s breath falter.

She wanted to run. Why did she think she could do this? After all, who was she? Just a nobody.

Althea said that wasn’t true unless she made it so herself. Jennsen wished she had as much faith in her own abilities as Althea seemed to have in her.

Looking Jennsen in the eye, the man in white robes held a hand out in introduction. “Captain Lerner. As you requested.” He turned to the captain and held his other hand out toward Jennsen. “A personal envoy of Lord Rahl. So she says.”

The captain gave the man in white a grim smile.

“Thank you,” she said to the men who had escorted her. “That will be all.”

The man in white opened his mouth to speak, then, as he met the look in her eyes, thought better of it and bowed. With his arms held out like a hen herding chicks, he ushered the other two in silver and then the soldiers away with him.

“I’m looking for a man I heard was taken prisoner,” she told the big man standing before the door.

“For what reason?”

“Someone messed up. He was taken prisoner by mistake.”

“Who says it was a mistake?”

Jennsen lifted the knife from its sheath at her belt and held it by the blade, nonchalantly showing the man the handle. “I do.”

His iron eyes briefly took in the design on the handle. Still, he stood in the same relaxed stance, barring the iron door to the passageway beyond. Jennsen twirled the knife through her fingers, caught it by the handle, and returned it smoothly to its sheath at her belt.

“I used to carry one, too,” he said with a nod toward the knife she had returned to its sheath. “Few years back.”

“But not any longer?” She applied gentle pressure to the crossguard until she felt the knife click home. The soft sound echoed back from the darkness behind her.

He shrugged. “It gets wearing, having your life at risk for Lord Rahl all the time.”

Jennsen feared he might ask her something about the Lord Rahl, something she couldn’t answer, but should be able to. She sought to block that possibility.

“You served under Darken Rahl, then. That was before my time. It must have been a great honor to have known him.”

“Obviously, you didn’t know the man.”

She feared she had just failed her first test. She had thought that everyone who served would be a loyal follower. She thought it would be safe to go with that assumption. It wasn’t.

Captain Lerner turned his head and spat. He looked back at her with challenge. “Darken Rahl was a twisted bastard. I’d have liked to put his knife between his ribs and twisted it good.”

Despite her anxiety, she showed him no more than a cool expression. “Then why didn’t you?”

“When the whole world is crazy, it doesn’t pay to be sane. I finally told them I was getting too old and took a job down here. Someone far better than I ever was finally sent Darken Rahl to the Keeper.”

Jennsen was thrown off by such an unexpected sentiment. She didn’t know if the man had really hated Darken Rahl, or if he was only saying he did in front of her so as to show loyalty to the new Lord Rahl, Richard, who had killed his father and assumed power. She tried to gather her wits without being obvious.

“Well, Tom said you weren’t stupid. I guess he knew what he was talking about.”

The captain laughed, a spontaneous, deep, rolling sound that unexpectedly made Jennsen smile at the incongruity of it coming from a man who otherwise looked like death’s darling.

“Tom would know.” He clapped a fist to his heart in salute. His face softened to an easy smile. Tom had helped her again.

Jennsen clapped a fist to her heart, returning the salute. It seemed the right thing to do. “I’m Jennsen.”

“Pleased, Jennsen.” He let out a sigh. “Maybe if I’d have known the new Lord Rahl, like you do, I might still be serving with you. But I’d already given it up by then and come down here. The new Lord Rahl has changed everything, all the rules—he’s turned the whole world upside down, I guess.”

Jennsen feared she was treading on dangerous ground. She didn’t know what the man meant and feared to say anything in response. She simply nodded and forged ahead with her reason for being there.

“I can see why Tom said that you’d be the one to see.”

“What’s this about, Jennsen?”

She took a deep, casual breath, preparing herself. She had thought it out a hundred different ways, forward and backward. She was ready to come at it from any angle.

“You know that those of us who serve Lord Rahl in this capacity can’t always allow everyone to know what we’re doing, or who we are.”

Captain Lerner was nodding. “Of course.”

Jennsen folded her arms, trying to look relaxed, despite how her heart pounded. She had made it past the riskiest assumption; she had guessed correctly.

“Well, I had a man working with me,” Jennsen went on. “I heard he was taken prisoner. It wouldn’t surprise me. The fellow sticks out in a crowd—but for what we were doing, that was what we needed. Unfortunately, the guards must have noticed him, too. Because of the mission and the people we were dealing with, he was well armed, so that would have put the men who stopped him on edge.

“He hasn’t been here before, so he wouldn’t know who to trust, and besides, it’s traitors we’re hunting.”

The captain was frowning in thought as he rubbed his jaw. “Traitors? In the palace?”

“We don’t know for certain. We suspect infiltrators are about—that’s who we’re hunting—so he wouldn’t dare to trust anyone here. If the wrong ears heard who he really was, it would imperil the rest of us. I doubt he would even give you his real name, though he might have—Sebastian. With the danger we’re in, he would know that the less he says, then the less risk there is to the others on our team.”

He stared off, seeming to be caught up in her story.

“No . . . no prisoner has admitted to that name.” His brow bunched in earnest reflection. “What’s he look like?”

“A few years older than me. Blue eyes. Short white hair.”

The captain instantly recognized the description. “That one.”

“My information was correct, then? You have him.”

She wanted to grab the man by his leather and shake him. She wanted to ask if they’d hurt Sebastian. She wanted to scream at him to let Sebastian out.

“Yes, we have him. If it’s the same man you’re talking about, that is. Matches your description, anyway.”

“Good. I need him back. I have urgent business for him. I can’t afford to delay. We need to leave at once before the trail gets any colder. It would be best if we not make a big show of him being released. We need to slip out with as little notice as possible, as little contact with soldiers as possible. The ring of infiltrators might have managed to place themselves in the army.”

Captain Lerner folded his arms and sighed as he leaned down toward her a little, looking at her as a big brother might look at a little sister. “Jennsen, are you sure he’s one of your men?”

Jennsen feared to overplay the bluff. “He was chosen for this assignment specifically because soldiers would not suspect he was one of us. Looking at him, you’d never guess. Sebastian has a proven knack for being able to get close to the infiltrators without them getting wind that he’s one of our men.”

“But are you sure of this man’s heart? Are you really sure he’d not bring Lord Rahl into harm’s view?”

“Sebastian is one of mine—that much I know—but I’m not sure the man you have is my Sebastian. I guess I’d have to see him to be sure. Why?”

The captain stared off as he shook his head. “I don’t know. I spent a lot of years carrying the knife, like you’re starting out doing, and going places where you can’t carry the knife, so you won’t be known for who you really are. I don’t have to tell you how being in such danger all the time sometimes gives you a sense about people. Something about that fellow with the white hair makes mine stand on end.”

Jennsen didn’t know what to say. The captain was twice the size of Sebastian, so it wasn’t Sebastian’s physical presence that would worry the man. Of course, size was no valid indicator of potential threat. Jennsen very well might be able to beat the captain in a knife fight. Maybe Captain Lerner sensed how deadly Sebastian was with weapons. The captain’s eyes had been heedful of the way her fingers handled the knife.

Perhaps the captain was able to tell by various small things that Sebastian was not D’Haran. That could be troublesome, but Jennsen had thought out a plan to explain that, too, just in case.

“Tom still up to his trouble?” the man asked.

“Oh, you know Tom. He’s selling wine, along with the help of Joe and Clayton.”

The captain stared incredulously. “Tom—and his brothers? Selling wine?” He shook his head as a grin spread wide. “I’d like to know what he’s really up to.”

Jennsen shrugged. “Well, that’s just what he’s selling at the moment, of course. The three of them travel around, buying goods, bringing them back to sell.”

He laughed at that, and slapped her shoulder. “That sounds like he’d want it told. Small wonder he trusts you.”

Jennsen was completely confused and desperately didn’t want to be dragged any further into a dangerous discussion about Tom, or she could soon be found out. She didn’t really know much about Tom; this man apparently did.

“I guess I’d better see this fellow you have. If it is Sebastian, I need to kick his tail and get him on his way.”

“Right,” Captain Lerner said with a firm nod. “If he is your man, at least I’ll finally know his name.” He turned to the ironbound door as he rooted around in his pocket for a key. “If it is him, he’s lucky you came for him before one of them women in red showed up to ask him questions. He’d be spouting more than his name, then. He’d have saved himself and you a lot of trouble if he’d have told us what he was about in the first place.”

Jennsen felt giddy relief to hear that a Mord-Sith hadn’t tortured Sebastian. “When you’re doing Lord Rahl’s business, you keep your mouth shut,” she said. “Sebastian knows the price of our work.”

The captain grunted his agreement as he turned the key. The latch unlocked with a cavernous clang. “For this Lord Rahl, I’d keep my mouth shut—even if it was a Mord-Sith asking the questions. But you’d have to know the new Lord Rahl better than I, so I guess I don’t need to tell you.”

Jennsen didn’t understand, but didn’t ask anything, either. As the captain tugged on the door, it slowly swung open, revealing a long hallway lit by a few candles along the length of the corridor. To each side were doors with small, barred openings. As they passed some of those openings, as many as half a dozen arms stretched out, imploring, reaching, grabbing. From the darkness through others came the clamor of voices calling out vile curses and oaths. From the reaching hands and the collection of voices, she knew that each room beyond held groups of men.

Jennsen followed behind the captain, deeper into the fortress prison. When eyes peered out and saw it was a woman, the men called out obscenely to her. She was shocked by the lewd and vulgar things yelled at her, the jeering laughter. She hid her feelings, her fears, and wore a calm mask.

Captain Lerner kept to the center of the passageway, occasionally batting aside a reaching hand. “Watch yourself,” he cautioned.

Jennsen was about to ask why when someone threw something sloppy at her. It missed, splattering on the opposite wall. She was appalled to see that it was feces. Several more men joined in. Jennsen had to duck and dodge to miss it. The captain suddenly kicked a door of a man about to throw more. The bang of the kick echoed up and down the corridor, serving as warning enough to cause men to retreat back into the depths of their cells. Only when the glaring captain was sure his threat was understood did he start out once again.

Jennsen couldn’t help but to ask in a whisper, “What are all of these men accused of?”

The captain glanced back over his shoulder. “Various things. Murder, rape—things like that. A few are spies—the kind of men you’re hunting.”

The stench of the place gagged her. The raw hatred of the prisoners was understandable, she supposed, but no matter how much she sympathized with captives of Lord Rahl’s soldiers, men fighting against his brutal rule, their behavior only served to support any accusations of perversity. Jennsen stayed close to Captain Lerner’s heels as he turned down a side passageway.

From a shelf built into the stone, he collected a lamp, then lit it from a nearby candle. The light from the lamp only served to throw a little more light into a nightmare and make it all the more frightening. She had terrifying visions of being found out and ending up in this place. She couldn’t keep from imagining being locked in a room with men like these. She knew what they would do to her. Jennsen had to remind herself to slow her breathing.

Another door had to be unlocked, taking them beyond to a low passageway with doors spaced much closer. She guessed that they were cells holding a single man. A grasping hand, grimy and covered with open sores, shot out of an opening to catch her cloak. She shrugged the hand off her and kept moving.

Captain Lerner unlocked another door at the end and they entered a space smaller yet, hardly wider than his shoulders. The twisting, cramped opening, like a fissure in the rock, made Jennsen’s skin crawl. No hands reached out of the door openings in this place. The captain stopped and held up the lamp to look through the small hole in the door to the right. Satisfied with what he saw, he handed her the lamp and then unlocked the door.

“We put special prisoners in this section,” he explained.

He had to use both hands and all his weight to pull on the door. It moved with grating protest. Inside, Jennsen was surprised to see it was only a tiny, empty room with a second door. That was why there were no hands reaching in this hall. The cells had double doors, to make escape even more improbable. After unlocking the second door, he took back the lamp.

The captain ducked through the short doorway, pushing the light in before him, his bulk in the door momentarily throwing her into the darkness. Once through, he extended a hand out to help her so she wouldn’t trip over the high sill. Jennsen held the man’s big hand and stepped into the cell. It was larger than she expected, looking to be carved out of the solid stone of the plateau. Tooled gouges in the rock walls testified to how difficult the work had been. No prisoner was going to die, his way out of in such a secure place.

On a bench carved in the opposite wall sat Sebastian. His blue eyes were on her from the instant she entered. In those eyes she thought she could see how much he wanted out. Nevertheless, he showed no emotion and said nothing. From outward appearances, no one would even know that he knew her.

He had neatly folded his cloak and used it as a cushion on the cold stone. Nearby sat a water cup. His clothes were orderly, showing no evidence that they abused him.

It was so good to see his face, his eyes, his spikes of white hair again. He licked his lips, his beautiful lips that so often had smiled at her. Now, though, he dared not smile. Jennsen had been right. She did want to fall on him, to throw her arms around him, to wail with her relief at seeing him alive and unhurt.

The captain gestured with his lamp. “This him?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Sebastian’s eyes were fixed on her as she stepped forward. She had to pause to be sure she had her voice under control. “It’s all right, Sebastian. Captain Lerner, here, knows you’re one of my team.” She patted the handle of her knife. “You can trust him to keep your identity confidential.”

Captain Lerner extended a hand. “Glad to meet you, Sebastian. Sorry about the mix-up. We didn’t know who you were. Jennsen explained your mission. I used to serve, so I understand the need for secrecy.”

Sebastian rose to his feet and clasped hands with the man. “No harm done, Captain. I can’t fault our men for doing their job.”

Sebastian didn’t know her plan. He appeared to be waiting for her lead. She gestured impatiently and asked a question she knew he wouldn’t be able to answer and, in that way, let him know what it was she intended him to say.

“Did you make contact with any of the infiltrators before you were stopped by the guards? Did you find out who any of them are and gain their confidence? Did you at least get any names?”

Sebastian took her lead and sighed convincingly. “I’m sorry, no. I’d only just arrived and didn’t have a chance before the guards . . .” His gaze drifted to the floor. “Sorry.”

Captain Lerner’s eyes shifted between the two of them.

Jennsen assumed a tone of forbearance. “Well, I can’t blame guards for not taking chances in the palace. We need to be on our way, though. I made some headway in our search and uncovered some important new contacts. It can’t wait. These men are wary and I need you to approach them. They aren’t likely to let a woman buy them drinks—they’d get the wrong idea—so I’m going to leave it to you. I’ve got other snares to set.”

Sebastian was nodding as if he were entirely familiar with the imaginary work. “All right.”

The captain held an arm out. “Let’s get you both on your way, then.”

Sebastian, following Jennsen out, glanced back. “I’ll need my weapons, Captain. And all the coins that were in the purse. That’s Lord Rahl’s money, and I need it to do his bidding.”

“I have it all. Nothing is missing—my word on that.”

Outside, in the confining passageway, Captain Lerner pulled the cell door shut. He had the light, so Jennsen and Sebastian waited on him. As she started out, the captain gently reached past Sebastian to grasp her arm, stopping her.

Jennsen froze, fearing to breathe. She felt Sebastian’s hand slip around her waist to the handle of her knife.

“Is it true what people say?” the captain asked.

Jennsen looked back into his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, about Lord Rahl. About how he’s . . . I don’t know, different. I’ve heard men talk—men who have met him, fought with him. They talk about how he handles that sword of his, how he fights and all, but more than that, they talk about him as a man. Is it true what they say?”

Jennsen didn’t know what he meant. She feared to move, to say anything, not knowing how to answer such a question. She didn’t know what people, especially D’Haran soldiers, said about the new Lord Rahl.

She knew that she and Sebastian could kill this man, here, now. They would have the element of surprise. Sebastian, with his hand on her knife, was surely thinking that very thing.

But they would still have to make it out of the palace. If they killed him, it was likely that the body would soon be discovered. The D’Haran soldiers were anything but lax. Even if they hid the dead captain of the prison guards, a check of the prisoners would soon reveal that Sebastian was missing. Their chances of escaping, then, became remote.

Worse, though, she didn’t think she could kill this man. Despite the fact that he was a D’Haran officer, she held no ill feeling for him. He seemed a decent sort, not a monster. Tom liked him, and the captain respected Tom. Stabbing a man who was trying to kill them was one thing. This would be entirely different. She couldn’t do this.

“We would lay down our lives for the man,” Sebastian said in an earnest voice. “I’d have let you torture and kill me before I would have said a word, for fear it would endanger Lord Rahl.”

“I, too,” Jennsen added in a soft voice, “think of little else but Lord Rahl. I even dream about him.”

She had spoken the truth, but a truth calculated to deceive. The captain smiled, staring off with an inner satisfaction as his fingers released her arm.

Jennsen felt Sebastian’s hand slip away from her knife.

“I guess that tells it plain,” the captain said in the near darkness. “I’ve served a long time. I had lost hope of daring to dream such a thing.” He hesitated, then spoke again. “And his wife? Is she really a Confessor, like they say? I’ve heard tales about the Confessors, from back before the boundaries, but I never knew if it was really true.”

Wife? Jennsen didn’t know anything about Lord Rahl having a wife. Jennsen couldn’t picture him with a wife, or imagine what such a woman would be like. Jennsen couldn’t even conceive of why the Lord Rahl, a man who could possess any woman he wanted and then discard her at will, would bother to take a wife.

And what a “Confessor” could be was a complete mystery to Jennsen, but the very title “Confessor” certainly sounded ominous.

“Sorry,” Jennsen said. “I’ve not met her.”

“Nor I,” Sebastian said. “But I’ve heard much the same about her as you have.”

The captain smiled distantly. “I’m glad I’ve lived to see a Lord Rahl like this finally come to command D’Hara as it should be commanded.”

Jennsen started out again, troubled by the man’s words, troubled that he was pleased this new Lord Rahl was going to conquer and rule the whole world in the name of D’Hara.

Jennsen was eager to get out of the prison and out of the palace. The three of them moved quickly back through the narrow passageways, back through iron doors and past the reaching prisoners. The captain’s growled warning silenced them, this time.

When they rushed through the last ironbound door before the stairs, they all came to an abrupt halt. A tall, attractive woman, with a single long blond braid, stood waiting for them, blocking their escape route. The look on her face was lightning waiting to strike.

She was wearing red leather.

It could be nothing other than a Mord-Sith.