The Pillars of Creation

Chapter 4

“Wait here,” Jennsen said in a low voice. “I’ll go tell her that we have a guest.”

Sebastian dropped heavily onto a low projection of rock that made a convenient seat. “You just tell her what I said, that I’ll understand if she doesn’t want a stranger spending the night at your place. I know it wouldn’t be an unreasonable fear.”

Jennsen considered him with a calm and somber demeanor.

“My mother and I have reason not to fear a visitor.”

She was not alluding to common weapons, and by her tone he knew it. For the first time since she had met him, she saw a spark of uncertainty in Sebastian’s steady blue eyes—a shadow of uneasiness not elicited by her expertise with a knife.

A hint of a smile came in turn to Jennsen’s lips as she watched him considering what manner of dark danger she might represent. “Don’t worry. Only those bringing trouble would have cause to fear being here.”

He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Then I’m as safe as a babe in his mother’s arms.”

Jennsen left Sebastian to wait on the rock while she made her way up the winding path, through sheltering spruce, using twisted roots as steps up, toward her house set back in a clutch of oak on a small shelf in the side of a mountain. The flat patch of grassy ground was, on a better day, a sunny open spot among the towering old trees. There was room enough to yard their goat along with some ducks and chickens. Steep rock to the back prevented any visitors happening upon them from that direction. Only the path up the front provided an approach.

Should they be threatened, Jennsen and her mother had constructed a well-hidden set of footholds up the back, to a narrow ledge, and out a twisting side way via deer paths that would take them through a ravine and away. The escape route was nearly inaccessible as a way in unless you knew the precise course through the maze of rock walls, fissures, and narrow ledges, and even then they had made certain that key passages were well hidden by strategically placing deadwood and brush they’d planted.

Ever since Jennsen was young they had moved often, never staying in one place too long. Here, though, where they felt safe, they had stayed for over two years. Travelers had never discovered their mountain hideaway, as sometimes had happened in other places they had stayed, and the people in Briarton, the nearest town, never ventured this far into such a dark and forbidding wood.

The seldom-used trail around the lake, from where the soldier had fallen, was as close as any trail came to them. Jennsen and her mother had gone into Briarton only once. It was unlikely that anyone even knew they were living out in the vast trackless mountains far from any farmland or city. Except for the chance encounter with Sebastian down closer to the lake, they’d never seen anyone near their place. This was the most secure spot she and her mother had ever had, and so Jennsen had dared to begin to think of it as home.

Since she was six, Jennsen had been hunted. As careful as her mother always was, several times they had come frighteningly close to being snared. He was no ordinary man, the one who hunted her; he was not bound by ordinary means of searching. For all Jennsen knew, the owl watching her from a high limb as she made her way up the rocky path could be his eyes watching her.

Just as Jennsen reached the house, she met her mother, throwing her cloak around her shoulders as she came out the door. She was the same height as Jennsen, with the same thick hair to just past her shoulders but more auburn than red. She was not yet thirty-five, and the prettiest woman Jennsen had ever seen, with a figure the Creator Himself would marvel at. In different circumstances, her mother’s life would have been one of countless suitors, some, no doubt, willing to offer a king’s ransom for her hand. Her mother’s heart, though, was as loving and beautiful as her face, and she had given up everything to protect her daughter.

When Jennsen sometimes felt sorry for herself, for the normal things in life that she couldn’t have, she would then think of her mother, who had willingly given up all those same things and more for the sake of her daughter. Her mother was as close as it came to a guardian spirit in the flesh.

“Jennsen!” Her mother rushed to her and seized her shoulders. “Oh, Jenn, I was starting to worry so. Where have you been? I was just coming to look for you. I thought you must have had some trouble and I was—”

“I did, Mother,” Jennsen confided.

Her mother paused only momentarily; then, without further question, she embraced Jennsen in protective arms. After such a frightening day, Jennsen openly welcomed the balm of her mother’s hug. Finally, with a comforting arm encircling Jennsen’s shoulders, her mother urged her toward the door.

“Come inside and get yourself dry. I see you have quite the catch. We’ll have a good dinner and you can tell me . . .”

Jennsen was dragging her feet. “Mother, I have someone with me.”

Her mother halted, suddenly searching her daughter’s face for any outward sign of the nature and depth of the trouble. “What do you mean? Who would you have with you?”

Jennsen flicked a hand back toward the path. “He’s waiting down there. I told him to wait. I told him I’d ask you if he could sleep in the cave with the animals—”

“What? Stay here? Jenn, what were you thinking? We can’t—”

“Mother, please, listen to me. Something terrible happened today. Sebastian—”

“Sebastian?”

Jennsen nodded. “The man I brought with me. Sebastian helped me. I came across a soldier who fell from the path—the high trail around the lake.”

Her mother’s face went ashen. She said nothing.

Jennsen took a calming breath and started again. “I found a D’Haran soldier dead in the gorge below the high trail. There were no other tracks—I looked. He was an extraordinarily big soldier, and he was heavily armed. Battle-axe, sword at his hip, sword strapped over his shoulder.”

Her mother canted her head with an admonishing expression. “What aren’t you telling me, Jenn?”

Jennsen wanted to hold it back until she explained Sebastian, first, but her mother could read it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. The terrible threat of that piece of paper with the two words on it seemed almost to be screaming its presence from her pocket.

“Mother, please, let me tell it my way?”

Her mother cupped a hand to the side of Jennsen’s face. “Tell me, then. Your way, if you must.”

“I was searching the soldier, looking for anything important. And I found something. But then, this man, a traveler, came upon me. I’m sorry, Mother, I was frightened by the soldier being there and by what I found and I wasn’t paying attention as I should have. I know I behaved foolishly.”

Her mother smiled. “No, baby, we all have lapses. None of us can be perfect. We all sometimes make mistakes. That doesn’t make you foolish. Don’t say that about yourself.”

“Well I felt foolish when he said something and I turned around and there he was. I had my knife out, though.” Her mother was nodding with a smile of approval. “He saw then that the man had fallen to his death. He—Sebastian, that’s his name—he said that if we just left him there, then, more likely than not, other soldiers would find him and start questioning us all and maybe blame us for their fellow soldier being dead.”

“This man, Sebastian, sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.”

“I thought so, too. I had intended to cover the dead soldier, to try to hide him, but he was big—I could never have dragged him over to a cranny by myself. Sebastian offered to help me bury the body. Together we were able to drag him over and roll him into a deep split in the rock. We covered him over good. Sebastian put some heavy rocks atop the gravel I scooped in. No one will find him.”

Her mother looked more relieved. “That was wise.”

“Before we buried him, Sebastian thought we should take anything valuable, rather than let it go to waste in the ground.”

One eyebrow arched. “Did he, now?”

Jennsen nodded. She pulled the money from her pocket, the pocket that didn’t have the piece of paper in it. She dumped all the money in her mother’s hand.

“Sebastian insisted that I take it all. There’s gold marks there. He didn’t want any for himself.”

Her mother took in the fortune in her hand, then glanced briefly to the trail where Sebastian waited. She leaned closer.

“Jenn, if he came with you, then perhaps he thinks he can have the money back at any time of his choosing. That would give him the opportunity to look generous and win your trust—and still be near enough to end up with the money when he chooses.”

“I considered that, too.”

Her mother’s tone softened sympathetically. “Jenn, it’s not your fault—I’ve kept you so sheltered—but you just don’t know how men can be.”

Jennsen let her gaze drop from her mother’s knowing eyes. “I suppose it could be true, but I don’t think so.”

“And why not?”

Jennsen looked back up, more intently, this time. “He has a fever, Mother. He’s not well. He was leaving, without asking to come with me at all. He bid me a good-bye. As tired and feverish as he is, I feared he’d die out in the rain tonight. I stopped him, told him that if it was all right with you he could sleep in the cave with the animals where he could at least be dry and warm.”

After a moment of silence, Jennsen added, “He said that if you don’t want a stranger near, he will understand and be on his way.”

“Did he? Well, Jenn, this man is either very honest, or very clever.” She fixed Jennsen with an intent look. “Which do you think it is, hmm?”

Jennsen twined her fingers together. “I don’t know, Mother. I honestly don’t. I wondered the same things as you—I really did.”

She remembered, then. “He said that he wanted you to have this, so you wouldn’t have to fear a stranger sleeping nearby.”

Jennsen drew the knife in its sheath from behind her belt and held it out to her mother. The silver handle gleamed in the dim yellow light coming from the small window behind her mother.

Staring in astonishment, her mother slowly lifted the weapon in both hands as she whispered, “Dear spirits . . .”

“I know,” Jennsen said. “I nearly yelped in fright when I saw it. Sebastian said that this was a fine weapon, too fine to bury, and he wanted me to keep it. He kept the soldier’s short sword and axe for himself. I told him I would give this to you. He said that he hoped it would help you feel safe.”

Her mother slowly shook her head. “This does not make me feel safe at all—knowing that a man carrying this was near us. Jenn, I don’t like that one bit. Not one bit.”

Her mother’s eyes showed that she was on to worries bigger than the man Jennsen had brought home with her.

“Mother, Sebastian is sick. Can he stay in the cave? I led him to believe that he has more to fear from us than we from him.”

Her mother glanced up with a sly smile. “Good girl.” They both knew that in order to survive they had to work as a team, with well-practiced roles they fell into without the need for formal discussion.

She let out a sigh, then, as if with the burden of knowing all the things her daughter was missing in life. She ran a hand tenderly down Jennsen’s hair, letting it come to rest on her shoulder.

“All right, baby,” she said at last, “we’ll let him stay the night.”

“And feed him. I told him he would have a hot meal for helping me.”

Her mother’s warm smile widened. “And a meal, then.”

She drew the blade from its sheath, finally. She gave it a critical appraisal, turning it this way and that, inspecting its design. She tested the edge, and then the weight. She spun it between her slender fingers to get the feel of it, the balance.

At last she held it in her open palm, contemplating the ornate letter “R.” Jennsen could not imagine what terrible thoughts—and memories—must be going through her mother’s mind as she silently considered the emblem representing the House of Rahl.

“Dear spirits,” her mother whispered again to herself.

Jennsen didn’t say anything. She entirely understood. It was an ugly evil thing.

“Mother,” Jennsen whispered when her mother had looked at the handle for an eternity, “it’s almost dark. May I go get Sebastian and take him back to the cave?”

Her mother slid the blade home into its sheath, looking to put a panorama of painful memories away with it.

“Yes, I suppose you had better go get him. Take him to the cave. Make a fire for him. I’ll cook some fish and bring some herbs along to help him sleep with his fever. Wait there with him until I come out. Keep your eye on him. We will eat with him, out there. I don’t want him in the house.”

Jennsen nodded. She touched her mother’s arm, halting her before she could go into the house. Jennsen had one more thing to tell her mother. She dearly wished she didn’t have to. She didn’t want to bring her mother such a worry, but she had to.

“Mother,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper, “we are going to need to go from this place.”

Her mother looked startled.

“I found something on the D’Haran soldier.”

Jennsen pulled the piece of paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and held it out in her open palm.

Her mother’s gaze took in the two words on the paper.

“Dear spirits . . .” was all she said, was all she was able to say.

She turned and looked at the house, taking it all in, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears. Jennsen knew that her mother had come to think of it as home, too.

“Dear spirits,” her mother whispered to herself again, at a loss for anything more.

Jennsen thought the weight of it might overcome her, and her mother might break down in helpless tears. That was what Jennsen wanted to do. Neither did.

Her mother wiped a finger under each eye as she looked back at Jennsen. And then she did cry—one brief inhalation of a gasping sob of hopelessness. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

It broke Jennsen’s heart to see her mother in such anguish. Everything that Jennsen had missed in life, her mother had missed twice over. Once for herself, and once for her daughter. On top of it, her mother had to be strong.

“We’ll leave at first light,” her mother said in simple pronouncement. “Traveling at night, and in the rain, will serve us ill. We’ll have to find a new place to hide. He’s getting too close to this one.”

Jennsen’s own eyes overflowed with tears and her voice came only with great difficulty. “I’m so sorry, Mama, that I’m such trouble.” Her tears flooded forth in a painful torrent. She crushed the piece of paper as her hands fisted. “I’m so sorry, Mama. I wish you could be free of me.”

Her mother caught her up in her arms then, cradling Jennsen’s head to a shoulder as she wept. “No, no, baby. Don’t ever say that. You’re my light, my life. This trouble is caused by others. Don’t you ever wear a cloak of guilt because they are evil. You’re my wonderful life. I would give everything else up a thousand times over for you and then once again and be joyous to do so.”

Jennsen was glad that she would never have any children, for she knew she didn’t have her mother’s strength. She held on for dear life to the only person in the world who was a comfort to her.

But then she pushed away from her mother’s embrace. “Mama, Sebastian is from far away. He told me. He said that he’s from beyond D’Hara. There are other places—other lands. He knows of them. Isn’t that wonderful? There is a place that isn’t D’Hara.”

“But those places are beyond barriers and boundaries that can’t be crossed.”

“Then how can he be here? It must be so, otherwise he could not have traveled here.”

“And Sebastian is from one of these other lands?”

“To the south, he said.”

“The south? I don’t see how it could be possible. Are you sure that’s what he said?”

“Yes.” Jennsen added a firm nod of confirmation. “He said the south. He only mentioned it casually. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but what if it is? Mother, maybe he could guide us there. Maybe, if we asked, he would guide us out of this nightmare land.”

As levelheaded as her mother was, Jennsen could see that she was considering this wild idea. It wasn’t crazy—her mother was thinking it over, so it couldn’t be crazy. Jennsen was suddenly filled with a sense of hope that maybe she had come up with something that would save them.

“Why would he do this for us?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if he would consider it, or what he would want in return. I didn’t ask him. I didn’t dare even to mention it until I talked to you, first. That’s part of why I wanted him to stay here—so you could question him. I feared to lose this chance to discover if it really is possible.”

Her mother looked around again at the house. It was tiny, only one room, and it was nothing fancy, built from logs and wood they had shaped themselves, but it was warm and snug and dry. It was frightening to contemplate striking out in the dead of winter. The alternative of being caught, though, was far worse. Jennsen knew what would happen if they were caught. Death would not come swiftly. If they were caught, death would come only after endless torture.

At last, her mother gathered herself and spoke. “That’s good thinking, Jenn. I don’t know if anything can come of such an idea, but we’ll talk to Sebastian and see. One thing is for sure. We have to leave. We dare not delay until spring—not if they’re this close. We’ll leave at dawn.”

“Mother, where will we go, this time, if Sebastian won’t lead us away from D’Hara?”

Her mother smiled. “Baby, the world is a big place. We are only two small people. We will simply vanish again. I know it’s hard, but we’re together. It will be fine. We’ll see some new sights, now won’t we? Some more of the world.

“Now, go get Sebastian and take him to the cave. I’ll get started on dinner. We’ll all need to have a good meal.”

Jennsen quickly kissed her mother’s cheek before racing down the trail. The rain was starting, and it was so gloomy among the trees that she could hardly see. The trees were all huge D’Haran soldiers to her, broad, powerful, grim. She knew she would have nightmares after seeing a real D’Haran soldier up close.

Sebastian was still sitting on the rock, waiting. He stood as she rushed up to him.

“My mother said it was all right for you to sleep in the cave with the animals. She’s started on cooking up the fish for us. She wants to meet you.”

He looked too tired to be happy, but he managed to show her a small smile. Jennsen seized his wrist and urged him to follow her. He was already shivering with the wet. His arm was warm, though. Fever was like that, she knew. You shivered even though you were burning up. But with some food and herbs and a good night’s rest, she was sure he would soon be well.

What she wasn’t sure of was if he would help them.