The Pillars of Creation

Chapter 45

Jennsen sat close to Sebastian, drawing comfort from his familiar presence, yet wishing they could instead be alone by a campfire frying up fish or cooking beans. She felt more alone at the emperor’s table, with servants hovering all about, than she’d ever felt by herself in the silence of a forest. Without Sebastian there, laughing and talking, she didn’t know what she would have done, how she would have behaved. She was uncomfortable enough around regular people; this was far more unnerving.

Emperor Jagang was a man who, without effort, fluidly dominated the room. Although he never broke his gracious, courtly manner with her, in some inscrutable way, he made her feel that every breath she took had been granted her only by his grace. He referenced momentous matters offhandedly, without realizing he was doing it, so common were such responsibilities, so sure his unflinching rule. He was a mountain lion at rest, sleek and poised, tail swishing lazily, licking his chops.

This was not an emperor who was content to sit safely by, back in some remote palace, and receive reports; this was an emperor who led his men into the thick of battle. This was an emperor who dug his hands down into the bloody muck of life and death and pulled out what he wanted.

Though it seemed an extravagant dinner for what was, after all, an army on the march, it was still the emperor’s tent and table, and reflected that fact. There was food and drink in abundance, everything from fowl to fish, beef to lamb, wine to water.

As servants, focused on their tasks, rushed in and out with steaming platters of beautifully prepared food, treating her like royalty, Jennsen was struck with a sudden gut-wrenching glimpse of how her mother, as a lowly, obscure, humble young woman, must have felt as she sat at Lord Rahl’s table, as she saw such tempting variety and abundance as she had never imagined, while at the same time trembling at being in the presence of a man with the power to sentence death, without pausing his meal.

Jennsen had little appetite. She pulled dainty strips of meat off of the succulent piece of pork sitting before her on a thick slab of bread, and nibbled as she listened to the two men talk. Their conversation was trivial. Jennsen sensed that when she was not around, the two men would have much more to say to each another. As it was, they spoke of acquaintances and caught up on inconsequential matters that had taken place since Sebastian had left the army the previous summer.

“What of Aydindril?” Sebastian asked at last as he stabbed a slice of meat on the point of his knife.

The emperor twisted a leg off a crispy goose. He planted his elbows on the edge of the table as he leaned forward and gestured vaguely with his prize. “I don’t know.”

Sebastian lowered his knife. “What do you mean? I remember the lay of the land. You are but a day or two away.” His voice was respectful, but clearly concerned. “How can you march in without knowing what awaits in Aydindril?”

Jagang tore a big bite off the fat end of the goose leg, the bone spanning the fingers of both hands. Grease dripped from the meat, and from his fingers.

“Well,” he said at last, waving the bone over his shoulder before casting it aside on a plate, “we sent scouts and patrols to have a look, but none returned.”

“None of them?” Concern put an edge on Sebastian’s voice.

Jagang picked up a knife and sliced off a chunk of lamb from a platter to the side. “None,” he said as he stabbed the piece of meat.

With his teeth, Sebastian eased the bite off his knife and then set the blade down. He rested his elbows on the edge of the table and folded his fingers together as he considered.

“The Wizard’s Keep is in Aydindril,” Sebastian said at last in a quiet voice. “I saw it, when I scouted the city last year. It sits on the side of a mountain, overlooking the city.”

“I remember your report,” Jagang answered.

Jennsen wanted to ask what a “Wizard’s Keep” was, but not enough to break her silence while the men talked. Besides, it seemed somewhat selfevident, especially by the ominous tone in Sebastian’s voice when he said it.

Sebastian rubbed his palms together. “Then may I ask your plan?”

The emperor flicked his fingers in command. All the servants vanished. Jennsen wished she could go with them, go hide under her blanket and be a proper nobody again. Outside, thunder rumbled and occasional gusts of wind drove fits of rain against the tent. The candles and lamps set about the table lit the two men and the immediate area, but left the soft carpets and walls in near darkness.

Emperor Jagang glanced briefly at Jennsen before directing his inky gaze to Sebastian. “I intend to move in swiftly. Not with the whole army, as I believe they will expect, but with a small enough force of cavalry to be maneuverable, yet large enough to maintain control of the situation. Of course we will take a sizable contingent of the gifted.”

In the span of those brief words, the mood had turned deadly serious. Jennsen sensed that she was silent witness to the pivotal moments of a momentous event. It was frightening to think of the lives that hung in the balance of the words these two men spoke.

Sebastian weighed the emperor’s words for a time before speaking. “Do you have any idea how Aydindril wintered?”

Jagang shook his head. He pulled a chunk of lamb off the point of his knife and spoke as he chewed.

“The Mother Confessor is many things; stupid is not one of them. She would have known for a long time, by the direction of our push, by the movements she’s observed, by the cities that have already fallen, the path we have chosen, by all the reports and information she would have gathered, that with spring I will move on Aydindril. I’ve given them a good long time to sweat as they ponder their fate. I suspect that by now they’re all shaking in their boots, but I don’t think she has the heart to flee.”

“You think that Lord Rahl’s wife is there?” Jennsen blurted out in astonishment. “In the city? The Mother Confessor herself?”

Both men paused and gazed at her. The tent was silent.

Jennsen shrank. “Forgive me for speaking.”

The emperor grinned. “Why should I forgive you? You’ve just stuck a knife in the prize goose and called it true.” With his blade, he gestured toward Sebastian. “You brought a special woman, a woman with a good head on her shoulders.”

Sebastian rubbed Jennsen’s back. “And a pretty head, at that.”

Jagang’s black eyes gleamed as he watched her. “Yes, indeed.” His fingers blindly scooped olives from a glass bowl to the side. “So, Jennsen Rahl, what is your thinking about all this?”

Since she had already spoken, she couldn’t now decline to answer. She gathered herself and considered the question.

“Whenever I was hiding from Lord Rahl, I would try not to do anything that would let him know where I was. I tried to do everything I could to keep him blind. Maybe that’s what they are doing, too. Trying to keep you blind.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Sebastian said. “If they’re terrified, they might try to eliminate any scout or patrol in order to make us think that they’re more powerful than they are and to conceal any defensive plans.”

“And keep at least some element of surprise on their side,” Jennsen added.

“My thought, too,” Jagang said. He grinned at Sebastian. “Small wonder you would bring me such a woman—she is a strategist, too.” Jagang winked at Jennsen, then rang a bell to the side.

A woman, the one in the gray dress and tied-back gray and black hair, appeared at a distant opening. “Yes, Excellency?”

“Bring the young lady some fruits and sweetmeats.”

As she bowed and left, the emperor turned serious again. “That’s why I believe it best to take a smaller force than they are sure to expect, one able to maneuver quickly in response to what defenses they try to catch us up in. They may be able to overpower our small patrols, but not a sizable force of cavalry and gifted. If need be, we can always pour men into the city. After a winter of sitting on their behinds, they would be more than happy to be unleashed. But I’m reluctant to start out with what those in Aydindril are expecting.”

Sebastian was idly poking a thick slab of roast beef with his knife as he considered. “She might be in the Confessors’ Palace.” He redirected his gaze to the emperor. “The Mother Confessor very well might have decided to make her stand at long last.”

“I think so, too,” Emperor Jagang said. Outside, the spring storm had picked up, the chill wind moaning among the tents.

Jennsen couldn’t restrain herself. “You really think she will be there?” she asked both men. “You honestly think she would remain there when she knows you’re coming with an enormous army?”

Jagang shrugged. “I can’t be sure, of course, but I’ve battled her all the way up through the Midlands. In the past, she had options, choices, tough though they sometimes were. We drove her army into Aydindril just before winter, then sat at her doorstep. Now, she and her army have run out of choices, and, with the mountains all around, places to flee. Even she knows that a time comes when the choice you are given must be faced. I think this may be where she chooses to at last stand and fight.”

Sebastian stabbed a portion of meat. “It sounds too simple.”

“Of course it does,” Jagang said, “that’s why I must consider that she may have decided to do it.”

Sebastian gestured north with the red piece of meat on the point of his blade. “She may have pulled back into the mountains, and left only enough men to take out scouts and patrols, to keep you blind, as Jennsen suggested.”

Jagang shrugged. “Possibly. She is a woman who is impossible to predict. But she’s running out of places to pull back to. Sooner or later there will be no ground left. This may not be her plan, but, then again, it might be so.”

Jennsen hadn’t realized that the Old World had made such progress at throwing back the enemy. Sebastian, too, had been away a long time. Matters, for the Old World, were not nearly so bleak as she had thought. Still, it sounded a great risk to take based on such thin conjecture.

“And so you’re willing to gamble your men on such a battle, hoping she will be there?”

“Gamble?” Jagang sounded amused by the suggestion. “Don’t you see? It isn’t really a gamble at all. Either way, we have nothing to lose. Either way, we will have Aydindril. In so doing, we finally cleave the Midlands, thus cleaving the entire New World in two. Cleave and conquer is the path to victory.”

Sebastian licked the blood from his knife. “You know her tactics better than I and are better able to predict what her next will be. But, as you say, whether she decides to stand with her people, or leaves them to their fate, we will have the city of Aydindril and the seat of power in the Midlands.”

The emperor stared off. “That bitch has killed hundreds of thousands of my men. She has always managed to stay one step ahead of me, to stay out of my grip, but all the while she was backing toward the wall—this wall.” He looked up in cold rage. “May the Creator grant that I have her at last.” His knuckles were white around the handle of his knife, his voice a deadly oath. “I will have her, and I will settle the score. Personally.”

Sebastian measured the look in the emperor’s dark eyes. “Then perhaps we are near to the final victory—in the Midlands, at least. With the Midlands won, the fate of D’Hara will be sealed.” He held his knife up. “And if the Mother Confessor is there, then Lord Rahl very well might be, too.”

Jennsen, thoughts tumbling through her mind, looked from Sebastian to the emperor. “You mean, you think that her husband, Lord Rahl, is there, too?”

Jagang’s nightmare gaze turned toward her as he grinned wickedly. “Exactly, darling.”

Jennsen felt a chill run up her spine at the murderous look in his eyes. She was grateful to the good spirits that she was on this man’s side, and not his enemy. Still, she had to voice the vital information Tom had told her. She felt a stab of anguish, wishing it had been someone other than Tom who had confirmed it for her, but it was Sebastian who was really the first one to have told her about it.

“Lord Rahl can’t be there, in Aydindril.” Both men stared at her. “Lord Rahl is far to the south.”

Jagang frowned. “To the south? What do you mean?”

“He’s in the Old World.”

“Are you sure?” Sebastian asked.

Jennsen puzzled at him. “You told me so yourself. That he led his army of invasion into the Old World.”

A look of recollection came over Sebastian’s face. “Yes, of course, Jenn, but that was long before I even met you—way back before I left our troops—that I had heard those reports. That was a long time ago.”

“But I know he was in the Old World after that.”

“What do you mean?” Jagang asked in a gravely growl.

Jennsen cleared her throat. “The bond. The D’Haran people feel a bond to the Lord Rahl—”

“And do you feel the bond?” Jagang asked.

“Well, no. It just isn’t strong enough in me. But when Sebastian and I were at the People’s Palace, I met people there who said that Lord Rahl was far to the south, in the Old World.”

The emperor considered her words as he glanced over at a woman who had come in with platters of dried fruits, sweetmeats, and nuts. She worked at a distant side table, apparently not wanting to come any closer and disturb the emperor and his guests.

“But Jenn, you heard that last winter when we were at the palace. Have you heard anyone with the bond confirm it since then?”

Jennsen shook her head. “I guess not.”

“If the Mother Confessor intends to make her stand in Aydindril,” Sebastian said, thoughtfully, “then it’s possible, since we last had this report of him to the south, that he’s come north to stand by the Mother Confessor.”

Jagang leaned in low over the bloody meat before him. “Those two are like that. Evil to the end. I’ve dealt with them both for a long time, now. I know from experience that if there’s any way for them to be together, they will be—even if it’s in death.”

The implications were staggering. “Then . . . we might have him,” Jennsen whispered, almost to herself. “We might have Richard Rahl, too. The nightmare might be close to over. We could be on the eve of victory for all of us.”

Jagang leaned back, drumming his fingers on the table, looking from one to the other. “While I find it hard to believe Richard Rahl would also be there, from what I know about him, he could well decide to stand and lose with her, rather than live to see it all slip away from him bit by bloody bit.”

Jennsen felt an unexpected pang at the thought of the two of them standing together as the end came. It was completely out of character for a Lord Rahl to care for any woman, much less to stand by one as she was about to lose the war for her homeland, and her life as well. Lord Rahl would be more concerned about preserving his own life and land.

Still, the thought of him being this close was too tantalizing to dismiss, and had her pulse racing. “If he is this close, then I wouldn’t need the help of the Sisters of the Light. I wouldn’t need a spell. I would only have to get a little closer, to be with you when you make your drive into the city.”

Jagang’s grim, humorless smile was back. “You will ride with me; I will deliver you to the Confessors’ Palace.” His knuckles were white around his knife again. “I want them both dead. I will see to the Mother Confessor, personally. I grant you permission to be the one to plunge your knife into Richard Rahl.”

Jennsen felt a wild swing of emotion, from giddy elation that the deed was close at hand, to sickening horror. For an instant, she doubted that she could really carry out such a grisly, cold-blooded act.

Jennsen.

But then she remembered her mother lying in a pool of blood on the floor of their home, bleeding to death from those awful ripping stab wounds, her severed arm not far away, a house full of Lord Rahl’s brutes standing over her. Jennsen remembered her mother’s eyes, as she lay dying. She remembered how helpless she felt as her mother’s life slipped away. The horror of it was as fresh as ever. The rage was as white-hot as ever. Jennsen lusted to plunge her knife into her bastard brother’s heart.

That was all she wanted.

In the searing haze of righteous anger, as she saw herself slamming the knife into Richard Rahl’s chest, she only distantly heard Jagang speak.

“But why is it you wish to kill your brother? What is your reason, your purpose?”

“Grushdeva,” she hissed.

Behind her, Jennsen heard a glass vase hit the floor and shatter. The sound startled her back to where she was.

The emperor frowned at the woman off in the shadows. Her brown eyes were fixed on Jennsen.

“I apologize for Sister Perdita’s clumsiness,” Jagang said as he glared at the woman.

“Forgive me, Excellency,” the woman in the dark gray dress said as she backed out between the hangings, bowing all the way.

The emperor’s frown turned back to Jennsen.

“Now, what was it you said?”

Jennsen hadn’t the slightest idea. She knew she’d said something, but she wasn’t sure what. She thought that maybe her grief had tied her tongue in knots right when she went to answer. Her sorrow returned, like a great, grim weight on her shoulders.

“You see, Excellency,” Jennsen said as she stared down at her uneaten dinner, “all my life, my father, Darken Rahl, has been trying to murder me because I was his ungifted offspring. When Richard Rahl killed him and assumed rule over D’Hara, he took up in his father’s place, and part of that place was to murder his ungifted siblings. But in this duty, he was even more vicious than his father had been.”

Jennsen looked up through watery vision. “Just after I met Sebastian, my brother’s men finally caught up with us. They brutally murdered my mother. If not for Sebastian being there, they would have had me, too. Sebastian saved my life. I intend to kill Richard, because, if I don’t, I can’t ever be free. He will always send men to hunt me. Besides saving my life, Sebastian helped me to see that.

“Perhaps even more importantly, I must avenge the murder of my mother if I am ever to be at peace.”

“Our purpose is the welfare of our fellow man. Your story saddens me, and is the very reason we fight to eradicate the blight of magic.” The emperor finally shifted his gaze to Sebastian. “I am proud of you for helping this fine young woman.”

Sebastian had turned moody. She knew how ill at ease he felt under the weight of praise. She wished he could feel proud about his accomplishments, his importance, his stature with the emperor.

He laid his knife down across the scraps of his meal. “Just doing my job, Excellency.”

“Well,” Jagang said with an encouraging smile, “I’m glad you’ve returned in time to see the culmination of your strategy.”

Sebastian leaned back, nursing a mug of ale. “Don’t you want to wait for Brother Narev? Shouldn’t he be here to witness it, if this turns out to be the blow that ends it?”

With a thick finger, Jagang pushed an olive around in a little circle on the table. It was a time before he spoke quietly without looking up.

“I’ve not heard from Brother Narev since Altur’Rang fell.”

Sebastian came up against the table. “What! Altur’Rang fell? What do you mean? How? When?”

Jennsen knew that Altur’Rang was the emperor’s homeland, the city he came from. Sebastian had told her that Brother Narev and the Fellowship of Order were there, in that great shining city of hope for mankind. A great palace would be built there in homage to the Creator and as a symbol to solidify the unity of the Old World.

“I received reports not long ago that enemy forces overran the city. Altur’Rang is very distant, and it was cut off. Partly because of winter, the reports were a very long time in reaching me. I await news.

“Given this inauspicious turn of fate, I don’t think it wise to wait for Brother Narev to make it up here. He will be busy throwing the invaders back. If the Mother Confessor and Richard Rahl are in Aydindril, we must not wait; we must strike back swiftly, and with withering force.”

Jennsen laid a sympathetic hand on Sebastian’s forearm. “That must have been what you told me about. When I first met you and you told me that Lord Rahl was invading your homeland, that must have been what he was after—Altur’Rang.”

Sebastian stared at her. “It may be that he isn’t in Aydindril. It may turn out that he’s still to the south, Jenn, in the Old World. You have to keep that in mind. I don’t want you to invest all your hopes only to have them dashed.”

“I hope he is here and it can finally be ended, but, as His Excellency said about moving on Aydindril, there is nothing to lose. I didn’t expect to find him here. If he isn’t in Aydindril, then I’ll still have the help for which you brought me here in the first place.”

“And what is the nature of that help?” Jagang asked.

Sebastian answered for her. “I told her that the Sisters might be able to help with a spell—so that she can get past all of Lord Rahl’s protection and get close enough to him to act.”

“One way or another, then. If he is in Aydindril, you shall have him.” Jagang plucked up the olive he had been rolling around and popped it in his mouth. “If not, then you shall have the sorceress at your disposal. Whatever help you need from the Sisters is yours. You have but to ask, and they will provide it—my word on that.”

His raven eyes were deadly serious.

Outside, thunder rumbled. The rain had picked up. Lightning flickered, lighting the tent from the outside with eerie light that made the candlelight seem all the darker when each flash of lightning ended, leaving them again in near darkness, waiting for the roll of thunder.

“I just need them to cast me a spell to divert those protecting him, so I can get close enough to him,” Jennsen said after the thunder had died out. She drew her knife from its sheath and held it up to look at the ornate letter “R” engraved in the silver handle. “Then I can put my knife through his evil heart. This knife—his own knife. Sebastian explained how important it is to use what is closest to an enemy to strike back at them.”

“Sebastian has spoken wisely. That is our way, and why, with the Creator’s guidance, we will prevail. Let us pray that we at last have them both and it can finally be ended, that the scourge of magic will finally be ended, and that mankind will at last be allowed to live in peace as the Creator intended.”

Jennsen and Sebastian both nodded at the invocation.

“If we catch them in Aydindril,” Jagang said, looking her in the eyes, “I promise that you will be the one to put your blade through his heart, so that your mother may finally rest in peace.”

“Thank you,” Jennsen whispered in gratitude.

He didn’t ask how she could accomplish such a task. Maybe the conviction in her voice had betrayed the fact that there was more to this than he knew—that she had some special advantage that would enable her to accomplish such a thing.

And there was more to this than he knew, or Sebastian knew.

Jennsen had been thinking long and hard about it, putting all the various elements together. Her whole life had been devoted to thinking about this problem. But in the past, her thoughts always revolved around how insoluble it was, how it was only a matter of time until Lord Rahl caught her and the nightmare began in earnest.

She had always been focused on the problem.

Now, since meeting Sebastian and the death of her mother, events had accelerated at a breathtaking pace, but those events had also added, bit by bit, to her understanding of the larger picture. Questions were beginning to have answers, answers that seemed so simple, now, looking back on them. She almost felt as if, deep down inside, she must have known all along.

Now, she was turning her focus away from the problem; she was beginning to think in terms of the solution.

Jennsen had learned a great deal from Althea—as it turned out, more, even, than the sorceress knew she was revealing. A sorceress of Althea’s power would not be trapped there all those years unless what she said about the beasts in the swamp were true. The snake was different. Friedrich had said that the snake was just a snake.

But the beasts were magic.

Those beasts kept even a sorceress of Althea’s power locked in her prison. Friedrich said that no one, not even he, could come in by the back way. Tom had also said that he had never heard of anyone going in the back way and returning to tell about it. No one used the meadow, either, because of the things that came out of that swamp. The things in the swamp were real and they were deadly. All the facts but one were consistent in supporting that.

Jennsen had gone in and come out again without ever being approached, much less attacked or harmed. She had seen nothing of any beasts created from the very substance of the gift. That was the one piece that hadn’t fit, at the time. It did, now.

There had been other indications, too, such as in the People’s Palace, when Jennsen had touched Nyda’s Agiel without it harming her. It had certainly harmed both Sebastian and Captain Lerner. Nyda had been dumbstruck. She said that not even Lord Rahl was immune to the touch of an Agiel. Jennsen was.

And, Jennsen had been able to bend Nyda’s will to helping, rather than what, by all rights, she should have done, which was to stop this stranger who couldn’t be touched with the power of an Agiel, stopped a woman who raised so many unanswered questions, until it all could be sorted out and confirmed. Even when Nathan Rahl tried to stop her, Jennsen had been able to get Nyda to help protect her—from a gifted Rahl. Jennsen knew now that it was more than just a good bluff. A bluff might have been the kernel, but there was much more wrapped around it.

All of those things and more, over the course of the long and difficult journey to Aydindril, had at last come together, so that Jennsen finally saw the true extent of her unique status and why she was the one to kill Richard Rahl.

Jennsen had come to understand that she was the only one able to do this—that she was born to do this—because, in a central, critical, cardinal way . . . she was invincible.

She knew, now, that she had always been invincible.