The Pillars of Creation

Chapter 52

After they picketed their horses, Jennsen gave Rusty a rub on the forehead. With trembling fingers, she smoothed her other hand along the underside of the jaw as she pressed the side of her face against the horse’s nose.

“Be a good girl until I get back,” she whispered.

Rusty neighed softly in response to the gentle words. Jennsen liked to imagine that the horse could understand her words. From the way her goat, Betty, had always cocked her head and stilled her little upright tail as Jennsen confided her innermost fears, she had firmly believed that her hairy four-legged friend could understand every word.

Jennsen peered overhead at the clawlike branches swaying in the muted light of a full moon occulted by a milky veil of ethereal clouds drifting across the sky, as if gathering to bear silent witness.

“Are you coming?”

“Yes, Sister Perdita.”

“Hurry, then. The others will be waiting.”

Jennsen followed the woman up the side of a bank. The mossy ground was littered with leathery dried oak leaves and a layer of small branches. Roots emerging here and there from the loose loam provided enough footing to climb the steep rise. At the top, the ground leveled out. The Sister’s dark gray dress made her nearly vanish as she moved into the thick brush. For a woman with such big bones, Jennsen noticed that the Sister moved with disturbing grace.

The voice remained silent. In tense times like this the voice always whispered to her. Now it was silent. Jennsen had always wanted the voice to leave her be. She had come to understand just how frightening such silence could be.

The full moon, being only thinly obscured, provided enough light to make their way. Jennsen could see her breath in the cold air as she followed the Sister into the thick of the woods back between the low spreading boughs of balsams and spruce. She had always felt at home in the woods, but, somehow, following a Sister into the woods didn’t give her the same comforting feeling.

She would rather be alone than in the company of the stern woman. Ever since Jennsen had given her the only word that would save Sebastian’s life, Sister Perdita had settled into a demeanor of blunt superiority devoid of any tolerance. She was now firmly in command, and was certain that Jennsen knew it.

At least she had kept her word. As soon as Jennsen had given hers, Sister Perdita had urgently set other Sisters to saving Sebastian’s life. While other Sisters were sent on ahead to prepare whatever it was they had to prepare, Jennsen was allowed to briefly look in on Sebastian to reassure her that everything possible to save him was being done.

Before she had left his side, Jennsen had bent and softly kissed his beautiful lips, run her hand tenderly back over his white spikes of hair, and gently brushed her lips across both his closed, sky blue eyes. She had whispered a prayer for her mother, with the good spirits, to watch over him.

Sister Perdita had not stopped her, or hurried her, until at the end when she pulled Jennsen back and whispered that the Sisters, huddled all around him, had to be left to do their work.

On her way out, Jennsen had been allowed to put her head into the private chamber of the emperor, and saw four Sisters bent close over his injured leg. The emperor was unconscious. The four Sisters working feverishly on the emperor seemed to be in pain themselves, sometimes putting their hands to their heads in agony. Jennsen hadn’t known, until she saw the four and Sister Perdita explained, just how unpleasantly difficult healing could be. The Sisters were not concerned, though, about the life of the emperor being in immediate danger, as they were about Sebastian.

Jennsen held a balsam bough back out of her way as she followed the Sister deeper into the forbidding wood.

“Why do we have to go so far from the camp?” Jennsen whispered. The horseback ride had taken what seemed hours.

Sister Perdita’s tail of hair fell forward over her shoulder when she looked back, as if it were a particularly inane question. “So we can be alone to do what must be done.”

Jennsen wanted to ask what must be done, but she knew the Sister wouldn’t tell her. The woman had turned away all questions with answers that were no more than general. She said that Jennsen had given her word, and now it was her duty to uphold her end of the bargain—to do as she was told until it was finished.

Jennsen tried not to think about what might be ahead. She put her mind, instead, to thinking about leaving in the morning with a healthy Sebastian, about being back out on the trails, out in the countryside, away from all the people. Away from the grim-looking soldiers of the Imperial Order.

She knew that the soldiers were doing an invaluable job fighting against Lord Rahl, but, still, she just couldn’t help the way those men made her skin crawl. She felt as nervous as a fawn being watched by a pack of drooling wolves. Sebastian just didn’t understand whenever she’d tried to put it into words for him. He was a man; she supposed he couldn’t understand what it felt like to be leered at. How could she make him understand that it was especially daunting to be watched by men such as those, men with such lecherous grins and savage eyes?

If she just did as Sister Perdita said, then, by morning, she and Sebastian could leave. With whatever help the Sisters were planning, they had at least assured her that she would be better able to kill Richard Rahl. That was all Jennsen cared about, now. If she could at last kill Lord Rahl, then she would be free. Her life would be her own. And if that much never came to be for herself, at least the rest of the world would be safe from a butcher of momentous proportions.

They had left the horses among trees with bare branches—oaks, mostly. Since the trees had yet to leaf out, the forest had at first been open, but they moved steadily into thicker woods of balsam, spruce, and pine, many with thick boughs skirting their trunks all the way to the ground. Although the soaring pines had no lower branches, their spreading crowns sealed off the weak moonlight. Jennsen followed behind the Sister, watching her glide deeper into the silent, gloomy wood.

Jennsen had spent much of her life in forests. She could follow the trail left by a chipmunk. Sister Perdita was moving with all the certainty of someone following a road, yet there was no trail Jennsen could detect. The ground was covered with the typical forest litter; none of it had been moved by anyone’s passing. She saw twigs lying undisturbed, dried leaves intact, delicate mosses that were untouched by any boot. For all Jennsen could tell, she and the Sister were making their way through virgin woods without any reason or destination, yet she knew by the deliberate way the Sister moved that she had to have one, even if only she saw it.

And then, Jennsen caught a faint sound drifting through the thick woods. She saw a blush of light on the underside of branches ahead. The chill air had an odd, unpleasant cast like the faint scent of rot, but with a sickening sweet trace to it.

As she followed Sister Perdita through thick, tightly spaced evergreens, Jennsen began to hear the individual voices joined in a low, rhythmic, guttural chant. She couldn’t understand the words, but they resonated deep in her chest, and, the unusual cadence being disturbingly familiar, in the back of her mind. Even without her hearing the individual words, the cant of them almost seemed to be what lent the stench to the air. The words, peculiar yet hauntingly intimate, cramped her stomach with nausea.

Sister Perdita paused to look back, to make sure that her charge wasn’t flagging. Jennsen could see the faint moonlight reflecting off the ring through the Sister’s lower lip. All the Sisters wore one. Jennsen found the custom revolting, even if it was to show loyalty.

When Sister Perdita held a low balsam bough aside for her, Jennsen stepped through. Hearing the voices in chant beyond had her heart hammering. She could see, through the gap, a clearing in the forest, allowing an open view of the sky and moon overhead.

Jennsen glanced at the Sister’s stern expression, then continued on to the brink of the clearing. Before her lay a broad circle of candles. The candles were placed so close together that it almost looked like a ring of fire invoked to hold back demons. Just inside the candles, a circle had been made on the bare ground with what looked like white sand that glimmered in the moonlight. All around just inside the circle, made with the same strange white sand, were geometric symbols Jennsen didn’t recognize.

Seven women sat in a circle inside the sparkling sand. There was one place where it looked like someone belonged but was missing, no doubt Sister Perdita. The women had their eyes closed as they chanted in the strange language. Moonlight reflected off the rings through their lower lips as they spoke the grating guttural words.

“You are to sit in the center of the circle,” Sister Perdita said in a low voice. “Leave your clothes here.”

Jennsen looked over into her hard eyes. “What?”

“Remove your clothes and sit in the center facing the breach in the circle.”

The command was spoken with such cold authority that Jennsen knew that she had no choice but to obey. The Sister took her cloak, then watched silently. After her dress slipped to the ground, Jennsen hugged her goose-bump-covered shoulders. Her teeth chattered, but it was more than from just the cold. Seeing the Sister’s silent glare, Jennsen swallowed in revulsion and then hurriedly took off the rest of her things.

Sister Perdita prodded her with a finger. “Go.”

“What is it I’m doing?” Jennsen’s own voice sounded surprisingly powerful to her.

Sister Perdita considered the question for a moment before finally answering. “You are going to kill Richard Rahl. To help you, we are breaching the veil to the underworld.”

Jennsen shook her head. “No. No, I’m not doing any such thing.”

“Everyone does it. When you die, you cross the veil. Death is part of life. In order for you to kill Lord Rahl, you are going to need help. We are giving you that help.”

“But the underworld is the world of the dead. I can’t—”

“You can and you will. You have already given your word. If you don’t do this, then how many more will Lord Rahl go on to murder? You will do this, or you will have the blood of each of those victims on your hands. By refusing, you will be invoking the death of countless people. You, Jennsen Rahl, will be aiding your brother. You, Jennsen Rahl, will be throwing open the doors of death and allowing all those people to die. You, Jennsen Rahl, will be the Keeper’s disciple. We are asking you to have the courage to reject that, and to turn death, instead, on Richard Rahl.”

Jennsen shivered, tears running down her face, as she considered Sister Perdita’s terrible challenge, her terrible choice. Jennsen prayed to her mother, asking what she should do, but no sign arrived to help her. Even the voice was silent.

Jennsen stepped over the candles.

She had to do this. She had to end the rule of Richard Rahl.

Thankfully, the center of the whole careful arrangement at least looked dark. Jennsen was mortified being naked in front of strangers, even if they were women, but that was the least of her fears at the moment.

As she stepped across the circle of glimmering white sand, it felt frighteningly colder, as if she were stepping into the grip of living winter. She shivered and shook, hugging herself, as she made her way to the center of the circle of women.

In the middle was a Grace made of the same white sand, sparkling in the moonlight. She stood staring down at it, a symbol she herself had drawn many times, but her hand was not guided by the gift.

“Sit,” Sister Perdita said.

Jennsen started with a gasp. The woman was standing right behind her. When she pressed on Jennsen’s shoulders, Jennsen sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged in the center of the eight-pointed star in the center of the Grace. She noticed, then, that each of the Sisters sat at the extension of a ray coming from each point of the star, save one directly in front. That spot was empty.

Jennsen sat naked, shivering, in the center of the circle as the Sisters of the Light began their soft chanting again.

The woods were dark and gloomy, the trees bare of leaves. The branches clacked together in the wind like the bones of the dead Jennsen feared the Sisters were calling forth.

The chanting suddenly halted. Rather than sit in the single empty spot remaining in the circle of Sisters, as Jennsen had expected, Sister Perdita stood behind her and spoke short, sharp words in the strange language.

At points in the long, singsong speech, Sister Perdita stressed a word Grushdeva—and cast her arm out over Jennsen’s head, flinging out dust. The dust ignited with a roaring whoosh that made Jennsen jump each time she did it, the harsh light bathing the Sisters briefly in the light of the rolling flame.

As the fire ascended, the seven Sisters spoke as if with one voice. “Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

Not only were those words she knew, but Jennsen realized that the voice was speaking the words in her head along with the Sisters. It was both frightening and comforting to have the voice back. The anxiety when the voice had gone strangely silent had been unbearable.

“Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

Jennsen was lulled by the sound of the chanting, and as it went on, calmed, too. She thought about what it was that had brought her to this point, about the terror her life had been, from the time when she was six and she fled the People’s Palace with her mother, to all the times that Lord Rahl had come close and they’d run for their lives, to that awful rainy night when Lord Rahl’s men were in her house. Jennsen felt tears coursing down her cheeks as she thought about her mother there on the floor dying. As she thought about Sebastian fighting valiantly. As she thought about her mother’s last words, and having to run and leave her mother there on the bloody floor. Jennsen cried out with the terrible anguish of it.

“Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

Jennsen cried in racking sobs. She missed her mother. She was afraid for Sebastian. She felt so terribly alone in the world. She had seen so many people die. She wanted it to end. She wanted it to stop.

“Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

When she looked up, through her watery vision, she saw something dark sitting in the spot before her that had moments before been empty. Its eyes glowed like the candlelight. Jennsen stared into those eyes, as if staring into the voice itself.

“Tu vash misht, Jennsen. Tu vask misht, Jennsen,” the voice before her and in her head said in a low, growling voice. “Open yourself to me, Jennsen. Open yourself for me, Jennsen.”

Jennsen could not move in the glowing glare of those eyes. That was the voice, only not in her head. It was the voice in front of her.

Sister Perdita, behind her, cast out her dust again, and this time, when it ignited, it lit the person sitting there with the glowing eyes.

It was her mother.

“Jennsen,” her mother cooed. “Surangie.”

“What?” Jennsen whimpered in shock.

“Surrender.”

Tears flooded forth in an uncontrollable torrent. “Mama! Oh, Mama!”

Jennsen started to rise, started to go to her mother, but Sister Perdita pressed down on her shoulders, keeping her in place.

As the rolling flames lifted and evaporated, as the light faded, her mother vanished into the darkness, and before her was the thing with the glowing candlelight eyes.

“Grushdeva du kalt misht,” the voice growled.

“What?” Jennsen wept.

“Vengeance is through me,” the voice growled in translation. “Surangie, Jennsen. Surrender, and vengeance will be yours.”

“Yes!” Jennsen wailed in inconsolable agony. “Yes! I surrender to vengeance!”

The thing grinned, like a door to the underworld opening.

It rose up, a wavering shadow, leaning forward toward her. Moonlight glistened on knotted muscles as it stretched out, coming toward her, almost catlike, smiling, showing those heart-stopping fangs.

Jennsen was beyond knowing what to do, except that she had had all she could take, and wanted it to end. She could take none of it any longer. She wanted to kill Richard Rahl. She wanted vengeance. She wanted her mother back.

The thing was right before her, shimmering power and form that was there, but not, partly in this world and partly in another.

Jennsen saw then, beyond the thing, beyond the ring of Sisters and sparkling white sand and candles, huge shapes out in the shadows—things on four legs. There were hundreds of them, their eyes all glowing yellow in the darkness, breath steaming up from snarls. They looked like they could have come from another world, but were most definitely now wholly in this one.

“Jennsen,” the voice hovering close over her whispered, “Jennsen,” it cooed, “Jennsen.” It smiled a smile as dark as Emperor Jagang’s eyes, as dark as a moonless night.

“What . . .” She whispered through her tears. “What are those things out there?”

“Why, the hounds of vengeance,” the voice whispered intimately. “Embrace me, and I shall unleash them.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“Surrender to me, Jennsen. Embrace me, and I shall unleash the hounds in your name.”

Jennsen couldn’t blink as she sank back away from the thing. She could hardly breathe. A low sound, a kind of purring rattle, came from the throat of the thing as it stretched over her, looking down into her eyes.

She was trying to think of that little word, that important little word. It was somewhere in her mind, but as she stared up into those glowing eyes, she couldn’t think of it. Her mind felt frozen. She wanted that word, but it wasn’t there.

“Grushdeva du kalt misht,” the voice cooed in that throaty, echoing growl. “Vengeance is through me.”

“Vengeance,” Jennsen whispered numbly in answer.

“Open yourself to me, open yourself for me. Surrender. Avenge your mother.”

The thing passed a long finger over her face, and she could feel where Richard Rahl was—as if she could feel the bond that told others where he was. To the south. Distant, to the south. She could find him, now.

“Embrace me,” the voice breathed, inches from her face.

Jennsen was flat on her back. The realization both surprised and alarmed her. She didn’t recall lying back. She felt like she was watching someone else do these things. She realized that the thing that was the voice was kneeling between her open legs.

“Surrender your will, Jennsen. Surrender your flesh,” the voice cooed, “and I will release the hounds for you. I will help you kill Richard Rahl.”

The word was gone. Lost. Just like her . . . lost.

“I . . . I,” she stammered as tears ran from her wide eyes.

“Embrace me, and vengeance will be yours. Richard Rahl will be yours to kill. Embrace me. Surrender your flesh, and with it, your will.”

She was Jennsen Rahl. It was her life.

“No.”

The Sisters in the circle wailed in sudden pain. They held their hands to their ears, crying in agony, howling like hounds.

The glowing candlelight eyes peered down at her. The smile returned, this time vapor hissing from between wet fangs.

“Surrender, Jennsen,” the voice rumbled with such terrible command that Jennsen thought it might crush her. “Surrender your flesh. Surrender your will. And then you will have vengeance. You will have Richard Rahl.”

“No,” she said, shrinking back as the thing stretched closer to her face. Her fingers dug into the dirt. “No! I will surrender my flesh, my will, if that is the price, if that is what I must do to rid the world of life of the murdering bastard Richard Rahl, but I will not do so until you give me that, first.”

“A bargain?” the voice hissed. The glow in the eyes went red. “You wish to bargain with me?”

“That is my price. Release your hounds. Help me kill Richard Rahl. When I have vengeance, then I will surrender.”

The thing grinned a nightmare grin.

A long thin tongue snaked out, licking her, in terrible intimate promise, from her naked crotch all the way up to between her breasts. It sent a violent shudder through her to her very soul.

“Bargain struck, Jennsen Rahl.”