The Pillars of Creation

Chapter 58

The heat had been withering up on the barren plain, but venturing down the trail felt like descending into a blast furnace. Every breath drew the torrid air into her lungs, making Jennsen feel as if she were being cooked from the inside, too. The air rising before the steep walls wavered like heat shimmering above a fire.

There were places where the trail simply vanished crossing loose rock, or perhaps went under it. In other places, a depression had been worn into the soft sandstone to show the way. In some places, the track went along natural pathways, so it was largely self-evident, with little choice to make a mistake. Occasionally, they had to cross slides of scree that had buried any trace of a trail, and hope they could pick it up farther along. Jennsen knew enough about trails to know that this one was ancient and unused.

Although nothing could make the scorching heat any less, the black garments that the traders had given them were at least an improvement. The black cloth around her eyes cut the painful glare, absorbing the bright light, making it easier to see. It was a relief to have the dark cloth shading her face. Instead of making her hotter, as she thought, the thin cloth covering the exposed skin of her arms and neck stopped the sun from burning her, and somehow seemed to keep some of the heat out.

As she and Sebastian hurried to follow the trail ever downward, she soon found, to her dismay, that it led them up, again, over one of the fingers of ridges that extended down into the valley. The rocky ground was so rugged that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to simply go right down, so the trail cut across the ridges so it wouldn’t drop so precipitously. The trade-off was that it made it necessary to descend the back side of one ridge only to have to climb the face of the next. They had no choice but to follow it as it made a harrowing descent, then rose again. The strain on the muscles of her thighs and shins was fatiguing, but then to have to climb up again in such heat was agonizing.

Jennsen remembered well that Sebastian had once told her that no one ever risked going into the valley that held the Pillars of Creation. She could see why. By the unused nature of the trail, she knew that it was true—at least in this one place. She recalled, too, that he’d said that if anyone did go into the central valley, they had never returned to talk about it. She guessed that she didn’t have to worry about that.

As they went lower, yawning fissures and deep cuts opened in the craggy terrain, giving rise to rock walls that stood alone, as if cast off and abandoned. As they moved along the edges of vast cliffs, some of the spires made up of those splits rose up from below almost to their height at the valley rim. Looking down on such soaring towers of rock was dizzying. There were places where she and Sebastian were forced to make leaps across deep clefts. To see in places where they were going to have to follow the trail below was heart-stopping.

Sister Perdita stood at the top of one of the prominent ridges along the trail’s tortuous descent, waiting for them, watching them with silent displeasure set enduringly in the lines of her implacable face. The growing shadows cast across the landscape added a strange new dimension to the place. The lowering sun highlighted the rugged features in a way that only helped to make clear how formidable the land truly was. Sebastian put a hand to Jennsen’s back and hurried her along an open, level place in the trail as they moved in among the eerie rock columns that stood like imposing dead trunks of tree that had lost their crowns and all their limbs.

Ever since they’d left the traders, something had felt wrong to Jennsen, but as Sebastian spurred her along, she couldn’t bring to mind precisely what it that was bothering her. Sister Perdita scowled as she waited.

Jennsen checked that her knife was still there, as she had done countless times before. She sometimes simply brushed her fingertips across the silver handle. This time, she lifted it to make sure it was clear in its sheath, then pressed it back down until it seated with the reassuring metallic click.

The first time she had seen the knife, when she found the dead D’Haran soldier, she had thought it a remarkable weapon. She still thought so. That first time, seeing the ornate letter “R” had terrified her—with good reason—but now the touch of the engraved handle reassured her, giving her hope that she could at long last end the threat. This was the day she was finally about to accomplish what Sebastian had told her that first night. She was going to use something close to her enemy to strike back.

Sebastian had been through a difficult time, too, since that first night when he’d had to fight those men even though he had been stricken with a fever. She could never forget how brave he had been that day, and how he had fought, despite having a fever. Far worse than being stricken with fever, though, he had been struck down by Adie’s sorceress magic and nearly killed. Jennsen was thankful that he had recovered, and that he was well, and that he would have a life, even if it was to be without her.

“Sebastian . . .” she said, suddenly realizing that she had never said her good-bye to him. She didn’t want to say it in front of Sister Perdita. She halted, turning back, pulling the black scarf away from her mouth. “Sebastian, I just want to thank you for all you’ve done to help me.”

He laughed a little through the mask of black fabric. “Jenn, you sound like you’re about to die.”

How could she tell him that she was?

“We can’t know what will happen.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, cheerfully. “You’ll be fine. The Sisters helped you with their magic while they were healing me, and now Sister Perdita will be there with you. I’ll be there, too. You’ll at last avenge your mother.”

He didn’t know what price the Sisters had placed on their help, and on vengeance. Jennsen couldn’t bear to tell him, but she had to find a way to say something.

“Sebastian, if anything happens to me—”

“Jenn,” he said, taking hold of her arms, looking into her eyes, “don’t talk like that.” He turned suddenly morose. “Jenn, don’t say such a thing. I couldn’t stand the thought of life without you. I love you. Only you. You don’t know what you mean to me, how you’ve made my life different than I ever thought it would be—so much better than I ever thought life could be. I couldn’t go on without you. I couldn’t ever again endure life without you. You make the world right for me as long as I have you. I’m hopelessly, helplessly in love with you. Please don’t torture me with the thought of ever being without you.”

Jennsen stared into his blue eyes, blue like her murdering father’s eyes were said to have been, and she was unable to bring forth any words to explain, to say how she felt, to tell him that she was going to be taken from him and he would have to face life alone. She knew how awful it was to feel alone. She simply nodded as she turned back to the trail and veiled the black scarf back across her face.

“Hurry,” she said, “Sister Perdita is waiting.”

The woman scowled at Jennsen through her own dark mask as she stood waiting in the wind atop a broad flat rock. Jennsen could see that the trail beyond the Sister descended steeply among the shadows, down into the very Pillars of Creation. As they approached, Jennsen realized that Sister Perdita wasn’t frowning at her, but looking past her, staring back the way they had come.

Before they reached her, up on the flat rock where her black robes lifted in the sweltering gusts, they, too, turned to see what she was watching so intently. Jennsen could see, from their high vantage point, that in their efforts they had reached the top of a divide in the trail from where it dropped rapidly down, following the side of the ridge, to take them to the bottom. But looking back across the wide gorges and rocky ridges they had already crossed, she saw that they were almost as high again as the valley rim. There, she could see the small cluster of squat buildings, looking tiny in the distance.

The rider was almost there, charging in on his horse, following an arrow-straight route toward the trail. The company of a thousand men had gathered in a thick line not far from the trailhead, waiting for him. Dust rose in a long plume behind the galloping horse.

As the lathered animal raced in at full speed, before it reached the men, Jennsen detected a falter in its gait. The horse’s front legs abruptly crumpled. The poor beast went down, crashing to the rocky ground, dead from exhaustion.

The man atop the horse smoothly stepped off the animal as it collapsed to the ground. Without seeming to lose momentum or stride, he continued to advance toward the trail. He was dressed in dark clothes, although not like those of the nomadic traders. A golden-colored cape billowed behind him. And, he appeared to be a lot bigger than the traders.

As he made straight for the trail, the commander of the cavalry cried out for the man to halt. He didn’t challenge them, or seem to even say a word. He simply ignored them as he marched resolutely past the buildings on his way to the trailhead. The thousand men raised a shrill battle cry and charged.

The poor man brandished no weapon, made no threating move toward the soldiers. As the Order cavalry raced down on him, he lifted an arm toward them, as if warning them to halt. Jennsen knew, from both Sebastian’s orders and from the way they charged toward the lone man, that they had no intention of stopping for anything short of his head.

Jennsen watched with dread as a man was about to be killed, watched, spellbound, as the thousand men crashed in toward him.

The valley rim abruptly lit with a thunderous explosion. Despite the dark head wrap, Jennsen shielded her eyes as she gasped in surprise. The violent rope of lightning and its terrible counterpart had twined together—a blazing white-hot bolt of lightning twisted together with a crackling black line that looked to be a void in the world itself, terrible power joined and discharged in an explosive instant.

In the space of a heartbeat, it seemed as if all the glaring brightness of the barren plain, the fierce heat of the Pillars of Creation, had been gathered at a single point and unleashed. In an instant, the ignition of that explosive lightning annihilated the force of a thousand in a brilliantly lit red cloud. When the blinding light, the thunderous roar, the violent concussion were suddenly gone, so were the thousand men—all of them leveled.

Among the smoking remains of horse and man, the lone man marched ever onward toward the trail, appearing not to have lost a step.

In that man’s determined movement, even more than in the way he had loosed havoc, Jennsen saw the true depths of his terrible rage.

“Dear spirits,” Jennsen whispered. “What just happened?”

“Salvation comes only through self-sacrifice,” Sister Perdita said. “Those men died in service to the Order and thus the Creator. That is the Creator’s highest calling. No need to mourn for them—they have gained salvation through loyal duty.”

Jennsen could only stare at her.

“Who is that?” Sebastian asked as he watched the lone man reach the rim of the valley of the Pillars of Creation and start down without pause. “Do you have any ideas?”

“It isn’t important.” Sister Perdita turned back to the trail. “We have a mission.”

“Then we had better hurry,” Sebastian said in a worried tone as he stared back at the distant figure advancing down the trail at a swift, measured, relentless pace.