The Pillars of Creation

  The world came back, like a shadow lifting.

  Jennsen found herself holding the arm of a dead woman. The Sister toppled to the ground like one of the stone pillars. Jennsen saw her knife jutting from the Sister’s chest.

  Richard was already there, holding Kahlan in his arms, slicing through the rope, easing her down. She looked drained, but other than her weakness, she looked fine.

  “What happened?” Jennsen asked in wonder.

  Richard smiled at her. “The Sister made a mistake. I warned her. The Mother Confessor unleashed her power into Sister Perdita.”

  “Did you have to warn her?” Kahlan asked, suddenly quite coherent-sounding. “She might have listened to you.”

  “No, it only encouraged her to do it.”

  Jennsen realized that the voice was gone. “What happened? Did I kill her?”

  “No. She was dead before your knife touched her,” Kahlan said. “Richard was distracting her so I could use my power. You tried, but you were an instant too late. She was already mine.”

  Richard put a comforting hand on Jennsen’s shoulder. “You didn’t kill her, but you made a choice that saved your own life. That shadow that passed over us as the Sister died was the Keeper of the dead taking one who had sworn herself to him. Had you made the wrong choice, you would have been taken with her.”

  Jennsen’s knees were trembling. “The voice is gone,” she whispered aloud. “It’s gone.”

  “The Keeper inadvertently revealed his intent,” Richard said. “Since the hounds were loose, that meant the veil—the conduit between worlds—was open.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Richard gestured with the book before he tucked it back into one of the pouches at his belt. “Well, I haven’t had time to read it all, but I’ve read enough to learn a little. You are an ungifted offspring of a Lord Rahl. That makes you the balance to the gifted Rahl—to magic. You not only have none, but you’re not touched by it. In a time of a great war, the House of Rahl was created to give birth to a line of powerful wizards, but in so doing, it also sowed the seeds of the end of magic for the world. It may be the Imperial Order that wants a world without magic, but it is the House of Rahl that may eventually deliver it.

  “You, Jennsen Rahl, are potentially the most dangerous person alive, because you, like any truly ungifted Rahl, are the seed that could spawn a new world without magic.”

  Jennsen stared into his gray eyes. “Then why would you not want me dead, like every Lord Rahl before you?”

  Richard smiled. “You have as much right to your life as anyone else—as any Lord Rahl has ever had to their life. There is no right way for the world to be. The only right is that people be allowed to live their own life.”

  Kahlan pulled the knife from Sister Perdita’s chest and cleaned it on the black robes before handing it to Jennsen. “Sister Perdita was wrong. Salvation is not through sacrifice. Your responsibility is to yourself.”

  “Your life is your own,” Richard said, “and not anyone else’s. You made me proud, hearing everything you said to Sebastian.”

  Jennsen stared down at the knife in her hand, still dazed and confused by everything that was happening. She looked around in the gathering darkness, but didn’t see Sebastian anywhere. Oba was gone, too.

  As she looked around, Jennsen was startled to see a Mord-Sith standing not far away. “This is just great,” the woman complained to the Mother Confessor, throwing her hands up. “The girl sounds like Lord Rahl. Now I’m going to have to listen to two of them.”

  Kahlan smiled and sat down, leaning back against the pillar where she had been tied, watching Richard, listening, stroking the ears of Betty’s twin kids.

  Betty watched her two young ones, then, seeing them safe, peered hopefully up at Jennsen. Her little tail started wagging in a blur.

  “Betty?”

  Betty happily jumped up on her, eager for a reunion. Jennsen tearfully hugged the goat before standing to face her brother.

  “But why would you not do as your ancestors? Why? How can you risk everything in that book?”

  Richard hooked his thumbs behind his belt and took a deep breath. “Life is the future, not the past. The past can teach us, through experience, how to accomplish things in the future, comfort us with cherished memories, and provide the foundation of what has already been accomplished. But only the future holds life. To live in the past is to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew. As rational, thinking beings, we must use our intellect, not a blind devotion to what has come before, to make rational choices.”

  “Life is the future, not the past,” Jennsen whispered to herself, considering all that life now held for her. “Where did you ever hear such a thing?”

  Richard grinned. “It’s the Wizard’s Seventh Rule.”

  Jennsen gazed up at him through her tears. “You have given me a future, a life. Thank you.”

  He embraced her, then, and Jennsen suddenly didn’t feel alone in the world. She felt whole again. It felt so good to be held as she wept with tears for her mother, and tears for the future, for the joy that there was life, and a future.

  Kahlan rubbed Jennsen’s back. “Welcome to the family.”

  When Jennsen wiped her eyes, and laughed at everything and nothing while she used her other hand to scratch Betty’s ears, she saw, then, Tom standing nearby.

  Jennsen ran to him and fell into his arms. “Oh, Tom. You can’t know how glad I am to see you! Thank you for bringing me Betty.”

  “That’s me. Goat delivery, as promised. Turns out that Irma, the sausage lady, only wanted your goat to get herself a kid. She has a billy and wanted a young one. She kept one and let you have the other two.”

  “Betty had three?”

  Tom nodded. “I’m afraid that I’ve become very fond of Betty and her two little ones.”

  “I can’t believe that you did that for me. Tom, you’re wonderful.”

  “My mother always said so, too. Don’t forget, you promised to tell Lord Rahl.”

  Jennsen laughed in delight. “I promise! But, how in the world did you ever find me?”

  Tom smiled and pulled a knife from behind his back. Jennsen was astonished to see that it was identical to the one she had.

  “You see,” he explained, “I carry the knife in service to Lord Rahl.”

  “You do?” Richard asked. “I’ve never even met you.”

  “Oh,” the Mord-Sith said, “Tom, here, is all right, Lord Rahl. I can vouch for him.”

  “Why, thank you, Cara,” Tom said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “And you knew all along, then,” Jennsen asked, “that I was making it all up?”

  Tom shrugged. “I wouldn’t be a proper protector to Lord Rahl if I let such a suspicious person as you roam around, trying to do harm, without doing my best to find out what you were up to. I’ve kept tabs on you, followed you a goodly part of your journeying.”

  Jennsen swatted his shoulder. “You’ve been spying on me!”

  “As a protector to Lord Rahl, I had to see what you were up to, and to make sure you didn’t harm Lord Rahl.”

  “Well,” she said, “I don’t think you were doing a very good job of it then.”

  “What do you mean?” Tom asked with exaggerated indignation.

  “I could have really stabbed him. You just stood way over there the whole time, too far away to do anything about it.”

  Tom smiled that boyish grin of his, but this time it was a little more mischievous than usual.

  “Oh, I’d not have let you hurt Lord Rahl.”

  Tom turned and heaved his knife. With blinding speed such as she had never seen, the blade flew across the valley, embedding itself with a thunk in one of the faraway fallen stone pillars. Jennsen squinted and saw that it had been driven through something dark.

  She followed Tom, Richard, Kahlan, and the Mord-Sith between towering columns and stone rubble to where the knife was stuck. To Jennsen’s ast
onishment, it had impaled a leather pouch—right through the center—being held up by a hand coming from beneath the huge section of fallen stone.

  “Please,” came a muffled voice from under the rock, “please let me out. I’ll pay you. I can pay. I have my own money.”

  It was Oba. The rock had fallen on him when he ran. It had landed on boulders that kept the main section of stone, big enough that twenty men couldn’t have joined hands around it, from collapsing to the ground, leaving a tiny space, trapping the man alive under the tons of rock.

  Tom pulled his knife from the soft stone and retrieved the leather pouch. He waved it in the air.

  “Friedrich!” he called toward the wagon. A man sat up. “Friedrich! Is this yours?”

  Jennsen was astonished yet again, in this astonishing day, to see Friedrich Gilder, the husband of Althea, climb down from the wagon and make his way over to them.

  “That’s mine,” he said. He looked under the rock. “You have more.”

  After a moment, the hand began passing out more leather and cloth purses. “There, you have all my money. Let me out, now.”

  “Oh,” Friedrich said, “I don’t think I could lift that rock. Especially not for the man who is responsible for the death of my wife.”

  “Althea died?” Jennsen asked in shock.

  “I’m afraid so. My sunshine has gone from my life.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “She was a good woman.”

  Friedrich smiled. “Yes, she was.” He pulled a small smooth stone from his pocket. “But she left me this, and that much is a pleasure.”

  “Isn’t that odd,” Tom said in wonder. He fished around in his pocket until he came up with something. He opened his hand to reveal a small smooth stone sitting in his palm. “I have one of those, too. I always carry it as a good-luck charm.”

  Friedrich eyed him suspiciously. He grinned at last. “She has smiled on you, too, then.”

  “I can’t breathe,” came a muffled voice from under the rock. “Please, it hurts. I can’t move. Let me out.”

  Richard held his hand out toward the rock. There came a grinding sound and a sword floated from under the rock. He bent and pulled his scabbard out, dragging the baldric out behind. He wiped the dust off and placed the baldric over his shoulder, the scabbard at his hip. The sword was magnificent, a proper weapon for the Lord Rahl.

  Jennsen saw the gleaming gold word “TRUTH” on the hilt.

  “You faced all those soldiers, and you didn’t even have your sword,” Jennsen said. “I guess your magic was better defense.”

  Richard smiled as he shook his head. “My ability works through need and anger. With Kahlan taken, I had plenty of need, and a ready rage.” He lifted the hilt clear of the scabbard until she could again see the word spelled out in gold. “This weapon works all the time.”

  “How did you know where we were?” Jennsen asked him. “How did you know where Kahlan was?”

  Richard burnished a thumb over the single gold word on the hilt of his sword. “My grandfather gave me this. King Oba, there, stole it when, with the Keeper’s help, he captured Kahlan. This sword is rather special. I have a connection to it; I can sense where it is. The Keeper no doubt induced Oba to take it in order to entice me here.”

  “Please,” Oba called, “I can’t breathe.”

  “Your grandfather?” Jennsen asked, ignoring Oba’s distress, his weeping. “You mean, Wizard Zorander?”

  Richard’s whole face softened with a splendid grin. “You’ve met Zedd, then. He’s wonderful, isn’t he?”

  “He tried to kill me,” Jennsen muttered.

  “Zedd?” Richard scoffed. “Zedd’s harmless.”

  “Harmless? He—”

  The Mord-Sith, Cara, poked at Jennsen with the red rod she had—the Agiel.

  “What are you doing?” Jennsen asked. “Stop that.”

  “That doesn’t do anything to you?”

  “No,” Jennsen said, scowling. “No more than it did when Nyda did it.”

  Cara’s eyebrow went up. “You’ve met Nyda?” She looked up at Richard. “And she can still walk. I’m impressed.”

  “She’s immune to magic,” Richard said. “That’s why your Agiel won’t work on her, either.”

  Cara, with a sly smile, looked over at Kahlan.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Kahlan asked.

  “She might just be able to solve our little problem,” Cara said, her wicked grin growing.

  “Now, I suppose,” Richard said in ill humor, “you’re going to have her touch it, too.”

  “Well,” Cara said defensively, “someone has to. You don’t want me to do it again, do you?”

  “No!”

  “What are you three talking about?” Jennsen asked.

  “We have some urgent problems,” Richard said. “If you’d like to help, I think you just might have the special talent it takes to get us out of a serious bind.”

  “Really? You mean you want me to go with you?”

  “If you’re willing,” Kahlan said. She leaned on Richard, looking like she was at the end of her strength.

  “Tom,” Richard said, “might we—”

  “Of course!” Tom said, dashing over to offer his arm to Kahlan. “Come on over. I have some nice blankets in back where you can lay down—just ask Jennsen, they’re real comfortable. I’ll drive you back up the easy way.”

  “That would be much appreciated,” Richard said. “It’s just about dark. We’d better stay here for the night and ride out as soon as it’s light enough. Hopefully, before it gets too hot.”

  “The rest of them will want to sit back there with the Mother Confessor, I expect,” Tom whispered to Jennsen. “If you don’t mind, you could ride up on the seat with me.”

  “First I want to know something—the truth, now,” Jennsen said. “If you’re a defender to Lord Rahl, what would you have done, standing over there, if I had harmed Lord Rahl?”

  Tom looked down at her with a serious expression. “Jennsen, if I really thought that you would or could, I’d have put this knife in you before you had the chance.”

  Jennsen smiled. “Good. I’ll ride with you, then. My horse is up there,” she said pointing up past the Pillars of Creation. “I’ve become good friends with Rusty.”

  Betty bleated at the sound of the horse’s name. Jennsen laughed and scratched Betty’s fat middle. “You remember Rusty?”

  Betty bleated that she did as her kids frolicked near by.

  In the distance behind, Jennsen could hear the murdering Oba Rahl demanding to be let out. She stopped and looked back, realizing that he, too, was a half brother. A very evil one.

  “I’m sorry I thought such terrible things about you,” she said, looking up at Richard.

  He smiled as he held Kahlan close with one arm, and then pulled Jennsen close with the other. “You used your head when confronted with the truth. I couldn’t ask for any more than that.”

  The weight of the rock that had fallen was slowly crushing the sandstone boulders holding up the pillar trapping Oba. It was only a matter of hours until Oba was crushed to death in his inescapable prison, or, if not, until he died of thirst.

  After such a defeat, the Keeper wasn’t going to reward Oba with any help. The Keeper would have eternity to make Oba suffer for failure.

  Oba was a killer. Jennsen suspected that Richard Rahl had no shred of mercy for someone like that, or anyone who hurt Kahlan. He showed Oba none.

  Oba Rahl would be buried forever with the Pillars of Creation.

  Chapter 61

  In the morning, Tom gave them a ride out among the towering Pillars of Creation. The view in the early morning, with the sun throwing long shadows and lending striking colors to the landscape, was spectacular. It was a sight that no one else had ever come out of the valley to report.

  Rusty was happy to see Jennsen, and turned positively frisky when she saw Betty and her two kids.

  Jennsen, with Richard and
Kahlan at her side, went into the squat building and discovered that Sebastian, unable to reconcile his beliefs and his feelings, had granted Jennsen her last wish.

  He had taken all the mountain fever roses he’d had in the tin. He sat dead at the table.

  Jennsen, sitting beside Tom, listened to Richard and Kahlan explain the whole story of how they came to be together. Jennsen could hardly believe that he was so much different than she had ever thought. His mother, having been raped by Darken Rahl, had run away with Zedd to protect Richard. Richard grew up far away in Westland, not knowing anything at all about D’Hara, or the House of Rahl, or magic. Richard had ended the evil rule of Darken Rahl. Kahlan, having been hunted by real quads, had killed their commander. With Richard as Lord Rahl, there were no more quads.

  Jennsen felt proud and honored, now, that Richard had asked her to keep the knife with the ornate letter “R” on it. He said she had earned the right to carry it. She intended to keep it and hold sacred its true purpose. Now, she truly was a protector, just like Tom.

  As they rode along, Betty stood in the wagon beside Friedrich, with her front hooves up on the seat between Tom and Jennsen, each holding a sleeping little goat. Rusty was tied behind, where Betty frequently went back to visit. Richard, Kahlan, and Cara rode along at the side.

  Jennsen turned to her brother after having considered what he’d just told her. “So, you’re not making that up, then? It really said that about me in that book—The Pillars of Creation?”

  “It was speaking about those like you: ‘The most dangerous creature walking the world of life is the ungifted child of a Lord Rahl, because they are completely immune to magic. Magic can’t harm them, can’t affect them, and even prophecy is blind to them.’ But I guess you turned out to prove the book wrong.”

  She thought it over. Some of it still didn’t make sense to her. “I don’t understand why the Keeper was using me. Why was his voice in my head?”

  “Well, I only had time to translate a small bit of the book, and other parts are damaged. But, from some of what I did read, I guess that the ungifted child, since he has no magic, is what the book calls a ‘hole in the world,’” Richard explained, “so they’re also a hole in the veil—making you potentially a conduit between the world of life and the world of the dead. In order for the Keeper to consume the world of life, he needed such a gateway. The need for vengeance was the final key. Your surrender to his wishes—when you went out in the woods with the Sisters of the Dark—had to be consummated by you being slain, by you completing the bargain with death by dying.”