The Pillars of Creation (21 page)

By his suspicious expression after checking, she reasoned that he had some way of knowing if someone had been up the path. Jennsen knew of such telltales; she and her mother used them all the time to be sure that no one had sneaked up on them.

Jennsen gestured off around the house. “I came in the other way. In the back. From beyond the lake.”

“No one can go beyond the lake, not even me.” His brow of wiry black and gray hairs drew down without so much as considering her words or questioning her further. “You’re lying.”

Jennsen was stunned. “I’m not. I came the back way. It’s urgent that I see your wife, Althea.”

“You have not been invited to come here. You must leave. You will not wander off the trail, this time, if you know what’s good for you. Now, go away!”

“But it’s a matter of life and death. I must—”

The door slammed shut in her face.

Jennsen stood unmoving with the suddenly closed door inches from her face. She didn’t know what to do. At that moment, she was too stunned for any other emotion to yet flood in.

From inside, she heard a woman’s voice. “Who is it, Friedrich?”

“You know who it was.” Friedrich’s voice was nothing like it had been when he had spoken to Jennsen. It was now tender, respectful, familiar.

“Well, let her in.”

“But, Althea, you can’t—”

“Let her in, Friedrich.” Her voice was scolding without being at all harsh.

Jennsen felt relief wash through her. The knot of arguments burgeoning inside her as she prepared to knock again melted away. The door opened, more slowly this time.

Friedrich gazed out at her, not as a man defeated or reprimanded, but as a man come to face fate with dignity.

“Please come in, Jennsen,” he said in a quieter, more kindhearted voice.

“Thank you,” Jennsen said in a small voice of her own, somewhat astonished and slightly troubled that he knew her name.

She took in everything as she followed him into the home. Despite how warm it was in the swamp, the small fire crackling in the stone fireplace gave the air a sweet smell along with a welcome, dry feel. That was the sense of it, more than heat—dryness. The furnishings were simple but well made and embellished with carved designs. The main room had only two small windows, on opposite side walls. There were rooms to the back and in one of them a workbench, lined with orderly tools, sat before another small window.

Jennsen didn’t remember the house, if indeed this was the same place. Her memory of coming to Althea’s home was more of an impression of friendly faces than an actual memory of a place. The walls, decorated with things for her eyes to feast upon, seemed familiar. As a child, she would have noticed such visual treats. There were carvings of birds, fish, and animals everywhere, either hanging by themselves, or grouped on small shelves. That would be the most captivating to a small child.

Some of the carvings were painted, some left plain, but the feathers, scales, and fur had been carved with such fine texture that they looked like animals magically turned to wood. Other carvings were more stylized and beautifully gilded. A mirror on one wall, down low, was framed with a starburst, each ray alternately gilded gold and silver.

Toward the fireplace, a large red and gold pillow sat on the floor. Jennsen’s eye was drawn to a square board with a gilded Grace upon it sitting on the floor before the pillow. It was just like the Grace she often drew, but this one, she knew, was real. Small stones rested in a pile to the side.

In a beautifully made chair, with a high back and carved arms, sat a slight woman with big, dark eyes made all the more striking by golden hair flecked through with gray. The fall of hair surrounded her face and swept down to lie about her shoulders. Her wrists rested over the arms of the chair while her long slender fingers gracefully traced the curve of the spiral carved in the end.

“I am Althea.” Her voice was gentle, but carried a clear ring of authority. She didn’t get up.

Jennsen curtsied. “Mistress, please forgive my bursting in uninvited and unexpected like this.”

“Perhaps uninvited, but not unexpected, Jennsen.”

“You know my name?” Jennsen realized too late how foolish the question sounded. The woman was a sorceress. There was no telling what her powers could discern.

Althea smiled, and a pleasant look it was on her. “I remember you. One does not forget meeting one like you.”

Jennsen wasn’t sure what that meant, but said “Thank you” anyway.

The smile on Althea’s face widened, crinkling her eyes. “My, but you look just like your mother. Were it not for the red hair, I would think I had flown back in time to when I saw her last, when she was just the age you are now.” She held a hand out level before her. “And you were only this big.”

Jennsen felt her face going as red as her hair. Her mother had been beautiful, not just wise and loving. Jennsen didn’t believe she could compare to such a attractive woman, or ever live up to the kind of example her mother set.

“And how is she?”

Jennsen swallowed. “My mother…my mother is gone.” In anguish, Jennsen’s gaze sank to the floor. “She was murdered.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Friedrich, standing behind her. He put a hand to her shoulder in sympathy. “I truly am. I knew her, some, from the palace. She was a good woman.”

“How did it happen?” Althea asked.

“They finally caught up with us.”

“Caught up with you?” Althea’s brow twitched. “Who?”

“Why, the D’Haran soldiers. Lord Rahl’s men.” Jennsen drew her cloak back, showing them both the handle of the knife. “This came from one of them.”

Althea’s gaze took in the knife, then returned to Jennsen’s face. “I’m so sorry, dear.”

Jennsen nodded. “But I have to warn you. I went to see your sister, Lathea—”

“Did you see her before she died?”

Jennsen stared in surprise. “Yes, I did.”

Althea shook her head with a sad smile. “Poor Lathea. How was she? I mean, did she have a good life?”

“I don’t know. She had a nice house, but I only saw her briefly. I got the impression she lived alone. I went to her because I needed help. I recalled my mother mentioning the name of a sorceress who had helped us, but I guess I got the names wrong. I ended up at your sister’s. She didn’t even want to talk to me. She said she could do nothing, that it had been you who had helped me before. That’s why I had to come here.”

“How did you get in?” Friedrich asked as he gestured to the path out front. “You must have wandered off the path.”

“Not that way. I came from the back way.”

Now, even Althea frowned. “There is no back way.”

“Well, there was no path, as such, but I made my way through.”

“No one can come in from that side,” Althea insisted. “There are things back there that ward that side.”

“I know. I had a run-in with a huge snake—”

“You saw the snake?” Friedrich asked.

Jennsen nodded. “I stepped on it accidentally. I thought it was a root. We had a time of it and I had a swim.”

They were both peering at her in a way that made Jennsen nervous.

“Yes, yes,” Althea said, sounding unconcerned about the snake, waving a hand as if to brush away such petty news, “but, surely, you had to see the other things?”

Jennsen looked from Friedrich’s wide eyes to Althea’s frown. “I never saw anything but the snake.”

“The snake is just a snake,” Althea said, dismissing the fearsome beast with another impatient wave of her hand. “There are dangerous things back there. Things that would let no one through. No one. How in the name of Creation were you able to get past them?”

“What sort of things?”

“Things of magic,” Althea said in a grim tone.

“I’m sorry, but all I can tell you is that I got through, and I never saw anything but the snake.” She frowned toward the ceiling as she thought again. “Although, I did see things in the water—dark things under the water.”

“Fish,” Friedrich scoffed.

“And in the bushes—I saw things in the bushes. Well, I didn’t see them, exactly, but I saw the bushes move and I know something was in there. They remained hidden, though.”

“These things,” Althea said, “do not hide in bushes. They fear nothing. They hide from nothing. They would have come out and torn you apart.”

“I don’t know why they didn’t,” Jennsen said. Her gaze darted out through the window at the side to the stagnant expanses of murky water beneath a shadowy tangle of vines, feeling a pang of worry about her return journey. With Sebastian’s life at stake, she felt frustration at the sorceress’s pointless talk about what was in the swamp. After all, she had made it through, so it wasn’t as impossible as the two of them wished her to believe. “Why do you live out here, anyway? I mean, if you’re so wise and all, then why do you live out here in a swamp with snakes?”

Althea lifted an eyebrow. “I prefer my snakes without arms and legs.”

Jennsen took a breath and started again. “Althea, I came because I’m in desperate need of your help.”

Althea shook her head as if she didn’t want to hear it. “I can’t help you.”

Jennsen was stunned to have her request dismissed so out of hand. “But, you must.”

“Really.”

“Please, you helped me before. I need that help again. Lord Rahl is getting closer all the time. I’ve only just escaped with my life on more than one occasion. I’m at my wits’ end and don’t know what else to do. I don’t even really know why my father wanted to kill me in the first place.”

“Because you are an ungifted offspring.”

“There. You’ve just spoken the very reason why it makes no sense: I’m ungifted. So, what possible threat could I represent? If he was a powerful wizard, what harm could I cause him? What threat could I possibly represent? Why did he want so badly to kill me?”

“The Lord Rahl destroys any offspring he discovers who are not gifted.”

“But why? That he does is the result, not a reason. There must be a reason. If I at least knew that much of it, I might be able to figure out how to do something about it.”

She shook her head again. “I don’t know. It isn’t like the Lord Rahl came to discuss his business with me.”

“After I saw your sister and she wouldn’t help me, I went back to ask her about that very thing, but she had been murdered by the same men who are after me. They must have feared she could tell me something, so they murdered her.” Jennsen smoothed her hair back over her head. “I’m sorry about your sister, I really am. But don’t you see? You’re in danger, too, for what you know about it.”

“I can’t imagine why they would harm her.” Frowning, Althea stared off as she considered. “What you’re saying, that she might know something, makes no sense. She was never involved in any of it. Lathea knew less than I. She wouldn’t have known anything of why Darken Rahl would have wanted to rid the world of you. She could have told you nothing.”

“Well, even if he thought those of us born without the gift were inferior and just plain worthless—if he wanted to exterminate the runts of the litter, so to speak—why would his son, my half brother, want just as badly to kill me? I couldn’t harm my father, and I can’t harm his son, yet Richard, too, sends quads to hunt me.”

Althea still didn’t looked convinced. “Are you sure they are Lord Rahl’s men doing this? I just don’t see in the stones—”

“They came into my house. They killed my mother. I saw them—I fought them. They were D’Haran soldiers.” She drew the knife from its sheath at her belt and held the handle up for the woman to see. “One was wearing this.”

Althea’s gaze took it in with care, the way one would look upon anything deadly, but she said nothing.

“Why would Lord Rahl kill my mother? Why does the House of Rahl want me dead?”

“I don’t know the answer.” Althea lifted her hands and let them fall back to her lap. “I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

Jennsen went to her knees before the woman. “Althea, please, even if you don’t know why, I still need your help. Your sister wouldn’t help, she said only you could. She said that only you can see the holes in the world. I don’t know what that means, but I know it has something to do with all this, with magic. Please, I need help.”

The sorceress appeared puzzled. “And what is it you wish me to do?”

“Hide me. Like you did when I was little. Cast a spell over me so that they won’t know who I am or where to find me—so they can’t follow me. I just want to be left alone. I need the spell that will hide me from Lord Rahl.

“But it’s not just for me. I need it to help a friend, too. I need the spell to hide my true identity so that I can go back into the People’s Palace and get him out.”

“Get him out? What do you mean? Who is this friend?”

“His name is Sebastian. He helped me when the men attacked and murdered my mother. He saved my life. He brought me here, to see you. Your sister said we should ask at the palace where we could find you. He traveled all that way with me, helped me get here, so I could come to see you to get the help I need. We went to the palace to find Friedrich so I could know where you lived, and while we were there the guards took Sebastian prisoner.

“Don’t you see? He helped me and, because of that, they have him. They will surely torture him. He was helping me—it’s my fault he’s in this trouble. Please, Althea, I need your help to get him out. I need a spell to hide me so I can go back in and rescue him.”

Incredulous, Althea stared. “Why do you think a spell could accomplish this?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about how magic works. I just know that I need its help—that I need a spell to hide my true identity.”

The woman shook her head, as if she were dealing with a complete lunatic. “Jennsen, what you are envisioning is not how magic works. Do you think I can cast a web and you will then be able to walk into the palace and guards will somehow fall under this spell and start unlocking doors for you?”

“Well, I don’t know—”

“Of course you don’t. That is why I’m telling you that it doesn’t work that way. Magic is not a key that opens doors for you. Magic is not something that—poof—spontaneously solves problems. Magic would only compound the problems. If you have a bear in your tent, you don’t invite another in. Two bears will not be better than the one.”

“But Sebastian needs my help. I need the help of magic in order to get him that help.”

“Were you to go in there, as you think, and use some kind of”—she waved a hand around as if trying to think of a word to describe it—“I don’t know, magic dust or something, to open prison doors to get your friend out, what do you suppose would happen? That you two could then go off happily and that would be the end of it?”

“Well, I don’t know…exactly…”

Althea leaned forward on an elbow. “Don’t you suppose that the people who run the palace would want to know how this happened, so they could prevent it from happening again? Don’t you suppose that some perfectly innocent people whose job it is to guard doors there would be in a great deal of trouble for allowing a prisoner to escape and that they might suffer because of it? Don’t you suppose that the palace officials would want their escaped prisoner back? Don’t you suppose, since such measures were used to get him out, that whatever threat they feared this friend of yours might represent, after such an escape they would think that he must be even more dangerous than they originally believed? Don’t you suppose that some perfectly innocent people might be hurt during the extreme measures taken to apprehend such an escaped prisoner? Don’t you suppose they would send out an army and the gifted to comb the countryside before he could get far?