The pillars of creation

Jennsen urged Rusty to the right, up the trail. It rose abruptly, switching back and forth to ascend the sharp rise. The trees on the mountainside were huge, with trunks as big around as her horse, rising to a great height before branches spread overhead to close off the leaden sky. The snow was unbroken by anyone before them, but the lay of the trail, the dish in the surface of the snow, the undulating but smooth line it took up through the forest, among rocks and snow-crusted brush, and the way it followed beneath steep overhangs of rock wall and along ledges made it easy enough to follow.

Jennsen checked the boy asleep at her lap and found him the same. She watched the forest around them for any sign of people, but saw none. After being at the palace, in Althea's swamp, and out on the Azrith Plains, it was comforting to again be in the forest. Sebastian didn't especially like the woods. He didn't like the snow, either, but she found it peaceful the way the snow lent the woods a sacred silence.

The smell of woodsmoke hanging in the air told her that they were close. A look over her shoulder at the mother's face told her the same. Breaking over the top of a ridge revealed several small wooden buildings along a gently rising wooded slope. In a clearing behind was a small barn with a fenced paddock. A horse at the fence rail, its ears alert, watched them approaching. The horse lifted its head, tossing a whinny their way. Rusty and Pete both snorted a brief greeting in return.

Jennsen put two fingers between her teeth and whistled as Rusty plowed through the drifts toward the small cabin at the upper end, the only one with smoke rising from the chimney.

The door opened as she reached the building. A man threw on a flaxen cloak on his way out to greet them. He wasn't old. He could be the right age. He pulled up the cloak's broad hood against the cold before she could get a good look at his face.

"We have a sick boy," Jennsen said as the man took hold of Rusty's reins. "Are you one of the healers known as the Raug'Moss?"

The man nodded. "Bring him inside."

The mother had already slid down off Sebastian's horse and was standing beside Jennsen to receive her boy into her waiting arms. "Thank the Creator you're here, today."

The healer, laying a reassuring hand on the woman's back, urging her toward the door, tilted his head in gesture to Sebastian. "You're welcome to put your horses in the back with mine and then come inside."

Sebastian thanked him and led the horses away while Jennsen followed the other two toward the door. In the failing light, she still hadn't been able to get a good look at the man's face.

It was too much to hope, she knew, but at the very least, this man was a Raug'Moss and could answer her question.

CHAPTER 33

Inside the cabin, a large hearth made of rounded rocks took up most of the wall to the right. Crude burlap curtains hung to the sides of the two doorways to rear rooms. A rough-hewn mantel held a lamp, as did the plank tabletop, neither lamp lit. Oak logs crackled and popped in the hearth, lending the room a smoky but inviting aroma, as well as the soft flicker of firelight. An iron arm, black with soot, held a lidded kettle off to the side of the fire. After so long out in the weather, Jennsen felt it was almost too hot inside.

The healer laid the boy on one of several pallets along the wall opposite the hearth. The mother knelt on one knee, watching as he drew back the folds of the blanket. Jennsen left them to examine the child as she casually checked the place, making sure there were no surprises lurking. There hadn't been any chimney smoke coming from the other cabins, and she hadn't seen any tracks through the fresh snow, but that didn't mean there couldn't be people in those other cabins.

Jennsen moved across the room, past the trestle table in the center, to warm her hands at the hearth. It gave her the chance to cast a glance into the two rooms at the rear. Each was tiny, with a sleeping pallet and a few items of clothing hanging on pegs. There was no one else in the place. Between the doorways stood simple pine cabinets.

As Jennsen held her hands up before the heat of the fire and the boy's mother sang him soft songs, the healer hurried to the cabinet and pulled out a number of clay jars.

"Bring a flame for the lamp, please?" he asked as he set his armload of items on the table.

Jennsen pried a long splinter from one of the logs stacked to the side, then held it in the wavering flames until it caught. While she lit the lamp and then replaced the tall glass chimney, he took pinches of fine powders from several of the jars and added them to a white cup.

"How is the boy?" she asked in a whisper.

He glanced across the room. "Not good."

"What can I do to help?" Jennsen asked after she had adjusted the wick.

He wiggled the stopper from ajar. "Well, if you wouldn't mind, bring over the mortar and pestle from the center cupboard."