The pillars of creation

Jennsen retrieved the heavy gray stone mortar and pestle for him and set it on the table beside the lamp. He was adding a mustard-colored powder to the cup. So intent was he on his task that he hadn't removed his cloak, but when he pushed the hood back out of his way she could finally get a good took at him.

His face didn't rivet her, the way Wizard Rahl's so unexpectedly had. She saw nothing in this man's round eyes, straight brow, or the pleasant enough line of his mouth that looked at all familiar to her. He gestured to a bottle made of wavy green glass.

"If you would, could you please grind one of those for me?"

While he hurried to the corner to lift a brown crockery pot down from a high shelf, Jennsen unfastened the wire hold-down and removed the glass lid from the jar. She was astonished to see the strangest little things inside. It was the shape that so surprised her. She turned one over with a finger. It was dark, flat, and round. She could see by the light of the lamp that it was something that had been dried. She jiggled the jar. They all looked the same-like ajar full of little Graces.

Just like the magical symbol, these things had an outer circle, parts that suggested a square inside that, and a smaller circle inside the square. Overlaying it all, tying it together, was another structure rather like a fat star. While not exactly a Grace, the way she had always seen it drawn, it bore a remarkable resemblance.

"What is this?" she asked.

The healer cast off his cloak and pushed up the sleeves of his simple robes. "Part of a flower-the dried base of the filament from a mountain fever rose. Pretty little things, they are. I'm sure you must have seen them before. They come in a variety of colors, depending on where they grow, but they're best known for the common blush color. Hasn't your husband ever brought you a nosegay of mountain fever roses?"

Jennsen felt her face flush. "He's not-we're just traveling together. We're friends, is all."

"Oh," he said, sounding neither surprised nor curious. He pointed. "See there? The petals are attached to it here, and here. When the petals and stamen are removed and this selected part of the head is dried, they end up looking like this."

Jennsen smiled. "It looks like a little Grace."

He nodded, returning her smile. "And like the Grace, it can be beneficial, but it can also be deadly."

"How is it possible to be both beneficial and deadly?"

"One of those dried flower heads, ground up and added to this drink, will help the boy sleep deeply so he can fight off the fever, help drive it from him. More than one, though, actually causes fever."

"Really?"

Looking as if he had anticipated her question, he held up a finger as he leaned closer. "If you were to take two dozen, thirty for certain, there would be no cure. Such a fever is swiftly fatal. It's for this effect that the plant is named." He showed her a sly smile. "In many ways an apt name for a flower so associated with love."

"I suppose," she said, thinking it over. "But if you ate more than one, but less than a couple dozen, would you still die?"

"If you were foolish enough to crush up ten or twelve and add them to your tea, you would come down with a fever."

"And then you would eventually die, just as if you ate more?" -

He smiled at the earnest concern on her face. "No. If you ate that many, it would cause a mild fever. In a day or two you would be over it."

Jennsen peered carefully in at the whole collection of the deadly little Grace-like things and then set down the jar.

"It's not going to harm you to touch one," he said, seeing her reaction to the jarful. "You'd have to eat them to be affected. Even then, as I said, one in conjunction with other things will help the boy's fever."

Jennsen smiled her embarrassment and reached in with two fingers to retrieve one. She dropped it in the bottom of the mortar, where it looked like nothing so much as a Grace.

"If it was for an adult who was awake, I'd just crush it between my thumb and finger," the healer said as he drizzled honey into the cup, "but he's little and asleep besides. I need to get him to drink it down easily, so grind it to a dust."

When he was finished, he added the dark dust of the little fever rose flower head Jermsen had crushed for him. Like the Grace it resembled, it could be lifesaving, or lethal.

She wondered what Sebastian would think of such a thing. She wondered if Brother Narev would want such mountain fever roses eradicated because they could potentially be lethal.

Jennsen put away the jars for the healer while he took the honeyed drink to the boy. Along with the mother's help, they put the cup to his little lips and gently worked at getting him to drink. Drop by precious drop, they coaxed the sleeping boy to suckle and swallow each little bit they dribbled into his mouth. They weren't able to rouse him, so they had to drip it into his mouth a little at a time, waiting until he swallowed as he slept, then urge him to drink a little more.