The pillars of creation

Oba was not about to be talked into any sympathy for that hateful woman. He inspected the dark stone for a time and then gave it back to Althea.

"Those three were just luck. Do it again."

"You wouldn't believe me if I did it a hundred times." She handed the stone back. "You do it. Cast it yourself."

Oba defiantly rattled the stone in his loose fist, as he had seen her do. She leaned back against her chair as she watched him. Her eyes were getting droopy.

Oba threw the stone down at the board with enough force to be certain that it would roll well beyond the board and prove her wrong. As the stone left his hand, lightning flashed so hard that he flinched and looked up, fearing it was blasting through the roof. Thunder crashed on its heels, shaking the house. The strike felt like it rattled his bones. But then it was over and the only sound was the rain drumming against the undamaged roof and windows.

Oba grinned in relief and looked down, only to see the cursed stone sitting in the exact same place it had come to rest the three times before.

He jumped up as if he'd been bitten by a snake. He rubbed his sweating palms against his thighs.

"A trick," he said. "It's just a trick. You're a sorceress and you're just doing magic tricks."

"You are the one who has done the trick, Oba. You are the one who invited his darkness into your soul."

"And what if I have!"

She smiled at his admission. "You may listen to the voice, Oba, but you are not the one. You are merely his servant, no more. He must choose another if he is to bring darkness upon the world."

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Oh, but I do. You may be a hole in the world, but you are missing a necessary ingredient."

"And what would that be?"

"Grushdeva.»

Oba felt the hair at the back of his neck stiffen. While he didn't recognize the specific word, the source was indisputable. The idiosyncratic nature of the word belonged solely to the voice.

"A senseless word. It means nothing."

She regarded him for a time with a look that he feared because it seemed to hold a world of forbidden knowledge. By the cast of iron resolve in her eyes, he knew that no mere blade would gain that knowledge for him.

"A long time ago, in a faraway place," she said in her quiet voice, another sorceress revealed to me a bit of the Keeper's tongue. That is one of his words, in his primordial language. You would not have heard it unless you were the right one. Grushdeva. It means 'vengeance. You are not the one he has chosen."

Oba thought she might be taunting him. "You don't know what words I've heard or anything about it. I'm the son of Darken Rahl. A rightful heir. You don't know anything about what I hear. I will have power you can only imagine."

"Free will is forfeit when dealing with the Keeper. You have sold what is yours alone and priceless… for nothing but ashes.

"You have sold yourself into the worst kind of slavery, Oba, in return for nothing more than the illusion of self-worth. You have no say in what is to be. You are not the one. It is another." She wiped the sweat from her brow. "And, that much of it is yet to be decided."

"Now you presume to think you can alter the course of what I have wrought? Dictate what shall be?" Oba's own words surprised him. They'd seemed to come out before he thought to say them.

"Such things are not amenable to the likes of me," she admitted. "I learned at the Palace of the Prophets not to meddle in that which is above me and ungovernable. The grand scheme of life and death are the rightful province of the Creator and the Keeper." She seemed contented behind a sly expression. "But I am not above exercising my free will."

He'd heard enough. She was only trying to stall, to confuse him. For some reason, he couldn't make his racing heart slow.

"What are holes in the world?"

"They are the end of the likes of me," she said. "They are the end of everything I know."

It was just like a sorceress to answer with a senseless riddle. "Who are the other stones?" he demanded.

At last, she turned her formidable eyes from him to look down at the other stones. Her movements seemed oddly jerky. Her slender fingers selected one of the stones. As she lifted it, she paused to put her other hand across her middle. Oba realized that she was in pain. She was trying her best to cover it, but she couldn't cover it now. The sweat beading her brow was from pain. The agony came out in a low moan. Oba watched with fascination.

Then, it seemed to ebb some. With great effort she straightened her posture and returned her attention to what she had been doing. She held out her hand, palm up, with the stone sitting in the center.

"This one," she said, her breathing labored, now, "is me."

"You? That stone is you?"