The pillars of creation

Friedrich wiped the tears from his cheeks and then read Althea's words again. When he read, he could hear her voice in his head, speaking to him, almost as if she were right there beside him. He feared to let go of that voice, but at last, he carefully folded the note and returned it to his pocket. When he looked up, a tall man was standing before him. "I was an acquaintance of Althea's." His powerful voice was solemn and earnest. "I'm terribly sorry for your loss. I came to pay my respects and to offer my sympathy." Friedrich slowly rose to his feet, watching the older man's dark azure eyes. "How could you know? How do you know what happened?" Friedrich's anger rose, too. "What part have you played in this?"

"The part of a sad witness to that which I cannot change." The man, much older but vigorous-looking, laid a hand on Friedrich's shoulder, squeezing in a gentle manner. "I knew Althea from long ago, when she came to study at the Palace of the Prophets."

"You didn't answer my question. How did you know?"

"I am Nathan, the prophet."

"Nathan, the prophet… Nathan Rahl? Wizard Rahl?"

The man nodded as he took his hand away, letting his arm slip back under the edge of his open, dark brown cape. Friedrich dipped his head out of deference, but couldn't muster the concern to do more, to bow, even if he was in the presence of a wizard, even if this wizard was a Rahl.

The man wore brown wool trousers and high boots, not the robes of a wizard. For the most part, he didn't look like what Friedrich expected of a wizard, and he looked not at all like a man Althea had said was close to a thousand years old. His strong jaw was clean-shaven. His straight white hair was long enough to touch his broad shoulders. He was not stooped with age, but had the fluid posture of a swordsman, though he wore no sword, and the effortless bearing of authority.

His eyes, though, so piercing from under his hawkish brow, were what Friedrich would expect of such a man. They were the eyes of a Rahl.

Friedrich felt a twinge of jealousy. This man knew Althea long before Friedrich had met her, back when she was young and exquisitely beautiful, a sorceress at the prime of her power and ability, a woman sought after, a woman courted by many a great man. A woman who knew what she wanted and went after it with fierce passion. Friedrich wasn't so naive as to believe he was the first man in her life.

"I spoke with her briefly a few times," Nathan said, as if in answer to questions unspoken, making Friedrich wonder if a man of this ability could also read minds. "She had an exceedingly talented gift for prophecy-at least for a sorceress. Compared, though, to a true prophet, she was but a child trying to play at adult games." The wizard softened his words with a kindly smile. "That is not to discount at all her heart or intellect, but merely to put it into perspective."

Friedrich looked away from the man's eyes, back to the grave. "Do you know what happened?" When no answer came, he gazed back up at the tall man watching him. "And if you knew, could you have stopped her?"

Nathan considered the question for a moment. "Did you ever know Althea to be able to alter that which she saw when she cast her stones?"

"I guess not," Friedrich admitted.

A few times, he had held her as she wept with the sorrow of wishing she could change something she saw. She had often told him when he asked about it, or asked what could be done, that such things were not as simple as they seemed to those without the gift. While Friedrich couldn't understand many of the complexities of her ability, he did know that at times the burden of prophecy nearly crushed her with anguish.

"Do you know why she would have done this?" Friedrich asked, hopeful for some explanation that might make the pain more bearable. "Or who it was that brought her to it?"

"She made the choice of how she would die," Nathan said in simple summation. "You must trust that she made that choice of her own free will and for sound reasons. You must understand that what she did was not only done because it was the best for her, and for you, but for others as well."

"Others? What do you mean?"

"You both know what love brings to life. By her choice, she was doing what she could so that others might have their chance to know life and love."

"I still don't understand."

Nathan gazed off distantly as he slowly shook his head. "I know only bits of what is happening, Friedrich. In this, I feel blind in a way I have never felt before."

"You mean, this has to do with Jennsen?"

Nathan's brow twitched as his eyes focused abruptly and intently on Friedrich. "Jennsen?" His voice was laced with suspicion.

"One of the holes in the world. Althea said that Jennsen is a daughter of Darken RAU'