The pillars of creation

Jennsen gagged on the stench of blood, hardly able to draw a breath, as she followed Sebastian, jumping from one clear space to another, trying not to slip and fall on the human viscera. The horror of what Jennsen was seeing was so profound that it didn't register in her mind; at least, it didn't register emotionally. She simply acted, as if in a dream, not really able to consider what she was seeing.

Once past the bodies, they followed a trail of blood down a maze of grand halls. The distant sound of men shouting drifted back to them. Jennsen was at least relieved to hear the emperor's voice among them. They sounded like hounds locked on the scent of a fox, baying insistently, refusing to lose their prey.

"Sir!" a man called from far back through a doorway to the side. "Sir! This way!"

Sebastian paused to look at the man and his frantic hand signals, then pulled Jennsen into a resplendent room. Across a floor covered with an elegant carpet of gold and rust-colored diamond designs, past windows hung with gorgeous green draperies, a soldier stood at a doorway into another hall. There were couches like none Jennsen had ever seen, and tables and chairs with beautifully carved legs. While the room was elegant, it was not imposingly so, making it seem like a place where people might gather for casual conversations. She followed Sebastian as he ran for the soldier at the door on the opposite side of the room.

"It's her!" the man called to Sebastian. "Hurry! It's her! I just saw her pass by!"

The hulking soldier, still trying to catch his breath, sword hanging in his fist, peeked out the doorway again. Just before they reached him, as he peered down the hall, Jennsen heard a dull thump. The soldier dropped his sword and clutched at his chest, his eyes going wide, his mouth opening. He fell dead at their feet, no sign of any wound.

Jennsen pushed Sebastian up against the wall before he could go through the doorway. She didn't want him encountering whatever had just dropped the soldier.

Almost at the same time, from the way they had come, she heard the snapping hiss of something otherworldly. Jermsen dropped to the floor, stretching out over Sebastian, holding him against the edge of floor and wall, as if he were a child to be protected. She closed her eyes tight, crying out with fright at the thunderous blast behind her that shook the floor. A barrage of rubble shrieked through the room.

When it finally went still and she opened her eyes, dust drifted through the destruction. The wall around them was peppered with holes. Somehow, she and Sebastian were not hurt. It only served to confirm what she already believed.

"It was him!" Sebastian's arm shot out from under her to point across the room. "It was him!"

Jennsen turned but saw no one. "What?"

Sebastian pointed again. "It was Lord Rahl. I saw him. As he ran past the door he cast in a spell of some kind-a pinch of sparkling dust-just as you pushed me against the wall. Then it exploded. I don't know how we survived in a room filled with such flying debris."

"I guess it all missed us," Jennsen said.

The room had been turned inside out. The draperies were shredded, the walls holed. The furniture that only moments before had been so beautiful was now a wreck of splinters and ripped upholstery. The rumpled carpet was covered in white dust, pieces of plaster, and splintered wood.

A hanging chunk of plaster broke away and crashed to the floor, raising yet more dust as Jermsen made her way through the wreckage of the room, toward the door they had come through, the door where Sebastian had pointed, the door where only moments before Lord Rahl had been. Sebastian retrieved his sword and quickly followed her out.

The hall, its woodwork so tastefully painted, was now smeared with blood. The body of another Sister lay crumpled not far away. When they reached her, they saw her dead eyes staring up at the ceiling in surprise.

"What in the name of Creation is going on?" Sebastian whispered to himself. Jennsen thought, by the look on the dead Sister's face, that she must have wondered the same thing in the last instant of her life.

A glance out the window showed a killing ground littered with thousands of bodies.

"You have to get the emperor out of here," Jermsen said. "This isn't the simple thing it appeared."

"I'd say it was a trap of some kind. But we might still be able to carry out our objective. That would make it a success-make it worth it."

Whatever was happening was outside her experience and beyond her ability to comprehend. Jermsen only knew that she intended to carry out her objective. As they raced down halls, chasing the sounds and following the trail of bodies, they worked their way deeper into the mysterious Confessors' Palace, away from any outside windows to where the air was hushed and gloomy. The deep shadows in the halls and rooms, where little light penetrated, added a frightening new dimension to the terrifying events.