The pillars of creation

Jennsen knew by the imposing architecture that this must be the place from where the Mother Confessor ruled the Midlands. All the seating up in the balconies must have provided visitors or dignitaries a view of the proceedings.

Jermsen saw someone making their way among the columns on the other side of the chamber. Just then, Sebastian burst through another door not far to Jermsen's right. A company of soldiers funneled through the doors after him.

Sebastian lifted his sword, pointing. "There she is!" He was nearly out of breath. Rage flashed in his blue eyes.

"Sebastian!" Jennsen ran to his side. "We have to get out of here. We need to get the emperor to safety. A wizard came and the Sister was killed. He's alone. Huffy."

The men were fanning out, a jangling dark mass clad in chain mail and armor and gleaming weapons spreading around the edge of the vast chamber like wolves stalking a fawn.

Sebastian heatedly pointed his sword across the room. "Not until I have her. Jagang will at last have the Mother Confessor."

Jennsen peered off to where he pointed and saw, then, the tall woman across the room. She wore simple, coarsely woven flaxen robes decorated at the neck with a bit of red and yellow. Her black and gray hair was parted in the middle and cut square with her strong jaw.

"The Mother Confessor," Sebastian whispered, transfixed by the sight of her.

Jennsen frowned back at him. "Mother Confessor. . T' Jennsen couldn't envision the Lord Rahl wedding a woman as old as his greatgrandmother. "Sebastian, what do you see?"

He flashed a smug look. "The Mother Confessor."

"What does she look like? What's she wearing?"

"She's wearing that white dress of hers." His heated expression was back. "How can you miss her?"

"She's a beautiful bitch," a soldier on the other side of Sebastian said with a grin, unable to take his eyes from the woman across the room. "But the emperor will be the one to have her."

The rest of the men, too, started across the room with that same disturbing, lecherous look. Jennsen seized Sebastian by the arm and yanked him around.

"No!" she whispered harshly. "Sebastian, it's not her."

"Are you out of your mind?" he asked as he glared at her. "Do you think I don't know what the Mother Confessor looks like?"

"I've seen her before," the soldier beside him said. "That's her all right."

"No, it's not," Jennsen whispered insistently, all the while tugging at Sebastian's arm, trying to get him to pull back. "It must be a spell or something. Sebastian, it's an old woman. This whole thing is going terribly wrong. We have to get out-"

The soldier on the other side of Sebastian grunted. His sword clattered to the marble floor as he clutched his chest. He toppled, like a tree that had been felled, and crashed to the floor. Another soldier, then another, then another fell. Thump, thump, thump they hit the floor. Jennsen put herself in front of Sebastian, throwing her arms around him to protect him.

The room exploded with a blinding flash of lightning. The sizzling arc twisted through the air, yet it unfailingly found its mark, raking down the line of men running out around the edge of the room, cutting them down in an instant. Jennsen looked over her shoulder and saw the old woman cast a hand out to the other side, toward men, and a Sister, charging across the room straight toward her. The soldiers, struck down by an invisible power, dropped in their tracks, one at a time. Their heavy crumpled bodies slid across the slick floor a short distance when they collapsed in midstride.

The Sister cast out her hands, Jennsen assumed to protect herself with magic of some kind, although she could see nothing of it. But when the Sister again thrust out an arm, Jennsen not only saw but could hear light forming at the tips of her fingers.

With all the soldiers down-all but Sebastian dead-the old sorceress turned her full attention on the attacking Sister. With weathered hands, the old woman warded the attack, sending the thrumming light back on the Sister.

"You know you have but to swear allegiance, Sister," the old woman said in a raspy voice, "and you will be free of the dream walker."

Jennsen didn't understand, but the Sister surely did. "It won't work! I'll not risk such agony! May the Creator forgive me, but it will be easier for us all if I kill you."

"If that be your choice," the old woman rasped, "then so be it."

The younger woman started to cast her magic again, but fell to the floor with a sudden cry. She clawed at the smooth marble, trying to whisper prayers between grunts of terrible agony. She left a smear of blood on the marble, but before getting far, she stilled. Her head sank to the floor as she expelled one long last rattling breath.