The pillars of creation

Knife in hand, Jennsen ran for the murderous old woman. Sebastian followed, but had taken only a few steps when the woman wheeled and cast a shimmering light at him just as Jennsen stepped into her line of sight. Only that prevented the streak of glimmering light from hitting him square. The light glanced off his side in a shower of sparks. Sebastian fell with a cry.

"No! Sebastian!" Jennsen started for him. He pressed his hands to the side of his ribs, clearly in pain. If hurt, at least he was alive.

Jennsen swung back to the old woman. She stood immobile, her head cocked, listening. There was confusion in her manner, and a curious kind of awkward helplessness.

The sorceress wasn't looking at her, but instead had an ear turned to her. Being a little closer, now, Jennsen noticed for the first time that the old woman had completely white eyes. Jennsen stared, at first from surprise, and then with sudden recognition.

"Adie?" she breathed, not having intended to say it aloud.

Startled, the woman cocked her head the other way, listening with her other ear. "Who be there?" the raspy voice demanded. "Who be there?"

Jennsen didn't answer, for fear of giving away her exact location. The room had gone silent. Worry wore heavily on the old sorceress's weathered face. But determination, too, set her jaw as her hand lifted.

Jennsen gripped her knife in her fist, not knowing what to do. If this really was Adie, the woman Althea had told her about, then, according to Althea, she would be completely blind to Jennsen. But she was not blind to Sebastian. Jennsen crept a step closer.

The old woman's head turned to the sound. "Child? Do you be a sister of Richard? Why would you be with the Order?"

"Maybe because I want to live!"

"No." The woman shook her head with stem disapproval. "No. If you be with the Order, then you have chosen death, not life."

"You're the only one intent on bringing death!"

"That be a lie. All of you came to me with weapons and murderous intent," she said. "I did not come to you."

"Of course! Because you defile the world with your taint of magic!" Sebastian called from behind. "You would smother mankind-enslave us all-with your wicked ancient ways!"

"Ah," Adie said, nodding to herself. "It be you, then, who has deluded this child."

"He's saved my life! Without Sebastian I would be nothing! I would have nothing! I would be dead! Just like my mother!"

"Child," Adie said in a quiet rasp, "that, too, be a lie. Come away from them. Come with me."

"You'd love that, wouldn't you!" Jennsen shrieked. "My mother died in my arms because of your Lord Rahl. I know the truth. The truth is that you'd love to deliver the prize plum to Lord Rahl, at last."

Adie shook her head. "Child, I don't know what lies be filling your head, but I do not have the time for this. You must come away with me, or I cannot help you. I cannot wait a moment longer. Time be in short supply and I have used all I have."

As the woman spoke, Jennsen used the opportunity to take small quiet steps forward. She had to take this chance to end the threat. She knew she could take this woman out. If it was only a matter of muscle and skill with a knife, then Jennsen would have the distinct advantage. A sorceress's magic was useless against someone who was invincible-against a pillar of Creation.

"Jenn, take her! You can do it! Avenge your mother!"

Jennsen was still only a quarter of the distance from Sebastian to Adie. Knife held tight, she took another step.

"If that be your choice," Adie rasped at hearing the whisper of the footstep, "then so be it."

When the sorceress lifted her hand out toward Sebastian, Jennsen realized with horror what she meant: the price of her choice was that Sebastian would be forfeit.

CHAPTER 50

Sebastian was on the floor, not far away, leaning to the side, propping himself up on one arm. Jermsen saw blood on the marble floor under him. Since Adie couldn't stop Jennsen, she intended to finish him as the price. The appalling reality of seeing Sebastian in pain, of knowing he was about to be murdered, shook Jennsen to her very soul.

Sebastian was all she had.

The sorceress was but a blink away from loosing lethal magic on him. Jennsen was a great deal closer to Sebastian than to the sorceress. Jennsen knew she would never reach the sorceress in time to stop her, but she might make it to Sebastian in time to protect him. She could only kill the sorceress if she were willing to forfeit Sebastian to do it. That was the choice Adie had given her.

Jennsen abandoned her attack and instead dove for Sebastian, putting herself in the woman's line of sight, making a hole in the world where she was trying to aim her terrible conjured fire. The magic the sorceress loosed missed Sebastian, raking crackling lightning across the polished marble floor, ripping it up in a line right beside him. The air was filled with a burst of flying stone shards.