The pillars of creation

Sister Perdita paused to look back, to make sure that her charge wasn't flagging. Jennsen could see the faint moonlight reflecting off the ring through the Sister's lower lip. All the Sisters wore one. Jennsen found the custom revolting, even if it was to show loyalty.

When Sister Perdita held a low balsam bough aside for her, Jennsen stepped through. Hearing the voices in chant beyond had her heart hammering. She could see, through the gap, a clearing in the forest, allowing an open view of the sky and moon overhead.

Jennsen glanced at the Sister's stem expression, then continued on to the brink of the clearing. Before her lay a broad circle of candles. The candles were placed so close together that it almost looked like a ring of fire invoked to hold back demons. Just inside the candles, a circle had been made on the bare ground with what looked like white sand that glimmered in the moonlight. All around just inside the circle, made with the same strange white sand, were geometric symbols Jennsen didn't recognize.

Seven women sat in a circle inside the sparkling sand. There was one place where it looked like someone belonged but was missing, no doubt Sister Perdita. The women had their eyes closed as they chanted in the strange language. Moonlight reflected off the rings through their lower lips as they spoke the grating guttural words.

"You are to sit in the center of the circle," Sister Perdita said in a low voice. "Leave your clothes here."

Jermsen looked over into her hard eyes. "What?"

"Remove your clothes and sit in the center facing the breach in the circle.»

The command was spoken with such cold authority that Jennsen knew that she had no choice but to obey. The Sister took her cloak, then watched silently. After her dress slipped to the ground, Jennsen hugged her goose-bump-covered shoulders. Her teeth chattered, but it was more than from just the cold. Seeing the Sister's silent glare, Jennsen swallowed in revulsion and then hurriedly took off the rest of her things.

Sister Perdita prodded her with a finger. "Go."

"What is it I'm doing?" Jennsen's own voice sounded surprisingly powerful to her.

Sister Perdita considered the question for a moment before finally answering. "You are going to kill Richard Rahl. To help you, we are breaching the veil to the underworld."

Jermsen shook her head. "No. No, I'm not doing any such thing."

"Everyone does it. When you die, you cross the veil. Death is part of life. In order for you to kill Lord Rahl, you are going to need help. We are giving you that help."

"But the underworld is the world of the dead. I can't-"

"You can and you will. You have already given your word. If you don't do this, then how many more will Lord Rahl go on to murder? You will do this, or you will have the blood of each of those victims on your hands. By refusing, you will be invoking the death of countless people. You, Jennsen Rahl, will be aiding your brother. You, Jennsen Rahl, will be throwing open the doors of death and allowing all those people to die. You, Jermsen Rahl, will be the Keeper's disciple. We are asking you to have the courage to reject that, and to turn death, instead, on Richard Rahl.»

Jennsen shivered, tears running down her face, as she considered Sister Perdita's terrible challenge, her terrible choice. Jennsen prayed to her mother, asking what she should do, but no sign arrived to help her. Even the voice was silent.

Jermsen stepped over the candles.

She had to do this. She had to end the rule of Richard Rahl.

Thankfully, the center of the whole careful arrangement at least looked dark. Jennsen was mortified being naked in front of strangers, even if they were women, but that was the least of her fears at the moment.

As she stepped across the circle of glimmering white sand, it felt frighteningly colder, as if she were stepping into the grip of living winter. She shivered and shook, hugging herself, as she made her way to the center of the circle of women.

In the middle was a Grace made of the same white sand, sparkling in the moonlight. She stood staring down at it, a symbol she herself had drawn many times, but her hand was not guided by the gift.

"Sit," Sister Perdita said.

Jennsen started with a gasp. The woman was standing right behind her. When she pressed on Jermsen's shoulders, Jennsen sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged in the center of the eight-pointed star in the center of the Grace. She noticed, then, that each of the Sisters sat at the extension of a ray coming from each point of the star, save one directly in front. That spot was empty.

Jennsen sat naked, shivering, in the center of the circle as the Sisters of the Light began their soft chanting again.

The woods were dark and gloomy, the trees bare of leaves. The branches clacked together in the wind like the bones of the dead Jermsen feared the Sisters were calling forth.