The pillars of creation

The oak logs in the hearth had checkered in the wavering yelloworange glow of the fire, throwing good heat as well as light into the room. In the middle of their room, Oba and his mother had a pit for a fire. He liked the way the smoke in Lathea's fireplace went right up the chimney and out of the house, rather than hanging in the room before eventually making its way out a small hole in the roof. Oba liked a proper fireplace, and thought that he should make one for him and his mother. Every time he went to Lathea's place, he studied the way her fireplace was built. It was important to learn things.

He also kept an eye on Lathea's back as she poured liquid from bottles into a wide-mouthed jar. She mixed the concoction with a glass rod as each new ingredient was slowly added. When she was satisfied, she poured the medicine in a small bottle and stoppered it with a cork.

She handed him the little bottle. "For your mother."

Oba passed her the coin his mother had given him. She watched his eyes as her knobby fingers slipped the coin into a pocket in her dress. Oba finally let his breath go after she turned back to her table, to her work. She lifted a few bottles, studying them in the light of the fire, before she began mixing his cure. His cursed cure.

Oba didn't like speaking with Lathea, but her silence often made him even more uncomfortable, made him itch. He couldn't really think of anything worthy of saying, but he finally decided that he had to say something.

"Mama will be glad for the medicine. She's hoping it will help her knees."

"And she's hoping for something to cure her son?"

Oba shrugged, regretting his attempt at casual conversation. "Yes, ma'am.»

The sorceress peered back over her shoulder. "I've told Mother Schalk that I don't believe it will do any good."

Oba didn't think so, either, because he didn't really believe there was anything needing curing. When he had been little, he thought that his mother knew best, and wouldn't give him the cure if he didn't need it, but he had since come to doubt that. She no longer seemed to him as smart as he had once believed her to be.

"She must care about me, though. She keeps trying."

"Maybe she's hoping that the cure might rid her of you," Lathea said, almost absently, as she worked.

Oba.

Oba's head come up. He stared at the sorceress's back. He had never considered such a thought. Maybe Lathea was hoping that the cure would rid them both of the bastard boy. His mother sometimes went to see Lathea. Maybe they had discussed it.

Had he ignorantly believed the two women were trying to do good for him, to help him, when the opposite was actually true? Maybe both women had hatched a plan. Maybe they had been conniving all along to poison him.

If something happened to him, his mother would no longer have to help support him. She often complained about how much he ate. Time and again she told him that she worked more to feed him than herself, and that because of him she could never put any money away. Maybe if she had instead put away the money she'd spent on his cures over the years, she'd have a comfortable nest egg by now.

But if something happened to him, his mother would have to do all the work.

Maybe both women just wanted to do it out of simple meanness.

Maybe they hadn't thought it all through, as Oba would. His mother often surprised him with her simplemindedness. Maybe both women had been sitting around one day and had just decided to be mean.

Oba watched the flickering light play over the thin strands of the sorceress's straight hair. "Today Mama said that she should have done what you always told her to do, from the beginning."

Lathea, pouring thick brown liquid into the jar, glanced back over her shoulder again. "Did she, now?"

Oba.

"What did you say from the beginning that Mama should do?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Oba.

Icy realization prickled his flesh.

"You mean that she should have killed me."

He had never before come out and said anything so bold. He had never once in any way dared to confront the sorceress-he feared her too much. But, this time, the words had just come into his mind, much like the voice did, and he had spoken them before he had time to consider whether or not it was wise to do so.

He had surprised Lathea even more than he had surprised himself. She hesitated at her bottles, watching him as if he had changed before her very eyes. Maybe he had.

He realized then that he liked the way it felt to speak his mind.

He had never before seen Lathea falter. Maybe it was because she felt safe dancing around the subject, safe in the shadows of the words, without having them brought out into the light of day.

"That what you always wanted her to do, Lathea? That it? Kill her bastard boy?"