The pillars of creation

Sebastian noiselessly drew his sword as he slipped past her on his way to the door. In that smooth, practiced movement, she saw a professional, a man familiar with such business.

He leaned to the side, trying for a look through the window without having to step into the deep snow below it. He turned back and whispered.

"Fire!"

Jennsen rushed to him. "Huffy. She might be asleep. We have to warn her.»

Sebastian considered for only an instant, then burst through the door. Jennsen was right on his heels. She had difficulty making sense of what she saw inside. The place was washed in whirling orange light that cast monstrous shadows up the walls. In that wavering light, everything seemed surreal, out of scale, and out of place.

When she spotted the debris in the center of the room, it became only too real. She saw a woman's open hand sticking out beyond the top of what looked to be a tall wooden cabinet that had fallen. Jennsen drew a choking gasp of smoke and the smell of lamp oil. Thinking that maybe &e cabinet had toppled and hurt the old sorceress, Jennsen rushed to help.

As she raced around the foot of the splintered chest, she caught the full view of what was left of Lathea.

The shock of it stiffened her. She couldn't move, couldn't blink her,wide eyes. She gagged on the sickly stench of butchery and blood. As Jennsen stared, her anguished cry was lost in the leaping roar of flames and crackle of burning wood.

Sebastian briefly took in the remains of Lathea nailed to the back of the cabinet, only one detail of many as his gaze scanned the room. By his calculated movements, she surmised that he had seen such things enough that the human element no longer arrested his attention as it did hers.

Jennsen.

Jennsen's fingers tightened around the hilt of her knife. She could feel the ornately worked ridges of metal pressing against her palm, the worked metal peaks and whorls that made up the letter "R." As she gasped her breath past the nausea welling up inside, she pulled the blade free.

Surrender.

— They've been here," she whispered. "The D'Haran soldiers have been here.»

What she detected in his eyes was more like surprise, or confusion, than anything else.

He frowned as he glanced around again. "Do you really think so?"

Jennsen.

She ignored the echo of the dead voice in her head and thought back to the man they had met out on the road after they had come to see the sorceress the first time. He was big, blond, and good-looking, like most D'Haran soldiers. She hadn't thought at the time that he was a soldier. Could he have been one, though?

No, if anything, he had seemed more intimidated by them than they were of him. Soldiers didn't behave the way that man had.

"Who else? We didn't see all of them, before. It had to be the rest of the quad from back at my house. When we escaped out the back way, they must have somehow followed us."

He was still peering about as the flames grew, now licking at the ceiling. "I guess you could be right."

Surrender.

"Sebastian, we have to get out of here, now, or we'll be next." Jennsen clutched the cloak at his shoulder, pulling him away. "They may be near-right now."

"But, how could they know?"

"Dear spirits, Lord Rahl is a wizard! How does he do anything he does? How did he find my house?"

Sebastian was still looking, prodding at the rubble with his sword. Jennsen tugged again at his cloak, urging him toward the open door.

" Your house. . " he said, frowning. " Yes, I see what you mean.

"We have to get out of here before they catch us!"

He nodded, reassuring her. "Where do you want to go?"

They both watched the dark doorway over their shoulders as well as the growing conflagration to their other side.

"We've no choice, now," Jennsen said. "Lathea was our only hope to find an answer. We have to go to the People's Palace, now. Find her sister, Althea. She's the only one with any answers. She's a sorceress, too, and the only one who can see the holes in the world-whatever that means."

"Are you sure that's what you want to do?"

She thought about the voice. It sounded so cold and lifeless in her head. It had surprised her. She hadn't heard it since her mother's murder.

"What other choice do we have, now? If I'm ever to know why Lord Rahl wants to kill me, why he murdered my mother, why I'm hunted, and maybe how to escape his clutches for good, then I have to go find this woman, Althea. I have to!"

He hurried with her through the door and out into the bitter night. "We better go back and get our things together. We can get an early start."

"With them this close, I fear to be trapped in the inn while we sleep. I have the money from my mother. You have what you took from the men. We can buy horses. We have to leave tonight and hope that no one saw us come here earlier, or again, now."

Sebastian sheathed his sword. His breath streamed out into the night as he considered their options.