The pillars of creation

One job, in particular, loomed before him. The surface of the mound of frozen muck in the barn showed the scars of the battle. It was now pocked with holes, places where he had been able to find a weakness, a place with air or dry straw underneath that had allowed him to break out a chunk. Each time a piece went «pop» and came lose, he was sure that he had at last found a way into the formidable tomb of ice, but each time had been a false hope. Chipping away with the scoop shovel was slow going, but Oba was not a quitter.

The worry had come to him that perhaps a man of his importance should not be wasting his time on such menial labor. Frozen manure hardly seemed the province of a man who was in all likelihood something akin to a prince. At the least, he now knew he was an important man. A man with Rahl blood in his veins. A direct descendant-the son-of the man who had ruled D'Hara, Darken Rahl. There probably wasn't a single person who had not heard of Darken Rahl. Oba's father.

Sooner or later, he would confront his mother with the truth she had been keeping from him-the truth of the man he really was. He just couldn't figure how to do it without her discovering that Lathea had spilled the news before she spilled her blood.

Winded from a particularly spirited attack on the frozen mound, Oba rested his forearms on the shovel's handle while he caught his breath. Despite the cold, sweat trickled down from his matted blond hair.

"Oba the oaf," said his mother as she strode into the barn. "Standing around, doing nothing, thinking nothing, worth nothing. That's you, isn't it? Oba the oaf T'

She glided to a stop, her mean little mouth all puckered up as she peered down her nose at him.

"Mama. I was just catching my breath." He pointed around at the chips of ice littering the floor, evidence of his strenuous efforts. "I've been working at it, Mama. I have."

She didn't look. She was glaring at him. He waited, knowing she had something more on her mind than the mound of frozen muck. He always knew when she was on a mission to trouble him, to make him feel like the muck he stood in. From the dark crevices and hidey-holes around the barn, the rats watched with their little black rat eyes.

With her critical gaze locked on him, his mother held out a coin. She held it between her thumb and first finger, not simply to convey the coin itself, but its importance.

Oba was a little bewildered. Lathea was dead. There was no other sorceress anywhere close, none that he knew of, anyway, who could provide his mother's medicine-or his cure. He obediently turned his palm up, anyway.

"Look at it," she commanded, dropping the coin into his hand.

Oba held it out to the light of the doorway, scrutinizing it with care. He knew she expected him to find something-what, he didn't know. He turned it over as he cautiously stole a glance at her. He carefully inspected the other side, but still saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"Yes, Mama?"

"Notice anything unusual about it, Oba?"

"No, Mama."

"It doesn't have a scratch along the edge."

Oba puzzled that over for a moment, then looked again at the coin, this time carefully inspecting the edge.

"No, Mama."

"That's the coin you gave back to me."

Oba nodded, having no reason to doubt her. "Yes, Mama. The coin you gave me for Lathea. But I told you, Lathea died in the fire, so I couldn't buy your medicine. That's why I gave you your coin back."

Her hot glare was murderous, but her voice was arrestingly cool and collected. "It isn't the same coin, Oba.

Oba grinned. "Sure it is, Mama."

"The coin I gave you had a mark on the edge. A mark I put there."

Oba's grin withered as his mind raced. He tried to think of what to say-what he could say-that she would believe. He couldn't contend that he put the coin in a pocket and then pulled out a different coin when he gave it back to her, because he never had any money of his own. She knew very well that he didn't have any money; she wouldn't allow it. She thought he was no good, and that he might waste it.

But he had money, now. He had all the money from Lathea-a fortune. He remembered hurriedly gathering up all the coins that had spilled from Lathea's pocket, including the coin he'd only just given her. When he later set aside a coin to return to his mother, he hadn't known that she had marked the one she'd given him. Oba had the bad luck of returning a different coin than the one she had originally given him.

"But, Mama… are you sure? Maybe you only thought you marked the coin. Maybe you forgot."

She slowly shook her head. "No. I marked it so that if you spent it on drinking or on women I would know because I could go look for it if I had to, and see what you had done."

The conniving bitch. She didn't even trust her own son. What kind of mother was she, anyway?

What proof did she have other than a missing, tiny scratch on the edge of a coin? None. The woman was a lunatic.

"But, Mama, you must be wrong. I don't have any money-you know I don't. Where would I get a different coin?"