The pillars of creation

She hadn't moved. She was staring at the smooth dark stones setting on her Grace.

"One who hears the voices is coming."

Lightning ignited in a blinding angry flash, illuminating the room with white incandescence. The scintillating contrast between bright light and smothering shadow was dizzying. The intense strike flickered on as thunder crashed with a boom that shook the ground. A ripping crash followed on its heels, the clamor adding a confusion of sound to match the flashing of light.

Friedrich swallowed. "Do you know which one?"

She reached up and patted his hand resting on her shoulder. "Tea, you say? The rain gives me a chill. I'd like some tea."

He looked from the crinkled smile showing in her eyes to the stones on the Grace. For whatever reason, she wasn't going to answer that question, for now. He asked another, instead.

"Why did your stones fall like that, Althea? What does something like that mean?"

Lightning struck nearby. The crack of thunder felt as if it split air made of solid stone. Fists of rain beat against the window in petulant fits.

Althea finally looked away from the window, from Creation's fury, and turned back to the board. She reached out and placed her forefinger on the stone in the center.

"The Creator?" he guessed aloud before she could name it.

She shook her head. "Lord Rahl."

"But, the star in the center represents the Creator-his gift."

"It does, in the Grace. But you must not forget, this is a telling. This is different. A telling only uses the Grace, and in this telling the stone in the center represents the one with His gift."

"Then it could be anyone," Friedrich said. "Anyone with the gift."

"No. The lines coming from the eight points of the star represent the gift as it passes through life, through the veil between the worlds, and beyond the outer circle into the underworld. Thus it represents the gift in a sense that it conveys with no other person: the gift for magic of both worlds, the world of life, and the world of the dead: Additive and Subtractive. This stone in the center touches both."

He glanced back at the stone in the center of the Grace. "But why would that mean Lord Rahl?"

"Because he is the only one born in three thousand years with both aspects of the gift. In all that time, until he came into his gift, no stone I have cast has ever landed in that place. None could.

"What has it been? Two years, now, since he succeeded his father? Less, since his gift came to life in him-which in itself leaves questions with only troubling answers."

"But I recall you telling me years ago that Darken Rahl used both sides of the gift."

Gazing off into dark memories, Althea shook her head. "He also used Subtractive powers, but he did not do so by birth. He offered the pure souls of children to the Keeper of the underworld in return for the Keeper's favors. Darken Rahl had to trade for the limited use of such powers. But this man, this Lord Rahl, has been born with both sides of the gift, as those of old were."

Friedrich wasn't sure what to make of that, what danger it could be that he so strongly felt. He remembered quite distinctly the day the new Lord Rahl had risen to power. Friedrich had been at the palace to sell his small gilded carvings when the great event had taken place. That day, he had seen the new Lord Rahl, Richard.

It had been one of those moments in life never to be forgotten-only the third Rahl to rule in Friedrich's lifetime. He remembered quite clearly the new Lord Rahl, tall, strong, with a raptor gaze, striding through the palace, seeming completely out of place, and at the same time belonging. And then there was the sword he carried, a legendary sword not seen in D'Hara since Friedrich had been a boy, way back before the boundaries had been brought into existence, cutting D'Hara off from the rest of the new world.

The new Lord Rahl had been walking through the corridors of the People's Palace along with an old man-a wizard, people said-and a sublime woman. The woman, with long lush hair, wearing a satiny white dress, made the grandeur and majesty of the palace seem dull and common by comparison.

Richard Rahl and that woman seemed right together. Friedrich recognized the special way they looked at each other. The commitment, loyalty, and bond in the gray eyes of that man and the green eyes of that woman was as profound as it was unmistakable.

"What of the other stones?" he asked.

Althea gestured out past the larger circle of the Grace, where only the gilt rays of the Creator's gift dared go, to the two dark stones sitting in the world of the dead.

"Those who hear the voices," Althea said.

He nodded at having his suspicions confirmed. In such things dealing with magic, it wasn't often that he was able to guess the truth from what appeared to be obvious.

"And the rest?"

Staring at the four stones resting at the cusps of lines, her voice came softly, mingling with the rain. "These are protectors."

"They protect Lord Rahl?"

"They protect us all."