The pillars of creation

Unable to contain her fear, Jennsen sprinted down the stairs two at a time and ran down the hall, past small stands selling food, brooches, and finely decorated daggers, past visitors sitting on stone benches set before the marble balustrade, on toward the next flight of stairs, until she realized that people were staring at her. She stopped running and fell casually into walking, trying to flounce to make it look as if she had just been dashing from youthful vivacity. The tactic worked. She saw the people who had been eyeing her seem to chalk it up as nothing more than a spirited girl dashing along. They turned back to their own business. Since it worked, Jennsen intermittently used the same trick and was able to make better time.

Breathing hard from the long descent, she finally made it to the cavelike entrance with the hissing torches. Since there were so many soldiers at the portal into the great plateau, she slowed and walked close behind an older couple to make it look as if she might be a daughter with her parents. The couple was engaged in a spirited debate of a friend's chances of making a go of it with his new shop selling wigs up in the palace. The woman thought it a good business. The man thought his friend would run out of willing sellers of their hair and would end up spending too much of his time looking for more.

Jennsen could imagine no more foolish conversation when a man had been taken prisoner and was about to be tortured and probably put to death. To Jennsen, the D'Haran palace was nothing more than a vile death trap. She had to get Sebastian out of there. She would get him out.

Neither one of the couple noticed Jennsen close behind, head bowed, matching their slow pace. The gaze of guards skimmed over the three of them. At the mouth of the opening, cold wind swept in to take the breath from Jennsen's lungs. After being in the lamplit darkness for so long, she had to squint at the expanse of bright daylight. As soon as they were in the open-air market, she turned down one of the makeshift streets, hurrying to find Irma, the sausage lady.

Stretching her neck, she looked about for the red scarf as she rushed down the rows of stalls. The places that before had seemed so splendid now looked shabby after she had been in the palace. In the whole of her life, Jennsen had never seen anything like the People's Palace. She could not imagine how a place of such beauty could hold such ugliness as the House of Rahl.

A hawker pushed in close. "Charms, for the lady? Good luck for sure." Jennsen kept walking. His breath stank. "Special charms with magic. Can't go wrong for a silver penny."

"No, thank you."

He walked sideways, right close in front of her but off to the side a bit. "Just a silver penny, my lady."

She thought she would trip over the man's feet. "No, thank you. Please leave me be, now."

"A copper penny, then."

"No." Jennsen shoved him each time he bumped into her as he pushed in close, yammering about his charms. He kept putting his face in front of hers, looking back up at her as he stooped and shuffled along, grinning at her.

"Good charms, they are, my lady." He kept bumping her as she tried to walk, as she craned her neck, looking for the red scarf. "Good luck for you.»

" No, I said." Almost stumbling over the man, she gave him a stiff shove. "Please, leave me be!"

Jennsen sighed in relief as an older man came past going in the opposite direction and the hawker turned to him. She could hear his voice fade behind, trying to sell the man a magic charm for a silver penny. She thought about the irony that here this man was offering magic, and she turned it down because she was in a hurry to be off to try to get magic from someone else.

Past an empty space, before a table with wine casks, Jennsen halted abruptly. She looked up and saw the three brothers. One was pouring wine into a leather goblet for a customer while the other two were lifting a full cask from the back of their wagon.

Jennsen turned and stared at the empty place. That was where Irma had been. Her heart felt as if it came up in her throat. Irma had their horses. Irma had Betty.

In a panic, she seized the arm of the man behind the table as the customer departed.

"Please, could you tell me where Irma is?"

He looked up, squinting in the sunlight. "The sausage lady?"

Jennsen nodded. "Yes. Where is she? She couldn't be gone already. She had her sausages to sell."

The man grinned. "She said that being beside us, selling our wine, had helped sell her sausages faster than she ever sold them before."

Jennsen could only stare. "She's gone?"

"Too bad, too. Having sausages for sale next to us really helped sell wine. People ate those spicy goat sausages of hers and had to have some of our wine."

"Her what?" Jennsen whispered.

The man's smile flagged. "Her sausages. What's wrong, ma'am? You look as if a spirit from the underworld just tapped you on the shoulder."

"What did you say she sells?… Goat sausages?"