The pillars of creation

"His name is Sebastian. He helped me when the men attacked and murdered my mother. He saved my life. He brought me here, to see you. Your sister said we should ask at the palace where we could find you. He traveled all that way with me, helped me get here, so I could come to see you to get the help I need. We went to the palace to find Friedrich so I could know where you lived, and while we were there the guards took Sebastian prisoner.

"Don't you see? He helped me and, because of that, they have him. They will surely torture him. He was helping me-it's my fault he's in this trouble. Please, Althea, I need your help to get him out. I need a spell to hide me so I can go back in and rescue him."

Incredulous, Althea stared. "Why do you think a spell could accomplish this?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything about how magic works. I just know that I need its help-that I need a spell to hide my true identity."

The woman shook her head, as if she were dealing with a complete lunatic. "Jennsen, what you are envisioning is not how magic works. Do you think I can cast a web and you will then be able to walk into the palace and guards will somehow fall under this spell and start unlocking doors for you?"

"Well, I don't know-"

"Of course you don't. That is why I'm telling you that it doesn't work that way. Magic is not a key that opens doors for you. Magic is not something that-poof-spontaneously solves problems. Magic would only compound the problems. If you have a bear in your tent, you don't invite another in. Two bears will not be better than the one."

"But Sebastian needs my help. I need the help of magic in order to get him that help."

"Were you to go in there, as you think, and use some kind of"-she waved a hand around as if trying to think of a word to describe it-"I &n't know, magic dust or something, to open prison doors to get your friend out, what do you suppose would happen? That you two could then go off happily and that would be the end of it?"

"Well, I don't know… exactly. ."

Althea leaned forward on an elbow. "Don't you suppose that the people who run the palace would want to know how this happened, so they could prevent it from happening again? Don't you suppose that some perfectly innocent people whose job it is to guard doors there would be in a great deal of trouble for allowing a prisoner to escape and that they might suffer because of it? Don't you suppose that the palace officials would want their escaped prisoner back? Don't you suppose, since such measures were used to get him out, that whatever threat they feared this friend of yours might represent, after such an escape they would think that he must be even more dangerous than they originally believed? Don't you suppose that some perfectly innocent people might be hurt during the extreme measures taken to apprehend such an escaped prisoner? Don't you suppose they would send out an army and the gifted to comb the countryside before he could get far?

"Don't you even suppose," the sorceress finally said in the gravest of tones, "that a wizard as powerful as the Lord Rahl of all of D'Hara might have some decidedly nasty and painfully protracted fatal surprise in store for anyone daring to use a pitiful old sorceress's spell against him-and within his very own palace walls on top of it?"

Jennsen stared at the dark eyes fixed on her. "I never thought of all that.»

"You are telling me something I already know."

"But… how can I get Sebastian back? How can I help him?"

"I would suppose you must figure a way to get him out-if he can be gotten out in the first place-but it must be done in a way that takes all that I have said, and more, into account. Breaking a hole in the wall for him to step through to freedom would bring out the hounds, now wouldn't it? It would bring you trouble much like magic would. You must instead think of a way that convinces them to turn him out on their own. Then they won't be chasing you to have him back."

That all made sense to her. "How can I accomplish such a thing?"

The sorceress shrugged. "If it can be done, I would wager that you can do it. After all, you have so far lived to grow into a fine young woman, escaped quads, found me, and got yourself in here, now didn't you? You've accomplished much. You must only set your mind to it. But you don't start out by picking up a stick and whacking a hornet's nest."

"But I can't see how I can do it without the help of magic. I'm a nobody.»

"A nobody," Althea scoffed as she leaned back. She was becoming a teacher impatient with a student doing poorly on a lesson. "You are somebody; you are Jennsen, a smart girl with a brain. You should not kneel before me and plead ignorance, telling me what you cannot do while asking instead for others to do for you.