The pillars of creation

Without guile, he was helping her, at what he had to believe was at least some risk. She feared to think what they might do to him were he to be caught helping Darken Rahl's daughter. Here he thought he was helping the Lord Rahl, and he was doing the opposite without even knowing the chance he was taking.

Before it was over, she would put him at greater risk yet.

Despite her fear that they were racing back to the palace of the man who wanted to kill her, the stomach-churning anxiety of what lay ahead, the disappointment of failing to get the help she had hoped for, the heartbreak of learning all she had from Althea, the cold that was making her wet clothes feel like ice, and the bouncing wagon, Jennsen was soon fast asleep.

CHAPTER 25

Swaying atop the seat of the wagon, Jermsen watched the immense plateau gradually drawing closer. The morning sun lit the soaring stone walls of the People's Palace, warming them in a pastel glow. Although the wind had died down, the morning air remained bone-chilling cold. After the reeking rot of the swamp, she welcomed the flat, dry, stony scent of the open plain.

With her fingertips, Jermsen rubbed her forehead, trying to soothe her dull throbbing headache. Tom had driven all night and she had slept in the back of the bouncing wagon, but not well nor nearly long enough. At least she had slept some, and they had made it back.

"Too bad Lord Rahl isn't there."

Shocked out of her private thoughts, Jennsen opened her eyes. "What?"

"Lord Rahl." Tom gestured off to the right, to the south. "It's too bad he isn't here to help you."

He had pointed south, the direction of the Old World. On occasion, Jermsen's mother had spoken of the bond connecting the D'Haran people with the Lord Rahl. Through its ancient and arcane magic, D'Harans were somehow able to sense where the Lord Rahl was. While the strength of the bond varied among D'Haran people, they all shared it to some degree.

What the Lord Rahl accrued from the bond, Jennsen didn't know. She thought of it as yet more chains of domination around his people. In her mother's case, though, it helped them avoid Darken Rahl's clutches.

From her mother's descriptions, Jennsen was aware of the bond, but for some reason never felt anything of it. Perhaps it was so weak in her, as it was with some D'Haran people, that she simply couldn't feel it. Her mother said it had nothing to do with one's level of devotion to the Lord Rahl, that it was purely a link of magic, and, as such, it would be governed by criteria other than her feelings about the man.

Jennsen remembered times when her mother would stand in the doorway of their home, or at a window, or pause out in the forest, and stare off toward the horizon. Jennsen knew at those times that her mother was sensing Darken Rahl through the bond, where he was, and how close. It was a shame that it told her only where the Lord Rahl himself was, and not the brutes he sent after them.

Tom, being D'Haran, took that bond to the Lord Rahl for granted, and had just given Jennsen a valuable bit of information: Lord Rahl was not at his palace. That news buoyed her hopes. It was one less obstacle, one less thing to worry about.

Lord Rahl was off to the south, probably in the Old World making war on the people there, as Sebastian had told her.

"Yes," she finally said, "too bad."

The marketplace below the plateau was already busy. Wisps of dust drifted above the crowds gathered there and over the road south. She wondered if Irma the sausage lady was there. Jennsen missed Betty. She wanted so much to see the goat's little tail wagging furiously, to hear her bleating with elation at being reunited with her lifelong friend.

Tom pointed his team toward the market, to where he had been set up selling his load of wine. Maybe Irma would go to the same place. Jennsen would have to leave Betty again in order to go up through the entrance and into the plateau. It would be a long climb up all those stairs, and then she had to find where Sebastian was being held.

As the wagon rumbled across the hardpan of the Azrith Plains, Jennsen stared at the empty road that wound its way up the side of the plateau.

"Take the road," she said.

"What?"

"Take the road up to the palace."

"Are you sure, Jennsen? I don't think that's wise. It's only for official business."

Take the road."

In answer, he urged the horses to the left, away from their course toward the market, and toward the base of the road, instead. From the comer of her eye she saw him snatch glances at his inscrutable passenger.

Soldiers stationed at the base of the plateau, where the road began its ascent, watched them approach. As the wagon rolled closer, Jennsen drew out her knife.

"Don't stop," she said to Tom.

He stared over at her. "What? I have to. They have bows, you know."

Jennsen continued to stare ahead. "Just keep going."