The Pillars of Creation (Sword of Truth 7)

Sebastian straightened and pulled a coin from his pocket, then slid it across the counter toward the woman. After taking the coin, she traded it for a key from a box behind her. Sebastian scooped the key off the counter worn smooth by countless mugs and hands. He picked up his own mug, and bid the woman a good day.

When he reached the end of the counter, he leaned close to Jennsen so she could hear him and gestured with his mug. “You sure you wouldn’t like a drink?”

Jennsen shook her head.

He kept an eye on the roomful of people. They were all once again engaged in their own business. “It was a good thing you pushed your hood back. Until the woman of the house saw that red hair of yours, she was playing dumb. After that, her tongue loosened.”

“The woman knows her? She is still living here in Gretton, as my mother said? The innkeeper is sure?”

Sebastian took a long drink, watching a roll of dice bring a cheer for the winner. “She gave me directions.”

“And you got us rooms?”

“Only one room.” As he took another swig, he saw her reaction. “Better to be together in case of trouble. I thought it would be safer with us both in one room.”

“I’d rather sleep with Betty.” Realizing how that must have sounded, she looked away in embarrassment and added, “Than in an inn, I mean. I’d rather be by myself than where there are so many people so close all around. I’d feel safer in the woods than closed in a room, here. I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant.” Sebastian’s blue eyes took up his smile. “It will do you good to sleep inside—it’s going to be a bitter night. And Betty will be better sheltered at the stable.”

The man who ran the stable had been a bit surprised to be asked to stable a goat for the night, but horses enjoyed the company of goats, so he was accommodating.

That first night, Betty had probably saved their lives. Sebastian, with his fever, might not have survived had Jennsen not found a dry place under a jut of ledge. The back of the small cleft beneath the overhang narrowed to a point, but it was big enough for the two of them. Jennsen had cut balsam and fir limbs to line the depression, lest the cold rock sap their bodies of heat. She and Sebastian then wedged themselves into the back. With Jennsen’s urging and with the aid of the rope, Betty knelt behind the pine boughs positioned over the opening and then lay down close before them. With Betty’s body against them, blocking the cold and providing her warmth, they had a dry, warm bed.

Jennsen quietly wept the long miserable night away. She was at least relieved that Sebastian, feverish, was able to sleep. By morning, his fever had broken. Morning had been the first day of Jennsen’s bleak new life without her mother.

Leaving her mother’s body there at the house, all alone, constantly haunted Jennsen. The memory of the horrifying bloody sight gave her nightmares. That her mother was gone brought limitless tears and crushed Jennsen with heartache. Life seemed desolate and meaningless.

But Sebastian and Jennsen had escaped. They had survived. That instinct to survive, and knowing all that her mother had done to give Jennsen life, kept her going. At times she wished she were not such a coward and could simply face the end and be done with it. At other times the terror of being pursued kept her putting one foot in front of the other. At yet other moments she felt a sense of fierce commitment to life, to not allowing all her mother’s sacrifices to be in vain.

“We should have some supper,” Sebastian said. “They have lamb stew. Then maybe you should get a good night’s sleep in a warm bed before we go see this old acquaintance of yours. I’ll stand watch while you sleep.”

Jennsen shook her head. “No. Let’s go see her now. We can sleep later.” She had seen people eating thick stew from wooden bowls. The thought of food held no appeal for her.

Sebastian studied the look on her face and saw that he wasn’t going to talk her out of it. He drained the mug and set it on the counter. “It’s not far. We’re on the right side of town.”

Outside in the gathering dusk, she asked, “Why did you want to stay here, at this inn? There were other places much nicer, where the people didn’t look so…rough.”

His blue-eyed gaze swept the buildings, the dark doorways, the alleys, as his fingers touched his cloak, seeking the reassurance of the hilt of his sword. “A rough crowd asks fewer questions, especially the kind of questions we don’t want to answer.”

He seemed to her a man who was used to avoiding having questions asked of him.

She stepped along the narrow furrow of a frozen rut, following it down the road toward the woman’s house, a woman Jennsen only dimly remembered. She held on tightly to the hope that the woman might be able to help. Her mother must have had some reason for not going to this woman again, but Jennsen could think of nothing else to try but to seek her aid.

Without her mother, Jennsen needed help. The other three members of the quad were surely hunting her. Five men dead told her that there were at least two quads, That would mean at least three of those killers were still after her. It was entirely possible there were more. It was probable that even if there were not more, there soon would be.

They had escaped by using the hidden trail away from her house—the men probably wouldn’t have been expecting that—so she and Sebastian had gained the temporary safety of distance. The rain would have done a good job of covering any tracks. It was possible that the two of them had gotten away cleanly and were for the time being safe. But since her pursuer was the Lord Rahl himself, it was also possible that the killers were, by some dark and mysterious means, moment by moment, closing in on her.

After the horrifying encounter with the huge soldiers at her house, the terror of that possibility always loomed in Jennsen’s fears.

At a deserted corner, Sebastian pointed to the right. “Down this street.”

They walked past dark buildings, square and windowless, that suggested to her that maybe they were only used for storage. No one seemed to live down the street. Before long, they’d left the buildings behind. Trees, naked before the bitter wind, huddled in clumps. When they came to a narrow road, Sebastian pointed.

“By the directions, it’s the house down this road, down at the end, in that stand of trees.”

The road looked to be little used. Weak light from a distant window stole through bare branches of oak and alder. The light, rather than warm invitation, shone more like a glowing warning to stay away.

“Why don’t you wait here,” she said. “It might be better if I went alone.”

She was providing him with an excuse. Most people didn’t want anything to do with a sorceress. Jennsen, herself, wished she had some other choice.

“I’ll go with you.”

He had shown a distinct distrust of anything to do with magic. The way his eyes watched the dark place off through the branches and brush to the sides, he might have been trying to sound more brave than he was.

Jennsen admonished herself for even thinking such thoughts. He had fought D’Haran soldiers who not only had been much bigger than he, but had outnumbered him. He could have simply stayed out in the cave and not risked his life. He could have left the scene of such carnage and gone on with his life. Fearing magic only proved him of sound mind. She, of all people, could understand fearing magic.

Snow crunched under their boots as the two of them, after reaching the end of the road, made their way along the narrow path through the trees. Sebastian watched off to the sides while her attention was mostly fixed on the house. Behind the small place, the woods marched off up foothills. Jennsen imagined that only those with a strong need dared walk the path toward this door.

Jennsen reasoned that if the sorceress lived this near in to town, then she must be someone who helped people, someone whom people trusted. It was entirely possible that the woman was a valued and respected member of the community—a healer, devoted to helping others. Not someone to fear.

As the wind moaned through the trees looming around her, Jennsen rap

ped on the door. Sebastian’s gaze studied the woods to each side. Off behind them the lights from homes and businesses would at least provide light enough for them to find their way back.

As she waited, Jennsen’s gaze, too, was drawn to the gloom all around. She imagined eyes in the darkness watching her. The hairs at the back of her neck lifted.

The door finally drew in, but only as wide as the face of the woman peering out at them. “Yes?”

Jennsen couldn’t clearly make out the shadowed features of the face, but by the light coming out through the partly opened door, the woman could see Jennsen plainly enough.

“Are you Lathea?” she asked. “Lathea, the…sorceress?”

“Why?”

“We were told that Lathea the sorceress lives here. If that’s you, may we come in?”

Still the door didn’t open any wider. Jennsen pulled her cloak tighter against the cold night air, as well as the chilly reception. The woman’s steady look took in Sebastian, then Jennsen’s form hidden within a heavy cloak.

“I’m not a midwife. If you want to get yourself out of the trouble you two are in, I can’t help with that. Go see a midwife.”

Jennsen was mortified. “That’s not why we’re here!”

The woman peered out for a moment, considering the two strangers at her door. “What sort of medicine do you need, then?”

“No medicine. A…spell. I’ve met you before, once. I need a spell like you once cast for me—when I was little.”

The face in the shadows frowned. “When? Where?”

Jennsen cleared her throat. “Back at the People’s Palace. When I lived there. You helped me when I was little.”

“Helped you what? Speak up, girl.”

“Helped…hide me. With some kind of spell, I believe. I was little at the time, so I don’t recall exactly.”