The Pillars of Creation (Sword of Truth 7)

Now he knew the truth. That long kiss had been her farewell. She had wanted him safely out of the way.

Friedrich reached in a pocket and pulled out the note she had left him. She sometimes wrote notes for him—things she thought of while he was away, things she wanted to remember to tell him. He had checked in the gilded cup he had carved for her, which she kept down on the floor under her chair behind the pillow she sat on, and was surprised to find a letter to him.

He carefully unfolded it and read it again, even though he had read it so many times that he knew every word by heart.

My beloved Friedrich,

I know that you can’t understand right now, but I want you to know that I have not forsaken my duty to the sanctity of life—rather, I am fulfilling it. I realize it won’t be easy for you, but you must trust me when I say that I had to do this.

I am at peace. I have had a long life—longer by far than nearly any other person is fortunate enough to have. But the best of it was the part I lived with you. I have loved you almost since the day you walked into my life and awakened my heart. Do not let grief crush your heart; we will be together in the next world and for all time.

But in this world, you, like me, are one of the four protectors—the four stones at the corners on my Grace. You remember. You asked who they were and I told you that Lathea and I were two of the stones in my last telling. I wish I could have told you then that you are one as well, but I dared not. I am blind to much of what is happening, but with what I do know, I must do what I can or the chance for others to live and love would be forever lost.

Know that you are always in my heart, and will be even when I cross the veil to be with the good spirits.

The world of life needs you, Friedrich. Your part in this has yet to begin. I beg of you that when you are called upon, you will fulfill that purpose.

Yours for eternity, Althea.

Friedrich wiped the tears from his cheeks and then read Althea’s words again. When he read, he could hear her voice in his head, speaking to him, almost as if she were right there beside him. He feared to let go of that voice, but at last, he carefully folded the note and returned it to his pocket.

When he looked up, a tall man was standing before him.

“I was an acquaintance of Althea’s.” His powerful voice was solemn and earnest. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss. I came to pay my respects and to offer my sympathy.”

Friedrich slowly rose to his feet, watching the older man’s dark azure eyes. “How could you know? How do you know what happened?” Friedrich’s anger rose, too. “What part have you played in this?”

“The part of a sad witness to that which I cannot change.” The man, much older but vigorous-looking, laid a hand on Friedrich’s shoulder, squeezing in a gentle manner. “I knew Althea from long ago, when she came to study at the Palace of the Prophets.”

“You didn’t answer my question. How did you know?”

“I am Nathan, the prophet.”

“Nathan, the prophet…Nathan Rahl? Wizard Rahl?”

The man nodded as he took his hand away, letting his arm slip back under the edge of his open, dark brown cape. Friedrich dipped his head out of deference, but couldn’t muster the concern to do more, to bow, even if he was in the presence of a wizard, even if this wizard was a Rahl.

The man wore brown wool trousers and high boots, not the robes of a wizard. For the most part, he didn’t look like what Friedrich expected of a wizard, and he looked not at all like a man Althea had said was close to a thousand years old. His strong jaw was clean-shaven. His straight white hair was long enough to touch his broad shoulders. He was not stooped with age, but had the fluid posture of a swordsman, though he wore no sword, and the effortless bearing of authority.

His eyes, though, so piercing from under his hawkish brow, were what Friedrich would expect of such a man. They were the eyes of a Rahl.

Friedrich felt a twinge of jealousy. This man knew Althea long before Friedrich had met her, back when she was young and exquisitely beautiful, a sorceress at the prime of her power and ability, a woman sought after, a woman courted by many a great man. A woman who knew what she wanted and went after it with fierce passion. Friedrich wasn’t so naive as to believe he was the first man in her life.

“I spoke with her briefly a few times,” Nathan said, as if in answer to questions unspoken, making Friedrich wonder if a man of this ability could also read minds. “She had an exceedingly talented gift for prophecy—at least for a sorceress. Compared, though, to a true prophet, she was but a child trying to play at adult games.” The wizard softened his words with a kindly smile. “That is not to discount at all her heart or intellect, but merely to put it into perspective.”

Friedrich looked away from the man’s eyes, back to the grave. “Do you know what happened?” When no answer came, he gazed back up at the tall man watching him. “And if you knew, could you have stopped her?”

Nathan considered the question for a moment. “Did you ever know Althea to be able to alter that which she saw when she cast her stones?”

“I guess not,” Friedrich admitted.

A few times, he had held her as she wept with the sorrow of wishing she could change something she saw. She had often told him when he asked about it, or asked what could be done, that such things were not as simple as they seemed to those without the gift. While Friedrich couldn’t understand many of the complexities of her ability, he did know that at times the burden of prophecy nearly crushed her with anguish.

“Do you know why she would have done this?” Friedrich asked, hopeful for some explanation that might make the pain more bearable. “Or who it was that brought her to it?”

“She made the choice of how she would die,” Nathan said in simple summation. “You must trust that she made that choice of her own free will and for sound reasons. You must understand that what she did was not only done because it was the best for her, and for you, but for others as well.”

“Others? What do you mean?”

“You both know what love brings to life. By her choice, she was doing what she could so that others might have their chance to know life and love.”

“I still don’t understand.”

Nathan gazed off distantly as he slowly shook his head. “I know only bits of what is happening, Friedrich. In this, I feel blind in a way I have never felt before.”

“You mean, this has to do with Jennsen?”

Nathan’s brow twitched as his eyes focused abruptly and intently on Friedrich. “Jennsen?” His voice was laced with suspicion.

“One of the holes in the world. Althea said that Jennsen is a daughter of Darken Rahl.”

The wizard drew back his cape and propped a hand on his hip. “So, that was her name. Jennsen.” His mouth turned up with a private smile. “I’ve never heard that term, hole in the world, but I can see how apt it would seem to a sorceress’s restricted gift.” He shook his head. “Despite her talent, Althea couldn’t begin to comprehend what is involved with those like Jennsen. The inability of the gifted to recognize aspects of their existence, and so referring to them as a hole in the world, is but the tail of the bull. The tail is the least important part. ‘Hole’ is not even really accurate. I should think ‘void’ would be better.”

“I’m not so sure you’re right about her not comprehending. Althea was involved with those like Jennsen for a long time. She may have been more aware than you realize. She explained to Jennsen and me that she didn’t know any more, but that the most important part was that the gifted were blind to them.”

Nathan grunted a short chuckle of respect for the woman buried before them. “Oh, Althea knew more, much more. This hole-in-the-world business was but window dressing for what Althea knew.”

Friedrich dared not contradict the wizard, for he knew how sorceresses kept secrets, never revealing the true extent of what they knew. Althea did this, too. Even to Friedrich. He knew that it wasn’t a lack of respect, or love, but ju

st the way sorceresses were. He couldn’t be offended by what was simply her nature.

“So, there is more about those like Jennsen, then?”

“Oh, yes. This bull has horns, not just a tail.” Nathan sighed. “But despite the fact that I understand much of what Althea did not, even I don’t begin to know enough to claim to grasp all of what is truly involved in the events beginning to unfold. This part of prophecy is obscured. I know enough, though, to know that this can alter the very nature of existence.”

“You’re a Rahl. How could you not know of such things?”

“At a very young age I was taken away to the Old World by the Sisters of the Light and imprisoned there in the Palace of the Prophets. I am a Rahl, but in many ways I know little of my ancestral homeland of D’Hara. Much of what I know, I learned through books of prophecy.

“Prophecy is silent about those like Jennsen. I only recently have begun to discover why, and the dire consequences.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “So, this girl, Jennsen, came to see Althea? How did she know of Althea?”

“Yes. Jennsen was the cause of…” Friedrich’s gaze fell away from the man watching him, not knowing how he would feel about his kinsman, but then he decided to say it, even if it brought the man’s wrath. “When Jennsen was young, Althea tried to help protect her from Darken Rahl. Darken Rahl crippled Althea for it, and imprisoned her in the swamp. He stripped her of her power, except for that of prophecy.”

“I know,” Nathan whispered, clearly in sorrow. “Although I never knew the causes behind it, I saw some of it foretold.”

Friedrich took a step forward. “Then why would you not help her?”

This time, it was Nathan’s gaze that broke away. “Oh, but I did. I was imprisoned there at the Palace of the Prophets when she came to see me—”