The Pillars of Creation (Sword of Truth 7)

The command was spoken with such cold authority that Jennsen knew that she had no choice but to obey. The Sister took her cloak, then watched silently. After her dress slipped to the ground, Jennsen hugged her goose-bump-covered shoulders. Her teeth chattered, but it was more than from just the cold. Seeing the Sister’s silent glare, Jennsen swallowed in revulsion and then hurriedly took off the rest of her things.

Sister Perdita prodded her with a finger. “Go.”

“What is it I’m doing?” Jennsen’s own voice sounded surprisingly powerful to her.

Sister Perdita considered the question for a moment before finally answering. “You are going to kill Richard Rahl. To help you, we are breaching the veil to the underworld.”

Jennsen shook her head. “No. No, I’m not doing any such thing.”

“Everyone does it. When you die, you cross the veil. Death is part of life. In order for you to kill Lord Rahl, you are going to need help. We are giving you that help.”

“But the underworld is the world of the dead. I can’t—”

“You can and you will. You have already given your word. If you don’t do this, then how many more will Lord Rahl go on to murder? You will do this, or you will have the blood of each of those victims on your hands. By refusing, you will be invoking the death of countless people. You, Jennsen Rahl, will be aiding your brother. You, Jennsen Rahl, will be throwing open the doors of death and allowing all those people to die. You, Jennsen Rahl, will be the Keeper’s disciple. We are asking you to have the courage to reject that, and to turn death, instead, on Richard Rahl.”

Jennsen shivered, tears running down her face, as she considered Sister Perdita’s terrible challenge, her terrible choice. Jennsen prayed to her mother, asking what she should do, but no sign arrived to help her. Even the voice was silent.

Jennsen stepped over the candles.

She had to do this. She had to end the rule of Richard Rahl.

Thankfully, the center of the whole careful arrangement at least looked dark. Jennsen was mortified being naked in front of strangers, even if they were women, but that was the least of her fears at the moment.

As she stepped across the circle of glimmering white sand, it felt frighteningly colder, as if she were stepping into the grip of living winter. She shivered and shook, hugging herself, as she made her way to the center of the circle of women.

In the middle was a Grace made of the same white sand, sparkling in the moonlight. She stood staring down at it, a symbol she herself had drawn many times, but her hand was not guided by the gift.

“Sit,” Sister Perdita said.

Jennsen started with a gasp. The woman was standing right behind her. When she pressed on Jennsen’s shoulders, Jennsen sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged in the center of the eight-pointed star in the center of the Grace. She noticed, then, that each of the Sisters sat at the extension of a ray coming from each point of the star, save one directly in front. That spot was empty.

Jennsen sat naked, shivering, in the center of the circle as the Sisters of the Light began their soft chanting again.

The woods were dark and gloomy, the trees bare of leaves. The branches clacked together in the wind like the bones of the dead Jennsen feared the Sisters were calling forth.

The chanting suddenly halted. Rather than sit in the single empty spot remaining in the circle of Sisters, as Jennsen had expected, Sister Perdita stood behind her and spoke short, sharp words in the strange language.

At points in the long, singsong speech, Sister Perdita stressed a word—Grushdeva—and cast her arm out over Jennsen’s head, flinging out dust. The dust ignited with a roaring whoosh that made Jennsen jump each time she did it, the harsh light bathing the Sisters briefly in the light of the rolling flame.

As the fire ascended, the seven Sisters spoke as if with one voice. “Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

Not only were those words she knew, but Jennsen realized that the voice was speaking the words in her head along with the Sisters. It was both frightening and comforting to have the voice back. The anxiety when the voice had gone strangely silent had been unbearable.

“Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

Jennsen was lulled by the sound of the chanting, and as it went on, calmed, too. She thought about what it was that had brought her to this point, about the terror her life had been, from the time when she was six and she fled the People’s Palace with her mother, to all the times that Lord Rahl had come close and they’d run for their lives, to that awful rainy night when Lord Rahl’s men were in her house. Jennsen felt tears coursing down her cheeks as she thought about her mother there on the floor dying. As she thought about Sebastian fighting valiantly. As she thought about her mother’s last words, and having to run and leave her mother there on the bloody floor. Jennsen cried out with the terrible anguish of it.

“Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

Jennsen cried in racking sobs. She missed her mother. She was afraid for Sebastian. She felt so terribly alone in the world. She had seen so many people die. She wanted it to end. She wanted it to stop.

“Tu vash misht. Tu vask misht. Grushdeva du kalt misht.”

When she looked up, through her watery vision, she saw something dark sitting in the spot before her that had moments before been empty. Its eyes glowed like the candlelight. Jennsen stared into those eyes, as if staring into the voice itself.

“Tu vash misht, Jennsen. Tu vask misht, Jennsen,” the voice before her and in her head said in a low, growling voice. “Open yourself to me, Jennsen. Open yourself for me, Jennsen.”

Jennsen could not move in the glowing glare of those eyes. That was the voice, only not in her head. It was the voice in front of her.

Sister Perdita, behind her, cast out her dust again, and this time, when it ignited, it lit the person sitting there with the glowing eyes.

It was her mother.

“Jennsen,” her mother cooed. “Surangie.”

“What?” Jennsen whimpered in shock.

“Surrender.”

Tears flooded forth in an uncontrollable torrent. “Mama! Oh, Mama!”

Jennsen started to rise, started to go to her mother, but Sister Perdita pressed down on her shoulders, keeping her in place.

As the rolling flames lifted and evaporated, as the light faded, her mother vanished into the darkness, and before her was the thing with the glowing candlelight eyes.

“Grushdeva du kalt misht,” the voice growled.

“What?” Jennsen wept.

“Vengeance is through me,” the voice growled in translation. “Surangie, Jennsen. Surrender, and vengeance will be yours.”

“Yes!” Jennsen wailed in inconsolable agony. “Yes! I surrender to vengeance!”

The thing grinned, like a door to the underworld opening.

It rose up, a wavering shadow, leaning forward toward her. Moonlight glistened on knotted muscles as it stretched out, coming toward her, almost catlike, smiling, showing those heart-stopping fangs.

Jennsen was beyond knowing what to do, except that she had had all she could take, and wanted it to end. She could take none of it any longer. She wanted to kill Richard Rahl. She wanted vengeance. She wanted her mother back.

The thing was right before her, shimmering power and form that was there, but not, partly in this world and partly in another.

Jennsen saw then, beyond the thing, beyond the ring of Sisters and sparkling white sand and candles, huge shapes out in the shadows—things on four legs. There were hundreds of them, their eyes all glowing yellow in the darkness, breath steaming up from snarls. They looked like they could have come from another world, but were most definitely now wholly in this one.

“Jennsen,” the voice hovering close over her whispered, “Jennsen,” it cooed, “Jennsen.” It smiled a smile as dark as Emperor Jagang’s eyes, as dark as a moonless night.

“What…” She whispered throu