The Pillars of Creation (Sword of Truth 7)

“It’s troubling when your senses do not agree.”

“But they can still see me, so why do I trouble them?”

“Well, imagine if you heard a voice but you could see no source for it.”

Jennsen didn’t have to imagine that. She understood quite well how troubling that was.

“Or imagine,” the sorceress said, “if you could see me, but when you reached out to touch me, your hand passed through me as if I wasn’t here. Wouldn’t that trouble you?”

“I suppose,” Jennsen conceded. “Is there anything else about us that’s different? Other than that we are holes in the world to those with the gift?”

“I don’t know. It’s exceedingly rare to come across one such as you who is still alive. While it’s possible that others exist, and I once heard a rumor that one lived with the healers called the Raug’Moss, I only know of you for certain.”

When Jennsen had been very young, she had visited the healers, the Raug’Moss, with her mother. “Do you know the name?”

“Drefan was the name whispered, but I don’t know if it’s true. Even if it is, the likelihood of him still being alive would be remote. The Lord Rahl is the Lord Rahl. He is his own law. Darken Rahl, like most of his ancestors, probably fathered many children. Hiding the knowledge of such a child’s paternity is dangerous. Few would risk it, so most of your kind were known and immediately put to death. The rest are eventually found.”

Thinking out loud, Jennsen asked, “Could it be that we’re like this as a form of protection? There are animals that have special traits when they’re born that help them survive. Fawns, for example, have spots to hide them, to make them invisible to predators—make them holes in the world.”

Althea smiled at the notion. “I suppose that could be as good an explanation as any. Knowing magic, though, I would expect the reason to be more complex. Everything seeks balance. The deer and the wolves strike a balance—the fawns’ spots help them survive, but that threatens the existence of wolves who need food. Such things go back and forth. If the wolves ate all the fawns, then the deer would die out and the wolves, if they had no other source of food, would also die out because they had altered the balance between them and the deer. They coexist in a balance that allows both species to survive, but at the cost of some individuals.

“With magic, balance is critical. What on the surface may seem simple often turns out to have much more complex causes. I suspect that, with those like you, an elaborate form of balance is being struck, and that being a hole in the world is merely an ancillary indication.”

“And maybe some of the balance is that, like some fawns are caught despite their spots, some with the gift are able to see me? Your sister said you could see the holes in the world.”

“No, I can’t really. I simply learned a few tricks with the gift, in much the same way Adie did.” Jennsen frowned, feeling bewildered again, so Althea asked, “Can you see a bird on a moonless night?”

“No. If there’s not even a moon, it’s impossible.”

“Impossible? No, not entirely.” Althea pointed skyward, moving her hand as if suggesting something passing overhead. “You will see the stars go dark where the bird passes. If you watch the holes in the sky, you will in a way be seeing the birds.”

“Just a different way of seeing.” Jennsen smiled at such a clever notion. “So, that’s how you see those like me?”

“That comparison is the easiest way I can explain it to you. Both, though, have limitations. It only works to see the bird at night if they’re flying against a background of stars, if there are no clouds, and so on. With those like you, it’s much the same. I simply learned a trick to help me see those like you, but it’s very limited.”

“When you went to the Palace of the Prophets, did you learn about your ability for prophecy? Maybe that could somehow help with what I need to do?”

“Nothing in relation to prophecy would be of any use to you.”

“But why not?”

Althea tilted her head forward, as if to question whether or not Jennsen had been paying attention. “Where does prophecy come from?”

“Prophets.”

“And prophets are strongly gifted with that ability. Prophecy is one form of magic. But the gifted cannot see you with their gift, remember? To them, you are a hole in the world. Therefore, prophecy, since it comes through prophets, cannot see you, either.

“I have a wisp of ability for prophecy, but I am no prophet. When I was with the Sisters of the Light, since such things were one of my fields of interest, I spent decades in their vaults studying prophecy. They had been written down by great prophets throughout the ages. I can tell you both from personal experience, and from all that I read, that the prophecies are as blind to you as would be Adie. As far as the prophecies are concerned, your kind never existed, do not exist now, and never will exist.”

Jennsen sat back on her heels. “Hole in the world, indeed.”

“At the Palace of the Prophets, I met a prophet, Nathan, and, while I learned nothing about those like you, I learned some about my talent. Mostly, I only learned how limited it is. Eventually, the things I learned there came to haunt me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Palace of the Prophets was created many thousands of years ago and is like no other place that I know of. A unique spell surrounds the entire palace and grounds. It distorts the way in which those under the spell age.”

“It changed you, then, in some way?”

“Oh, yes. It changes everyone. Aging is slowed for those living under the spell of the Palace of the Prophets. While those outside the palace went about their lives and aged roughly ten to fifteen years, those of us in the palace aged only one year.”

Jennsen made a skeptical face. “How could such a thing be?”

“Nothing ever stays the same. The world is always changing. The world back in the great war three thousand years ago was much different. The world has changed since then. When the great barrier to the south of D’Hara was put up, wizards were different. They had vast power, back then.”

“Darken Rahl had vast power.”

“No. Darken Rahl, as powerful as he was, was nothing compared to the wizards of that time. They could control powers Darken Rahl only dreamed of.”

“So, wizards like that, with that kind of vast power, all died out? There have been no wizards like them born since?”

Althea stared off as she answered in a grave tone. “Not since that great war has there been one like that born. Even wizards themselves have come to be born less and less often. But for the first time in three thousand years, one has again been born. Your half brother, Richard, is such a man.”

It turned out her pursuer was far more fearsome than Jennsen had given him credit for, even in her all too vivid imagination. Small wonder that her mother had been murdered and Lord Rahl’s men were so close on Jennsen’s heels. This Lord Rahl was altogether more powerful and dangerous than had been their father.

“Because this was such an epochal event, some of those at the Palace of the Prophets knew of Richard long before he was born. There was much anticipation over this one, this war wizard.”

“War wizard?” Jennsen didn’t like the sound of that.

“Yes. There was much controversy as to the meaning of the prophecy of his birth—even to the meaning of the term ‘war wizard.’ While at the palace, I had a chance on two brief occasions to meet the prophet I mentioned, Nathan. Nathan Rahl.”

Jennsen’s mouth fell open. “Nathan Rahl? You mean, a real Rahl?”

Althea smiled not only at the memory, but at Jennsen’s surprise. “Oh yes, a real Rahl. Commanding, powerful, clever, charming, and inconceivably dangerous. They kept him locked away behind impenetrable shields of magic, where he could cause no harm, yet he sometimes managed it. Yes, a real Rahl. Over nine hundred years old, he was, too.”

“That’s impossible,” Jennsen insisted before she had time to think better of it.

> Friedrich, standing over her, harrumphed. He handed a steaming cup of tea to his wife and then passed one down to Jennsen. With the question in her eyes, Jennsen looked back at Althea.

“I am close to two hundred years old,” Althea said.

Jennsen just stared. Althea looked old, but not that old.

“In part, this business with my age and how the spell slowed my aging is how I came to have dealings with you and your mother when you were young.” Althea sighed heavily and took a sip of tea. “Which brings me back to the story at hand, to what you wanted to know—why I cannot help you with magic.”

Jennsen sipped, then glanced up at Friedrich, who looked about as old as Althea. “Are you that age, too?”

“No,” he gibed, “Althea robbed the cradle for me.”