The pillars of creation

When her mind wandered to her hunger, Jennsen thought about Sebastian. Every moment she delayed could mean another lash of a whip for him, another cut, another twist to a limb, another broken bone. Another moment of agony. The thought of it made bile rise in the back of her throat. No wonder he was here to help in the struggle to defeat D'Hara.

A thought even more terrifying abruptly jotted her: Mord-Sith. Wherever Jennsen had traveled with her mother throughout D'Hara, no one feared anything or anyone more than they feared the Mord-Sith. Their ability to inflict pain and suffering was legend. It was said that this side of the Keeper's hand, a Mord-Sith existed without peer.

What if the D'Harans used one of those women to torture Sebastian? Even though he had no magic, that wouldn't matter. With that Agiel of theirs-and who knew what else-the Mord-Sith could hurt anyone. They simply had the added ability to capture a person with magic. A person without magic, like Sebastian, would be nothing but a brief blood sport to a Mord-Sith.

The crowds thinned as she reached the edge of the open-air market. The temporary lane she was on dwindled to nothing as it reached the last stall, occupied by a lanky man selling leather tack and piles of used wagon fittings. There was nothing beyond his heavily loaded wagon full of pieces and parts but desolate open land. An endless file of people moved along the road going south. She could see a haze of dust in the air marking the more distant sections of the road south, along with others branching off to the southwest and southeast. No road went west.

A few people at the fringe of the marketplace glanced her way as she struck out, alone, toward the lowering sun. While some people might have looked her way, none followed into the wasteland that was the Azrith Plains. Jennsen was relieved to be alone. Being around people had proven as dangerous as she had always feared. The market scene was quickly left behind as she marched west.

Jennsen slid her hand in under her cloak, feeling the reassuring presence of her knife. Lying against her body, it was warm to the touch, as if it were a living thing, rather than silver and steel.

At least the thief had taken her money and not her knife. Given a choice of the two, she would rather have the knife. She had lived her whole life without much money, her and her mother providing for themselves. But a knife was vital to that means of survival. If you lived in a palace, you needed money. If you lived out-of-doors, you needed a knife, and she had never seen a better knife than this one, despite its provenience.

Her fingers idly traced the ornate letter «R» on the silver handle. Some people needed a knife even if they lived in a palace, she guessed.

She turned back to look, and was relieved to see that no one followed her. The plateau had shrunk in the distance, until all the people below it looked like slow little ants moving about. It was good to be away from the place, but she knew she would have to return, after seeing Althea, if she was to rescue Sebastian.

As she walked backward for a spell to gain a reprieve from the icy wind in her face, her gaze rose along the road switching back and forth up the steep cliffs, to the massive stone wall surrounding the palace itself. Coming in from the south, she hadn't seen the road. At one place along its length a bridge spanned a particularly treacherous gap in the rock. The bridge was pulled up. As if the cliff itself were not deterrent enough, the high stone walls around the People's Palace would defeat any attempt to get inside unless you were allowed in.

She hoped it would not be that hard to get in to see Althea.

Somewhere in that vast complex, Sebastian was held prisoner. She wondered if he thought himself forever abandoned, as Betty probably did. She whispered a prayer to the good spirits asking that he not give up hope, and that the good spirits somehow let him know she was going to get him out.

When she tired of walking backward, and of seeing the People's Palace, she turned around. Then, she had to endure the wind buffeting her, sometimes ripping the breath right out of her mouth. Sharp gusts kicked the dry gritty ground up into her eyes.

The land was flat, dry, and featureless, mostly hardpan cut through here and there with a swath of coarse sandy soil. In places, the tawny landscape was stained a darker brown, as if strong tea had been stirred through. There was only occasional vegetation, and that was a low, scruffy plant, now winter brown and brittle.

Gathered to the west lay a ragged line of mountains. The one in the center looked like it might have snow on top, but it was hard to tell against the sun. She had no guess at how far it was. Being unfamiliar with such land, she found it difficult to judge distances out on the plain. It could be hours, or even days, for all she knew. At least she didn't have to trudge through snow, as they often had to do on their way up to the People's Palace.