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Lord Rahl appraised him for a moment. “Did Nathan say what was in this book?”
“He told me the book is from the time of a great war, thousands of years ago. He said he discovered it in the People’s Palace after a frantic search among the thousands of tomes there, and that as soon as he’d located it he brought it to me, to ask that I take it to you. He said time was so urgently short that he dare not take any more to translate the book. Because of that, he didn’t know what was in it.”
Lord Rahl looked down at the book with considerably more interest. “Well, I don’t know how much good it’s going to be able to do us. The hounds did a lot of damage to it. I’m beginning to fear why.”
“Richard, do you know at least what it says on the cover?” the Mother Confessor asked.
“I only saw it in the light long enough to see that it was in High D’Haran. I didn’t try to translate it. It says something about Creation.”
“You’re right, Lord Rahl. Nathan told me the title.” Friedrich tapped the book. “It says, there, on the cover, in gilded letters, The Pillars of Creation.”
“Great,” Lord Rahl muttered, seemingly in unhappy recognition of the title. “Well, let’s get to a safe place and set up camp. I don’t want the heart hounds to catch us out in the open in the dark. We’ll make a small fire and maybe I can see if the book will tell us anything useful.”
“You know about the pillars of Creation, then?” Friedrich asked, following after the three of them as they started off down the trail.
“Yes,” Lord Rahl said back over his shoulder in a troubled tone. “I’ve heard of them. Nathan came from the Old World, so I guess he would know about them, too.”
Friedrich scratched his jaw in confusion as they crested a small rise in the trail. “What do the pillars of Creation have to do with the Old World?”
“The Pillars of Creation are in the center of a forsaken wasteland.” Lord Rahl pointed ahead, to the south. “It’s not all that far from here, off that way. We went past there not long ago. We had to cross the fringes of the place; some very unpleasant people were after us.”
“Their bloody bones are drying in the wasteland,” Cara said with obvious pleasure.
“Unfortunately,” Lord Rahl said, “it cost us our horses, too; that’s why we’re on foot. At least we escaped with our lives.”
“Wasteland…but, Lord Rahl, the pillars of Creation are also what my wife called—”
Friedrich halted when something beside the path caught his eye. Even in the dim light, the hauntingly familiar dark shape silhouetted against the light color of the dusty trail drew him up short.
He squatted down to touch it. To his surprise, it felt like what he thought. When he picked it up, he was sure of it. It had the same crooked opening for the drawstring, the same notch in the supple leather where he had once accidentally nicked it with a sharp gouge when he had been in a hurry.
“What’s the matter?” Lord Rahl asked in a suspicious voice as he scanned the near-dark landscape. “Why did you stop?”
“What did you find?” the Mother Confessor asked. “I didn’t see anything there when I walked past.”
“Neither did I,” Lord Rahl said.
Friedrich swallowed as he placed the leather pouch in the palm of his hand. It felt like there were coins inside, and, by the weight, it felt like they were gold.
“This is mine,” Friedrich whispered in stunned amazement. “How could it possibly be here?”
He couldn’t claim the gold was his, though it certainly could be, but he’d handled the leather pouch nearly every day for decades. He used it to hold one of his tools—a small gouge he used often.
“What’s it doing here?” Cara asked as her gaze swept the surrounding countryside. Her Agiel was gripped tightly in her fist.
Friedrich stood, still staring at his tool pouch. “It was stolen by the man who I believe caused the death of my wife.”
Chapter 56
Well, wasn’t that just something.
Oba could hardly believe that he had dropped his money purse. He was always so careful. He huffed in exasperation. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. Either it was a scheming little cutpurse, or some thieving woman, always after his money. Was that all that the small-minded little people cared about? Money? After all his troubles, all the envious covetous conniving people trying to get at his hard-earned fortune, Oba had learned that a man of his standing had to always be careful. He could hardly believe that, this time, he had done it to himself.
He hurriedly checked his pockets, inside his shirt, down in his trousers. All his pouches full of his considerable wealth were there, right where they belonged. He supposed that the one out on the path might not be his, but what were the odds that someone else would drop a purse right there?
When he checked the top of his boots, he found that one of his money purses was missing. Fuming, Oba checked the leather thong he always kept tied around his ankle, and found it had come untied.
Someone had untied his money purse.
He peered out through the trees, watching the touching scene. His brother, Richard, and his precious wife turned to the man who had found the purse—Oba’s purse, full of his money.
“It was stolen by the man who I believe caused the death of my wife.” Oba heard the man exclaim.
Oba’s jaw dropped. It was the husband of the swamp-witch—the obnoxious selfish sorceress who wouldn’t answer Oba’s questions.
Oba knew better than to think that this could all be some comical coincidence. He just flat knew better.
“Don’t touch it!” Richard Rahl and the Mother Confessor yelled at the same time.
“Run!” the other woman yelled.
Oba watched them bolt like frightened deer. He realized that the voice was up to something. He knew that the voice used what belonged to people to reach out to them. Oba looked to each side, to the glowing yellow eyes watching with him, and grinned.
The very air shook as if the ground right there where the money purse hit had been struck by lightning. The hounds whined and backed away. Oba plugged each ear with a finger and squinted as he watched the violet concussion spread outward in a circle like the rings in a pond when he threw in a dead animal.
In a brutal instant, quicker than thought, the people were flattened as the ring of violet light raced outward faster than his eye could follow. Oba’s hair was blown back as the undulating circle swept past him. In its wake the ground was left covered with a still, cottony bed of eerie violet smoke.
Oba’s suspicions had been proven right; the voice was planning something grand. He wondered with delight what it could be.
The scene had gone still, but Oba watched for a time to be sure the four people wouldn’t get up. Only after he was confident that it was safe did he finally rise up from his secret watching place, the place where the voice had told him to wait.
The voice urged him on, now. The hounds stayed well behind, watching, as Oba hurried across the smoke-covered ground. It was the strangest smoke he had ever seen—a softly glowing bluish violet, but most odd of all, it didn’t swirl as Oba ran through it. His legs passed through the still vapor without causing it to stir, as if it were in another world altogether and he wasn’t there with it, but just walking in the same place in this world.
The four lay sprawled on the ground right where they had fallen. Oba cautiously leaned closer, while trying to stay at a safe distance, and found them all breathing, if slowly. Their eyes weren’t closed. He wondered if they could see him. When he waved his arms, none of the four reacted.
Oba bent over Richard Rahl, peering into his still face. He waved a hand low, right before his brother’s unblinking eyes. There was no response.
It was hard to see in the starlight, but Oba was sure he could make out in those eyes a bit of the fascinating family resemblance. It was a spooky feeling seeing a man who had a trace of similarity in his looks. Oba looked more like his mother, t
hough. That would be just like her to want him to look more like her than his father. The woman was completely self-centered. She had tried to deny him his rightful place at every turn, even in his looks. The selfish bitch.
But Richard was the man cheating Oba from his rightful place, now, the place their father would have wanted Oba to have. After all, Oba and Darken Rahl shared special qualities that Oba was sure his brother didn’t have.
A check showed that the old husband of the swamp-witch was breathing, too. Oba recovered his money purse from nearby and shook it over the man’s staring eyes, but he, too, showed no response. Oba tied the purse back around his ankle, now that the voice was finished with it.
Oba wasn’t thrilled about the voice using his money for such tricks, but with all the voice had done for him, making him invincible and all, he guessed he couldn’t begrudge a favor now and again. As long as it didn’t became a habit.
The woman with them had a single long braid lying out across the grassy ground. She wore one of those strange rods on a chain around her wrist. He realized that she was a Mord-Sith. He squeezed her breasts. She didn’t react. He grinned as he lingered at doing it again. With her so willing, and all, he considered what else he might do. The idea was startlingly arousing.
Oba realized, then, there was someone handy who was even better than a Mord-Sith. He peered over at her. His brother’s wife, the woman they called the Mother Confessor, was lying there close by for the taking. What better justice than to have her?
Oba crawled over to her, his grin fading with awed reverence when he saw how beautiful she was. She lay on her back, one arm thrown out to the side, her fingers open and slack, as if pointing the way south. Her other arm lay casually across her stomach. Her eyes, too, stared up at nothing.
Oba carefully reached out and ran the back of a finger down her cheek. It was as soft as the silken petal of a rose. He pushed a long strand of hair back from her face to better see her features. Her lips were slightly parted.
Oba bent over her, putting his lips close to hers, running his hand up her body, feeling her luscious form. His hand glided up the mound of her breast. He fondled it gently in his big hand, just to show her that he could be gentle. He reached over and squeezed her other breast, but still she refused to acknowledge how excited she was by his gentle, tantalizing touch.
