The pillars of creation

Sebastian stabbed another piece of fish. "For starters, you should keep the knife. It's a weapon superior to the one you carry. Use what is his to fight him. Your sentimental objection to taking it only serves him, not you-or Jennsen."

Her mother sat still as stone. Jennsen had never heard anyone talk like this. His words had a way of making her see things differently than she ever had before.

"I must admit that what you say makes sense," her mother said. Her voice came softly and laced with pain, or perhaps regret. "You have opened my eyes. A little, anyway. I don't agree with you that we should try to kill him, for I know him all too well. Such an attempt would be simple suicide at best, or accomplish his goal, at worst. But I will keep the knife and use it to defend myself and my daughter. Thank you, Sebastian, for speaking sense when I didn't want to hear it."

"I'm glad you're keeping the knife, at least." Sebastian pulled the bite of fish off his own knife. "I hope it can help you." With the back of his hand, he wiped the sweat from his brow. "If you don't want to try to kill him in order to save yourself, then what do you propose to do? Keep running?"

"You say the barriers are down. I propose to leave D'Hara. We will try to make it to another land, where Darken Rahl cannot hunt us."

Sebastian looked up as he stabbed another piece of fish. "Darken Rahl? Darken Rahl is dead."

Jennsen, having run from the man since she was little, having awakened countless times from nightmares of his blue eyes watching her from every shadow or of him leaping out to snatch her when her feet wouldn't move fast enough, having lived every day wondering if this was the day he would finally catch her, having imagined a thousand times and then another thousand what terrible brutal torturous things he would do to her, having prayed to the good spirits every day for deliverance from her merciless hunter and his implacable minions, was thunderstruck. She realized only then that she had always thought of the man as next to immortal. As immortal as evil itself.

"Darken Rahl. . dead?. . It can't be," Jennsen said as tears of deliverance welled up and ran down her cheeks. She was filled with a wild, heart-pounding sense of expectant hope… and at the same time an inexplicable shadow of dark dread.

Sebastian nodded. "It's true. About two years ago, from what I heard."

Jennsen gave voice to the hope. "Then, he is no longer the threat we thought." She paused. "But, if Darken Rahl is dead."

"Darken Rahl's son is Lord Rahl, now," Sebastian said.

"His son?" Jermsen felt her hope being eclipsed by that dark dread.

"The Lord Rahl hunts us," her mother said, her voice, calm and enduring, betraying no evidence of even a moment of exalted hope. "The Lord Rahl is the Lord Rahl. It is now, as it has always been. As it will always be."

As immortal as evil itself.

"Richard Rahl," Sebastian put in. "He's the Lord Rahl, now."

Richard Rahl. So, now Jermsen knew her hunter's new name.

A terrifying thought washed over her. She had never before heard the voice say anything more than "Surrender," and her name, and occasionally those strange foreign words she didn't understand. Now it demanded she surrender her flesh, her very will. If it was the voice of the one who hunted her, as her mother said, then this new Lord Rahl must be even more terrifyingly powerful than his wicked father. Fleeting salvation had left behind grim despair.

"This man, Richard Rahl," her mother said, searching for understanding amid all the startling news, "he ascended to rule as the Lord Rahl of D'Hara when his father died, then?"

Sebastian leaned forward, a cloaked rage unexpectedly surfacing in his blue eyes. "Richard Rahl became the Lord Rahl of D'Hara when he murdered his father and seized rule. And if you are next going to suggest that perhaps the son is less of a threat than his father, then let me set you straight.

"Richard Rahl is the one who brought down the barriers."

At that, Jennsen threw up her hands in confusion. "But, that would only give those who wish to be free their opening to escape D'Hara, to escape him."

"No. He brought those ancient protective barriers down so he could extend his tyrannical rule to the lands that were beyond the reach of even his father." Sebastian thumped his chest once with a tight fist. "My land he wants! Lord Rahl is a madman. D'Hara is not enough for him to rule. He lusts to dominate the entire world."

Jennsen's mother stared off into the flames, looking dispirited. "I always thought-hoped, I guess-that if Darken Rahl were dead, then maybe we might have a chance. The piece of paper Jennsen found today with her name on it now tells me that the son is even more dangerous than his father, and that I was only deluding myself. Even Darken Rahl never got this close to us."