The pillars of creation

His voice was not what she expected. It was commanding, to be sure, but it was so much more, so full of emotion, everything from cold fury, to unwavering resolve, to desperation. His gray eyes, too, reflected the same sincere and terrible determination.

Jennsen could not take her eyes from him. "Who is Kahlan?"

"The Mother Confessor. My wife."

Jennsen could not move, so conflicted was she in what she was seeing, in what she was hearing. This was not a man looking for a monster cohort, a brutal Confessor who ruled the Midlands with an iron will and an evil hand. This was a man motivated by love for this woman. Jennsen could clearly see that little else mattered to him. If they did not get out of his way, he would go through them like he went through those thousand men. It was as simple as that.

Except, unlike those thousand men, Jennsen was invincible.

"Where is Kahlan?" Richard repeated, his patience at an end.

"You killed my mother," Jennsen said, almost defensively.

His brow twitched. He seemed truly puzzled. "I only just learned that I have a sister. Friedrich Gilder just told me, and that your name is Jennsen."

Jennsen realized she was nodding, unable to take her eyes off his, seeing her own eyes in his.

"Kill him, Jenn!" Sebastian whispered urgently in her ear. "Kill him! You can do it. His magic can't hurt you! Do it."

Jennsen felt a kind of tingling dread working its way up her legs. Something was wrong. Gripping the knife, she gathered her courage of purpose as the voice filled her head, until there was no room for anything else.

"The Lord Rahl has been trying to murder me my whole life. When you killed your father, you took his place. You sent men after me. You've hounded me just like your father. You sent the quads after us. You bastard, you sent those men who murdered my mother!"

Richard listened without argument, and then spoke in a calm, deliberate voice. "Don't lay a cloak of guilt around my shoulders because others are evil."

Jennsen was jolted, realizing that was very close to the words her mother had used the night before she died. "Don't you ever wear a cloak of guilt because they are evil.»

The muscles in his jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. "What have you done with Kahlan?"

"She's my queen, now!" came a voice echoing through the columns.

Jennsen vaguely recognized the voice. As she looked around, she didn't see Sister Perdita anywhere.

Richard passed her, already moving toward the voice, like a shadow moving by, and then he was suddenly gone. She had missed her chance to stab him. She couldn't believe that he had been standing right in front of her, and she had missed her chance.

"Jenn!" Sebastian called, pulling at her arm. "What's the matter with you? Come on! You can still get him!"

She didn't know what was wrong. Something was. She pressed her hands to her head, trying to stop the drone of the voice. She no longer could. She had made a bargain, and the voice was mercilessly demanding that she hold to it, crushing her mind with pain unlike any she had ever suffered.

When Jennsen heard laughter echoing through the forest of stone pillars, she moved swiftly, the heat and her exhaustion forgotten. She and Sebastian ran toward the sound, weaving their way among the disorder of towering rock. She no longer knew where she was, which way was which. She raced through stone passageways that opened up to others, along their twisting course, under archways of rock, among columns, and through shadows and light. It was like moving through a strange and confusing combination of corridors and woods, except that these walls were stone, not plaster, and the trees were rock.

As they came around an immense pillar, there, among others standing like sentinels, was an open area of undulating smooth rock in a jumble of curves, with smaller stone columns as thick around as ancient pines.

A woman was tied to one of the columns.

There was no doubt in Jennsen's mind that this was Richard's wife, Kahlan, the Mother Confessor.

Off in another direction came the echoing laughter, teasing, leading Richard away from what he sought.

The Mother Confessor didn't look like the monster Jennsen had pictured. She looked in bad shape, limp in the ropes around the pillar. She was not bound securely, but simply, with rope around her middle, as a child might tie a playmate to a tree.

She was apparently unconscious, some of her long mass of hair pendent around her hanging head, her arms swinging free. She wore simple traveling clothes, though neither they nor the partial veil of hair hid what a beautiful woman she was. She looked only a few years older than Jennsen. She didn't look like she would live to be any older.

Sister Perdita appeared suddenly beside the woman, lifting the Mother Confessor's head by her hair, taking a look, then letting her head drop again.

Sebastian ran up, pointing. "That's her. Come on."