Terry Goodkind - The Pillars of Creation

The woman scowled at Jennsen through her own dark mask as she stood waiting in the wind atop a broad flat rock. Jennsen could see that the trail beyond the Sister descended steeply among the shadows, down into the very Pillars of Creation. As they approached, Jennsen realized that Sister Perdita wasn’t frowning at her, but looking past her, staring back the way they had come.

Before they reached her, up on the flat rock where her black robes lifted in the sweltering gusts, they, too, turned to see what she was watching so intently. Jennsen could see, from their high vantage point, that in their efforts they had reached the top of a divide in the trail from where it dropped rapidly down, following the side of the ridge, to take them to the bottom. But looking back across the wide gorges and rocky ridges they had already crossed, she saw that they were almost as high again as the valley rim. There, she could see the small cluster of squat buildings, looking tiny in the distance.

The rider was almost there, charging in on his horse, following an arrow-straight route toward the trail. The company of a thousand men had gathered in a thick line not far from the trailhead, waiting for him. Dust rose in a long plume behind the galloping horse.

As the lathered animal raced in at full speed, before it reached the men, Jennsen detected a falter in its gait. The horse’s front legs abruptly crumpled. The poor beast went down, crashing to the rocky ground, dead from exhaustion.

The man atop the horse smoothly stepped off the animal as it collapsed to the ground. Without seeming to lose momentum or stride, he continued to advance toward the trail. He was dressed in dark clothes, although not like those of the nomadic traders. A golden-colored cape billowed behind him. And, he appeared to be a lot bigger than the traders.

As he made straight for the trail, the commander of the cavalry cried out for the man to halt. He didn’t challenge them, or seem to even say a word. He simply ignored them as he marched resolutely past the buildings on his way to the trailhead. The thousand men raised a shrill battle cry and charged.

The poor man brandished no weapon, made no threating move toward the soldiers. As the Order cavalry raced down on him, he lifted an arm toward them, as if warning them to halt. Jennsen knew, from both Sebastian’s orders and from the way they charged toward the lone man, that they had no intention of stopping for anything short of his head.

Jennsen watched with dread as a man was about to be killed, watched, spellbound, as the thousand men crashed in toward him.

The valley rim abruptly lit with a thunderous explosion. Despite the dark head wrap, Jennsen shielded her eyes as she gasped in surprise. The violent rope of lightning and its terrible counterpart had twined together—a blazing white-hot bolt of lightning twisted together with a crackling black line that looked to be a void in the world itself, terrible power joined and discharged in an explosive instant.

In the space of a heartbeat, it seemed as if all the glaring brightness of the barren plain, the fierce heat of the Pillars of Creation, had been gathered at a single point and unleashed. In an instant, the ignition of that explosive lightning annihilated the force of a thousand in a brilliantly lit red cloud. When the blinding light, the thunderous roar, the violent concussion were suddenly gone, so were the thousand men—all of them leveled.

Among the smoking remains of horse and man, the lone man marched ever onward toward the trail, appearing not to have lost a step.

In that man’s determined movement, even more than in the way he had loosed havoc, Jennsen saw the true depths of his terrible rage.

“Dear spirits,” Jennsen whispered. “What just happened?”

“Salvation comes only through self-sacrifice,” Sister Perdita said. “Those men died in service to the Order and thus the Creator. That is the Creator’s highest calling. No need to mourn for them—they have gained salvation through loyal duty.”

Jennsen could only stare at her.

“Who is that?” Sebastian asked as he watched the lone man reach the rim of the valley of the Pillars of Creation and start down without pause. “Do you have any ideas?”

“It isn’t important.” Sister Perdita turned back to the trail. “We have a mission.”

“Then we had better hurry,” Sebastian said in a worried tone as he stared back at the distant figure advancing down the trail at a swift, measured, relentless pace.

Jennsen and Sebastian rushed to follow after Sister Perdita, who had disappeared over the top of the ridge. As they reached the edge, they saw her, already far below them. Jennsen looked back, in the direction of the trailhead, but didn’t see the lone man. She did see, though, that a bank of dark clouds had rolled in over the expanse of barren plains.

“Hurry!” Sister Perdita called back up to them.

With Sebastian’s hand at the small of her back, urging her on, Jennsen dashed down the steep trail. The Sister moved as swiftly as the wind, the black robes flying out behind her as she raced along a trail cut into the slope of steep rock. Jennsen had never worked so hard to keep up with anyone. She suspected that the woman was using magic to aid her.

Whenever Jennsen started to lose her footing on the loose scree and reached out for support, the rough rock rasped the skin on her fingers and the palms of her hands. The trail was as arduous as any she had ever climbed down. Loose rock atop layers of solid ledge constantly slipped and gave way underfoot, and she knew that if she grabbed the wrong handhold, the rock, in many places as sharp as shattered glass, would slice her hands open.

Jennsen was soon panting and trying to catch her breath, as well as the distant Sister. Sebastian, right behind, sounded just as winded. He, too, lost his footing a number of times and, once, Jennsen cried out and grabbed his arm just before he went over the edge of a precipitous drop of thousands of feet.

The look in his eyes expressed the relief that he was too winded to voice.

Finding herself closer to the bottom, after a seemingly unending, arduous descent, Jennsen was at least relieved to note that the walls and towers were blocking the broiling sunlight. She glanced up at the sky, something she hadn’t had the luxury to do for quite a while, and realized that it wasn’t just the shadows cast by rock darkening the day. The sky, that only hours before had been so clear and bright blue, was now roofed with churning gray clouds, as if the entire valley of the Pillars of Creation were being sealed off from the rest of the world.

She forged onward, rushing to keep up with Sister Perdita. There was no time to worry about clouds. As exhausted as Jennsen was, she knew that when the time came, she would find the strength to plunge her knife into Richard Rahl. That time was almost at hand. She knew that her mother, with the good spirits, would inspire her and thus help give her the strength. She knew, too, that other strength had been promised.

Rather than filling her with dread, knowing that the end of her life was so close left Jennsen with an odd, numb sense of calm. It seemed almost sweet, that promise of the end of struggle, the end of fear, the end of needing to care about anything. Soon, there would be no exhaustion, no insufferable heat, no pain, no sorrow, no anguish.

At the same time, when, for only an instant here or a moment there, she actually comprehended the staggering reality that she was about to die, her mind blanked out with overwhelming terror. It was her life, her only precious life, that was inexorably dwindling away, that would soon end with the cold embrace of death itself.

Flickering lightning skipped across a darkening sky, traveling under the clouds. Distant, intense flashes came again, lacing though the heavy clouds, lighting them from within with spectacular green light. Distant thunder boomed, rumbling out across the vast deserted valley. The hesitant rolling sound of the thunder seemed to match the way the landscape wavered in the heat.