Terry Goodkind - The Pillars of Creation

Margery curtsied happily to Althea, thanking her again, before retrieving her lamb’s-skin cloak from the hook by the door. She smiled out at the angry sky and donned the cloak, drawing its hood over her head, eager to be on her way to find her new man. It would be a long journey back. Before closing the door, Friedrich warned Margery to be absolutely certain to stay on the path and to watch her step up out of the canyon. She said she remembered the instructions and promised to follow them with care.

He watched her hurry off, disappearing into the shadows and mist, before closing the door tight against the foul weather. Silence settled once more inside the house. Outside, thunder rumbled in a deep voice, as if in discontent.

Friedrich shuffled up behind his wife. “Here, let me help you to your chair.”

Althea had gathered up her stones. Once again, they rattled in her hand like the bones of spirits. As considerate as she always was, it was unlike her not to acknowledge him when he spoke. It was even more unlike her to cast her stones again after a customer left. Casting her stones for a telling called upon her gift in ways he could not fully understand, but he did understand how it fatigued her. Casting her stones for a telling drew down her strength so that it left her detached from the world and wanting anything but to cast them again for a while.

Now, though, she was in the spell of some tacit need.

She turned her wrist and opened her hand, casting the stones at her board as easily, as gracefully, as he handled his ethereal leaves of gold. Smooth, dark, irregular-shaped stones rolled forth, bouncing on the board, tumbling across the gilded Grace.

In their life together, Friedrich had seen her cast her stones tens of thousands of times. There were times when, much like her customers, he had tried to discern a pattern in the fall of the stones. He never could.

Althea always did.

She saw meaning no mere mortal could see. She saw in the random fall of the stones some obscure omen only a sorceress could decipher. Patterns of magic.

There was no pattern expressed through the act of the throw; it was the fall of the stones that was touched by powers he dared not consider, powers that spoke only to the sorceress through her gift. In that random motif of disorder, she could read the flow of powers through the world of life, and even, he feared, the world of the dead, although she never spoke of it. Despite how close they were in body and soul, this was one thing they could not share in their life together.

This time, as the stones rolled and wobbled across the board, one stopped in the exact center. Two stopped on opposite corners of the square where it touched the outer circle. Two ended up at opposite points where the square and the inner circle touched. The final two stones came to rest beyond the outer circle, which represented the underworld.

Lightning flashed, and seconds later thunder clapped.

Friedrich stared in disbelief. He wondered what the odds were of the stones coming to the end of their tumble at these specific points on the Grace. He had never before seen them end in any discernible pattern.

Althea, too, was staring at her board.

“Have you ever seen anything like that before?” he asked.

“I’m afraid so,” she said under her breath as she raked the stones up with her graceful fingers.

“Really?” He was sure he would have recalled such an unlikely event, such a startling orderliness. “When was that?”

She rattled the stones in her loose fist. “The four previous throws. That casting made five, all the same, each individual stone coming to rest in the identical place it had before.”

Again, she cast the stones at the board. At the same time, the sky seemed to open, letting rain roar down on the roof. The noise reverberated through the house. Involuntarily, he glanced toward the ceiling briefly before watching along with Althea as the stones rolled and bounced across the board.

The first stone rolled to a halt in the exact center of the Grace. Lightning flashed. The other stones, rolling in what looked to be a completely natural manner, came to rest in what appeared a perfectly normal way, except that they stopped in the exact same places they had before.

“Six,” Althea said under her breath. Thunder boomed.

Friedrich didn’t know if she was speaking to him, or to herself.

“But the first four throws were for that woman, Margery. You were casting them for her. This is for her telling.”

Even to himself, it sounded more like a plea than reason.

“Margery came for a telling,” Althea said. “That does not mean the stones chose to give her one. The stones have decided that this telling is for me.”

“What does it mean, then?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Not yet, anyway. At this point it is only potential—a thunderhead on the horizon. The stones may yet say this storm is to pass us by.”

Watching as she gathered up her stones, he was overcome with a sense of dread. “Enough of this—you need to rest. Why don’t you let me help you up, now, Althea? I’ll make you something to eat.” He watched her pluck the last stone, the one in the center, off the board. “Leave your stones for now. I’ll make you some nice hot tea.”

He never before thought of the stones as anything sinister. Now he felt as if they were somehow inviting menace into their lives.

He didn’t want her to cast the stones again.

He sank down beside her. “Althea—”

“Hush, Friedrich.” She spoke the words in a flat tone, not in anger or reproach, but simple necessity. The rain drummed against the roof with rabid intensity. Water cascading off the eaves roared. Darkness out the windows faltered in fits of lightning.

He listened to the stones rattle, like the bones of the dead speaking to her. For the first time in their life together, he felt a kind of defensive hatred for the seven stones she held, as if they were some lover come to steal her away from him.

From her seat atop her gold and red pillow on the floor, Althea cast the stones down onto the Grace.

As they tumbled across the board, he watched with resignation as they came to rest, natural as could be, in the exact same places. He would have been surprised only if they had fallen differently.

“Seven,” she whispered. “Seven times seven stones.”

Thunder rumbled in a deep resonant tone, like the voice of discontent of spirits in the underworld.

Friedrich rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder. A presence had come into their home—invaded their lives. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. He felt a great weariness, as if all his years had come at once to weigh him down, making him feel very old. He wondered if this was in some small way what she felt all the time when she became so weary from casting a telling. He shuddered to contemplate always swimming in such emotionally turbulent waters. His world, his work of gilding, seemed so simple, so blissful, in its ignorance of the swirl of tempestuous forces all around.

The worst of it, though, was that he could not protect her from this unseen threat. In this, he was helpless.

“Althea, what does it mean?”

She hadn’t moved. She was staring at the smooth dark stones setting on her Grace.

“One who hears the voices is coming.”

Lightning ignited in a blinding angry flash, illuminating the room with white incandescence. The scintillating contrast between bright light and smothering shadow was dizzying. The intense strike flickered on as thunder crashed with a boom that shook the ground. A ripping crash followed on its heels, the clamor adding a confusion of sound to match the flashing of light.

Friedrich swallowed. “Do you know which one?”

She reached up and patted his hand resting on her shoulder. “Tea, you say? The rain gives me a chill. I’d like some tea.”