Anne Bishop: The Pillars of the World

Not much time now. Her body struggled for air.

Water was her strength and her love. But they had planted her in the middle of a dry field on the other side of the village, too far away from the Old Place that had been her home to give her even that much comfort. If only she could feel water flow over her hand once more, maybe she could accept . . .

She dimly heard her own garbled, anguished cry.

Beyond the field, behind a stand of trees, the brook seemed to hesitate. Its bed shuddered and ripped.

Then ripped deeper. The water poured into that rip, forcing its way between the trees’ roots until it found a newly made channel that continued to shiver open before it even as it spread itself beneath the land.

Her hand was wet. Not just damp from the earth, but wet .

The water found the open space of the box—and the brook sang to her as it had done so many times.

She closed her eyes and floated on its song.

The water caressed her. She no longer felt her body, no longer felt any pain. Just the water as it continued to rise to the surface—and took her with it.

“This will be enough?” Hirstun said as he studied the confession.

“It has been more than adequate in Arktos and Wolfram,” Adolfo replied. “Sylvalan has a similar law: any person convicted of a heinous crime against the community forfeits all property, which then goes to the highest-ranking noble in the community to dispense as he sees fit.” It was a law Hirstun knew well; at least three of his tenants had once been freeholders before one of Hirstun’s ancestors had found a “crime” against those families that allowed him to confiscate the land and add it to his own holding.

“There’s only one copy,” Hirstun said.

“I retain the other copy,” Adolfo replied. And that copy confessed to one other thing, which would only be brought to light if Hirstun proved to be a difficult man to deal with.

“I expect you’ll be leaving soon.”

That tone, both dismissal and command, infuriated Adolfo, but his voice remained mild when he said, “Unless there are others in Kylwode who are suspected of practicing witchcraft.” He made the words almost a question.

“Those three were the only witches in Kylwode,” Hirstun said coldly.

Which is not the same thing , Adolfo thought. Not the same thing at all . That was the error the gentry in Arktos and Wolfram had made when they had first started dealing with him. They had treated him like a servant once his duties had given them what they wanted. But they had learned, as the gentry in Sylvalan would learn, just how hard the Witch’s Hammer could strike a village, how far the frenzy of accusations could spread with the right incentive, how even a gentry family was not immune.

Hirstun opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a hand-sized bag of gold coins, and dropped it on the desk.

“When we first discussed the trouble in Kylwode, you agreed to pay two bags of gold for my services,” Adolfo said quietly.

“You only had to deal with one of them, not all three,” Hirstun said sharply. “And the other two won’t be coming back. Half the fee for one-third of the work seems more than fair.”

So that’s how it would be.

Adolfo sat back in his chair, turning his head just enough to look out the window at the baron’s children, who had gathered on the lawn with some of their friends.

“The Evil One is a pernicious adversary,” Adolfo said. “Sometimes a person becomes ensnared without realizing it until she—or he—is persuaded to open her soul and confess. Sometimes a person becomes Evil’s servant through carnal indiscretion. Pain is the only spiritual purge for someone who has been misled by a witch’s lust.”

Hirstun looked out the window, stared at his eldest son for a long moment, then swung back to face Adolfo. “Are you accusing my son of having carnal acts with a witch?”

“Were we speaking of your son?” Adolfo said mildly.

The way Hirstun paled was confirmation enough about why there was a resemblance between the witch they’d just condemned and Hirstun’s daughter.

A long, strained silence hung between them.

Adolfo waited patiently, as he’d done so many times before. He was a middle-aged, balding man who had the lean face of a scholar and the strong body of a common laborer. His clothes, as dull-colored and simply cut as a common man’s, were made of the finest wools, the best linens. His voice held the inflections of a gentry education as well as the roughness of a man whose education had been acquired in the alleys. People like the baron were never sure if he had been a younger son of a prominent family who had fallen on hard times or some backstreet brat who had spent years learning to mimic his betters until he could pass for one of them. While their lack of deference infuriated him, he understood the value of letting the gentry think they were dealing with a cur only to discover a wolf had them by the throat.

Finally, reluctantly, Hirstun pulled out another bag of gold.

“My thanks, Baron Hirstun,” Adolfo said. “I do what I must because it’s the task I have been given, but there are expenses to performing that task.”

“You seem to make a good living being the Witch’s Hammer,” Hirstun said, eyeing the small jewels that completely covered the large medallion Adolfo wore over a brown wool tunic and white linen shirt.

Adolfo brushed a finger over the medallion. “I have spent the last thirty years of my life doing this work. Each of these stones represents a village in my homeland that I cleansed of witches—and all other signs of witchcraft.”

“We understand each other well enough,” Hirstun said harshly. “I trust that understanding will continue.”

“That is my hope as well,” Adolfo said, gathering up the bags of gold. “If you will excuse me, Baron, I must send a message to my assistant Inquisitors.”

“Why?”

Adolfo smiled slightly. “The work we do is filled with dangers. It is our custom to inform each other of where we are as well as our next destination. That way, if something should happen to one of us, the others would know where to begin the hunt for the Evil One’s servant.”

“I see,” Hirstun said tightly.

You begin to see , Adolfo thought as he made his bow and left the room. For now, that is enough .

In the gray, predawn light, Morag let the dark horse pick its way across the sodden field toward the young woman sitting on a small mound of earth.

Seeing the fear and tension in the woman’s face, she reined in a few feet away and let a gentle silence build between them.

“You can see me,” the woman said.

Morag’s lips curved in a hint of a smile. “I am the Gatherer. I see all the ghosts.”

The fear and tension drained from the woman, replaced with something close to hope. “You’ve come to take me to the Summerland?”

She said nothing for a moment, not quite sure what to make of humans who spoke of the Summerland. This was her first extended journey in the human world since she had become the Gatherer less than a year ago—her first journey at all to the northeastern part of Sylvalan. Until recently, none of the humans she had gathered had asked about the Summerland. “I can guide you to the Shadowed Veil. The place beyond it has been called by many names. Perhaps it is many places. Your spirit knows its home. If that is the Summerland, then that is the place you’ll find.” As she extended her hand, the sleeve of her black gown opened like a raven’s wing. “Come.”

The woman floated over the ground, floated up behind the Gatherer. Once she was settled, she asked softly, “Do you think I’ll see my mother and grandmother in the Summerland one day?”