The pillars of creation

CHAPTER 50

Sebastian was on the floor, not far away, leaning to the side, propping himself up on one arm. Jermsen saw blood on the marble floor under him. Since Adie couldn't stop Je

Sebastian was all she had.

The sorceress was but a blink away from loosing lethal magic on him. Je

Je

Jermsen scooped Sebastian protectively into her arms as she fell to his side. "Sebastian! Can you move? Can you run? We have to get out of here.

He nodded. "Help me up." His voice was labored, his breathing shallow.

Je

Je

She might be in some ways invincible, but if magic toppled a massive stone column on her, she would be just as dead as if it had been pushed over by brute strength instead. Dead was dead.

Je

At the first intersection, she took them to the right, getting Sebastian out of the line of sight of Adie's gift, and her weapons of magic, as quickly as possible. Je

"Are you hurt bad?" she asked, fearing the answer.

"Not sure," he said, nearly out of breath and clearly in pain. "Feels like there's a fire burning in my ribs. If you wouldn't have prevented her from hitting me square on, I'd be dead for sure."

As they moved through the palace, they came across a squad of their men. Je

"We're leaving," Sebastian told the men, his breathing labored with pain. "We have to get out. The emperor is hurt. We have to get him out of here." He motioned in different directions. "Some of you go each way. Collect all our men. We need to get everyone we can to protect the em peror and then we have to get him back to safety. You two, you'll have to help me."

The bulk of the men immediately rushed off to their tasks. The two remaining behind threw Sebastian's arms over their shoulders and easily lifted him. He winced in pain. Je

The Confessors' Palace was a confusion of halls, passageways, and rooms. Some of the rooms were huge, but when they came to such places, they went around, staying to the maze of passageways; Sebastian said they didn't want to be caught in one of those big rooms where they would be an easier target. Intermittently, Je

"This way," she said, recognizing the yawning breach in the wall at the comer of a passageway strewn with rubble. That gaping hole through the outer wall, looking out to daylight and overlooking the lawns far below, was where the wizard's fire, meant for her and Emperor Jagang, had blasted through.

Five soldiers made their way down the hall from the other direction, climbing over the tangled debris, bringing a Sister of the Light with them. From behind, nearly a dozen more men appeared. Two Sisters, their faces streaked with soot, came through a nearby room to the side, followed by yet more of the assault force. Half the men were bleeding, but all of them were able to move under their own power.

Emperor Jagang was sitting up against the wall where Je

The blood the emperor had lost left him weak-looking and pale, but not as pale as the faces of those who for the first time saw the seriousness of his injury.

One of the Sisters knelt down to check his wound. Jagang winced when she tried to better align the two halves of his split leg.

"There's no time to heal it now," she said. "We'll need to get him to safety, first."

She immediately set to tightening the bandage of blood-soaked curtain that Je

"Did you get her?" Jagang asked as the Sister worked at pulling the injury closed with the filthy strip of cloth. "Where is she? Sebastian!" He used a board to lever himself upright, peering this way and that around the company of soldiers as they helped Sebastian make his way through to the emperor. "There you are. Where's the Mother Confessor? Did you get her?"

"It isn't her," Je

"What?" The emperor glanced around angrily at the people watching him. "I saw the bitch. I know the Mother Confessor when I see her! Why didn't you get her!"

"You saw a wizard and a sorceress," Je

"I think she's right," Sebastian put in before Jagang could scream at her. "I was standing right beside her and while I saw the Mother Confessor, Je

Jagang turned a dark scowl on her. "But if the others saw her, how could you not. ."

Understanding seemed to come over him. For some reason that Je

"But why?" the Sister tending the emperor's injury asked, looking up from her work of bandaging the wound.

"Both the wizard and the sorceress seemed to be in a hurry," Je

"It's a diversion," Jagang whispered, staring off down the empty hall littered with rubble. "They wanted to keep us occupied. Keep us away, and busy thinking about something else."

"Keep us away from what?" Je

"The main force," Sebastian said, catching Jagang's line of thought.

Another Sister, casting surreptitious glances to the other Sisters after inspecting Sebastian's wound, worked quickly at pressing a padded bandage against his ribs and then wrapping a long strip of cloth around his chest to hold it in place.

"This will only help for a short time," she muttered, half to herself. "This is not good." She glanced again to the other Sister. "We're going to need to tend to this. We can't do it here."

Sebastian winced in pain, ignoring her, then spoke. "It's a trick. They keep us here, puzzling over where they could be, kept us chasing after illusions, while they attack our main force."

Jagang growled a curse. He looked off out the hole the wizard's fire had blasted in the wall, peering out toward the army they had left a long ride back down the river valley. He clenched his fist and gritted his teeth.

"That bitch! They wanted us busy so our main force would be sitting in place while they attack. That filthy scheming bitch! We have to get back!»

The small force moved quickly through the halls. Jagang was carried with a man under each arm, as was Sebastian, so that they could make quick progress back out of the Confessors' Palace. Sebastian was looking worse.

Along the way, they gathered up more of their men. Je

Once on the lower level, they worked their way along service halls, toward the side of the palace, Sebastian advising that it would be best not to go out by the main entrance, where they had entered, for fear that such a move might be expected and they very well could be struck down before they could get away. Everyone moved as silently as possible through the empty kitchens, emerging to a gray day in a side courtyard. It was secluded, with a wall screening it off from the city.

The sight as they came around the side of the palace was horrifying. It looked like the entire force had been cut down, that none of the cavalry could possibly still be alive. Je