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CHAPTER 23
Je
"Many years ago," Althea began, clasping her hands in her lap atop her black-and-white print dress, "more than you might believe, I traveled with my sister to the Old World, beyond the great barrier to the south."
Je
"I went to the Old World to go to a place called the Palace of the Prophets," Althea said. This, too, Je
"Me?" Je
"The ancestors of Darken Rahl were no different than he. They all eliminated any ungifted offspring they discovered had been born. Lathea and I were young and full of fire to help those in need, and also those we felt were unjustly persecuted. We wanted to use our gift to help change the world for the better. While we each hoped to study different things, we both went for much the same reasons."
Je
"The sorceresses there are renowned to have experience with many things, with wizards, and magic, and most of all, with matters to do with this world and with the worlds beyond."
"Worlds beyond?" Je
Althea leaned back as she reflected. "Well, yes, but not exactly. You understand the Grace?" Althea waited for Je
Je
Another thought came to her. "This has something to do with what Lathea said? That you could see the… holes in the world, as she called it?"
Althea smiled with the pleasure of a teacher seeing a student flirting with discovery. "That's the tip of the tooth. You see, the ungifted offspring of the Lord Rahl-of every Lord Rahl going back thousands of years-are different than anyone else. You are holes in the world to those of us with the gift."
"What does that mean, exactly-holes in the world?"
"We are blind to you."
"Blind? But you see me. Lathea could see me, too. I don't understand.»
"Not blind with our eyes. Blind with our gift." She swept an arm out toward Friedrich at the fire with an iron kettle, and then toward the window. "There are living things all around. You see them with your eyesyou see Friedrich and the trees and such-just as I do, just as everyone does." She held up a finger to make her point. "But through my gift, I also see them.
"While our eyes may perceive you, those of us with the gift ca
"But, but," Je
"They may hunt you, but only in the conventional sense. They ca
"You mean, I'm already invisible to him?"
"No. I know you. I remember your red hair. I recognized you because I remember your mother, and you look like her. I know you in those ways-the ways anybody knows and recognizes someone. Darken Rahl, were he alive, might recognize you if he remembered your mother. Others who knew him might well see some of him in you, as I do, in addition to your mother's looks. He could know you in all those same ways common to one without the gift. He can find you by ordinary means. Of course, if he or one with the gift were to actually lay eyes on you, they would realize you are an ungifted offspring of a Rahl-because they could see you.
"But, he could not find you with magic. That he ca
Je
"When I was at the Palace of the Prophets," Althea finally said, "I knew a woman there, a sorceress, like me, named Adie. She had traveled alone to the Old World from a far-off land in order to learn what she could. But Adie was blind."
"Blind? She could travel alone when she was blind?"
Althea smiled at the memory of the woman. "Oh yes. With the use of her gift, rather than her eyes. All sorceress-all people with the gifthave unique abilities. On top of that, in some the gift is stronger, like people who have big muscles are stronger than me. Like Friedrich. He is stronger in muscles. You have hair like other people, but yours is red. Some have blond, or black, or brown. Despite what things people have in common, each person has different attributes.
"It's like that with the gift. It's not only different in its aspects, but the power of those aspects differ. With some, it's very strong, with some, weak. Each of us is an individual. We're all unique in our ability, our gift, the same as you are unique in other ways."
"And what about your friend, Adie?"
"Ali, well, Adie's eyes were completely white-blind-but she had learned the trick of seeing with her gift. The gift told her more about the world around her than my eyes told me. Adle could see people better with her gift than I could with my eyes. Much like when people who don't have the gift go blind, they depend more on their hearing, so they learn to hear more than you or I.
"Adie did that with her gift. She saw by sensing that infinitesimal spark of the Creator's gift that everything has-life itself, and more: Creation.
"The point is that, to me, to Darken Rahl, to Adie, you do not exist. You are a hole in the world."
For reasons Je
"The Creator didn't give me life, like everyone else? I came to exist in some other way? I'm some kind of. . monster? My father wanted to have me killed because I'm some monstrosity of nature?"
"No, no, child," Althea said as she leaned forward and stroked a comforting hand down Je
Je
"Je
Je
"Just because you're different, that doesn't make you evil."
"Just what am I, then, if not a monster untouched by Creation?"
"My dear child, you are a pillar of Creation."
"But you said-"
"I said that those with the gift ca
"Then why am I one of those… things? One of those holes in the world?"
Althea shook her head. "I don't know, child. But our lack of knowledge does not prove something evil. An owl can see at night. Does it make you evil because people can't see you while the owl can? One person's limitations don't confer wickedness on another. It shows only one thing: the existence of limitations."
"But all the offspring of the Lord Rahl are like this?"
She considered carefully before answering. "The genuinely ungifted ones, yes. Those who are born with at least some tiny aspect of the gift are not. That aspect can be so infinitesimal and unusable that it would not even be recognized to exist by anyone in any other way aside from this one. For all practical purposes, those offspring would be thought of as ungifted, except that they would have this quality that would keep them from being like you-holes in the world. It also makes them vulnerable. This kind of offspring can be found with magic and thus eliminated."
"Could it be that most of the offspring of Lord Rahl are like that, and those like me, holes in the world, are actually the ones who are more rare?"
"Yes," Althea admitted quietly.
Je
"Yes. That was one of the reasons I went to study with the Sisters of the Light. I wanted to better understand the interrelationship of the gift with life as we know it-with Creation."