The Pillars Of The World

cover the woman’s screams, or the sound of rock and wood against bone.
    Morag used no glamour to soften what she was. As she rode toward them, one of the men glanced up.
    He dropped his club and pushed against the other men, trying to back away.
    “It’s one of the Fae!” the man cried.
    “It doesn’t matter!” the young man in the black coat shouted. “There’s nothing she can do!”
    Isn’t there ? Morag thought as she rode toward the men. Rage flashed through her, flooding her until it was the only thought, the only feeling.
    Her own power lashed out, striking the young man in the black coat. She gathered his soul, held it for a moment, then released it. That moment was long enough to sever the link between body and soul. She watched his body fall from his horse. His ghost stood nearby, too intent on trying to retain control of the men to notice.
    Seeing the ghost, a man screamed, “She’s the Gatherer!”
    Dropping their clubs and rocks, the men bolted for the trees.
    Morag didn’t pursue them. Reining in close to the woman, she dismounted and knelt beside the still body.
    The woman wore nothing but a torn, sleeveless shift that fell to her knees.
    Morag looked at the travesty that, not too many days before, must have been a healthy body. She wondered what had been done to make the woman’s legs look that way—and she wondered how much courage it must have taken to try to walk, let alone run, on those legs. She saw burns on the arms. She saw the swollen left hand that was full of broken bones. She saw the holes in the woman’s face where something had pierced her cheeks. She sensed the damage that had been done inside the woman—
    damage that would never heal well enough to make living anything but a prison.
    The woman opened pain-glazed eyes. She tried to speak, but her tongue seemed too swollen to form words. Had it also been pierced?
    “Who?” It sounded more like air being forced out than a word.
    Before Morag could answer, the young man’s ghost spoke.
    “ They may have run, but I’m not afraid of you,” he said. “ Your time in the world is done. After we rid the world of her kind, we’ll also rid the world of yours. Then men will rule as they were meant to rule, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.“
    “Nothing?” Morag asked softly.
    He smiled at her, and she knew with unshakable certainty that he was a man who reveled in inflicting pain. He was a man who found controlling and manipulating others the most intense form of seduction.
    “Nothing,” he said.

    Her only answer was to look at the ground behind him.
    His smile wavered. He glanced down, then cried out as he reached for his body. His hands passed through it.
    “You bitch!” he screamed. “What have you done?”
    She ignored him. Her rage had come and gone as swiftly as a violent storm, leaving her cold and exhausted. But there was still work to do. She looked down at the dying woman.
    “Gath . . . rer?”
    “Yes,” Morag said, touching the woman’s head gently. “I am the Gatherer.”
    “Sum ... merland. Please.” The words were slurred, the effort to say that much horrific.
    “I’ll take you to the Shadowed Veil.” Her power reached out again, and she quietly gathered the woman’
    s soul. As the link between soul and body unraveled, the woman’s breath came out with a relieved sigh.
    It was the last sound, the last movement she made.
    When Morag rose to her feet, the woman’s ghost stood beside her.
    Feeling awkward, Morag asked a question she had never asked before. “Should the body be taken somewhere?”
    The woman shook her head. “The Small Folk will take it home and give it to the Mother.”
    “Home?”
    The woman looked at the trees Morag had been riding through before Death had called her. “The Old Place is ... was my home.”
    Morag felt the land darken, as if thick clouds had formed a shroud around the sun. “Come.” She turned toward the dark horse but didn’t mount. Not quite looking at the woman, she said, “Why did they do this to you?”
    Sorrow filled the woman’s ghostly eyes. “Because I’m a witch.”
    Witch. The word seemed to echo through the meadow.
    How many of the young women that I have taken to the Shadowed Veil would have given me the same answer if I had asked?
    “Come,” Morag said, mounting her horse. The woman’s ghost floated up to ride behind her.
    “Wait!” the young man’s ghost shouted. “What about me? You can’t leave me