by Robin Hobb
I extended myself, feeling for him cautiously. I was ready to fling up my walls in an instant if attacked. I found him easily and was almost startled at how unaware of my touch he was.
Then his pain jolted through me.
I drew back, faster than a startled sea anemone in a tide pool. I shocked myself by opening my eyes and staring up into cedar boughs burdened with snow. Sweat slicked my face and back.
What was that? Nighteyes demanded.
You know as much as I do, I told him.
It had been purest pain. Pain independent of an injury to the body, pain that was not sorrow or fear. Total pain, as if every part of the body, inside and out, were immersed in fire.
Regal and Will were causing it.
I lay shaking in the aftermath, not of the Skilling, but Burl’s pain. It was a monstrosity larger than my mind could grasp. I tried to sort out all I had sensed in that brief moment. Will, and perhaps some shadow of Carrod’s Skill, immobilizing Burl for this punishment. From Carrod there had been poorly-masked horror and distaste for this task. Perhaps he feared it would some day be turned upon him again. Will’s strongest emotion had been wrath that Burl had had me in his power and somehow let me slip away. But beneath the wrath was a sort of fascination with what Regal was doing to Burl. Will did not take any pleasure in it. Not yet.
But Regal did.
There had been a time when I had known Regal. Never well, it was true. Once he had been simply the younger of my uncles, the one who did not like me at all. He had vented it boyishly, in shoves and clandestine pinches, in teasing and tattling. I had not liked it, I had not liked him, but it had been almost understandable. It had been a boy’s jealousy that the favoured eldest son had created yet another rival for King Shrewd’s time and attention. At one time he had been simply a pampered young prince, envious that his elder brothers were in line for the throne ahead of him. He had been spoiled and rude and selfish.
But he had been human.
What I had felt from him just now was so far beyond what I could understand in terms of cruelty that it was almost incomprehensible. Forged Ones had lost their humanity, but in their emptiness was the shadow of what they had been. Had Regal opened his breast and showed me a nest of vipers, I could not have been more shocked. Regal had thrown humanity aside, to embrace something darker. And this was the man the Six Duchies now called King.
This was the man who would send troops after Starling and Kettle.
‘I’m going back,’ I warned Nighteyes, and did not give him time to object. I closed my eyes and flung myself into the Skill-river. I opened myself wide to it, drawing its cold strength into me without thought that too much of it would devour me. At the instant Will became aware of me, I spoke to them. ‘You will die at my hand, Regal. As certainly as Verity will reign again as King.’ Then I smashed that gathered power against them.
It was almost as instinctive as a clenched fist. I did not plan it, but suddenly I understood this was what Verity had done to them back in Tradeford. There was no message, nothing but a furious unleashing of strength upon them. I opened wide to them and showed myself, then when they turned to me, I willed myself to blast them with every bit of Skill I had gathered. Like Verity, I held back nothing of my strength. I believe if there had been only one, I would have succeeded in burning the Skill right out of him. Instead, they shared the jolt. I will never know what effect it had on Burl. Perhaps he was grateful for my savagery, for it shattered Will’s concentration and released him from Regal’s sophisticated torture. I felt Carrod’s shriek of terror as he broke off his Skilling. I think Will might have stood and challenged me, had not Regal feebly commanded him Break it off, you fool, do not risk me for your vengeance! In the blinking of an eye, they were gone.
The day was strong when I was next aware. Nighteyes was lying almost on top of me and there was blood on his coat. I pushed feebly at him and he moved immediately. He stood up and sniffed my face. I smelled my own blood with him; it was revolting. I sat up suddenly and the world spun around me. I became slowly aware of the clamour of his thoughts.
Are you all right? You were trembling and then you began to bleed from your nose. You have not been here, I have not been able to hear you at all!
‘I’m all right,’ I soothed him hoarsely. ‘Thank you for keeping me warm.’
My fire was down to a few embers. I reached carefully for my wood and added a few sticks to the fire. It seemed as if my hands were a long way away from me. When I had the fire burning, I sat and warmed myself. Then I stood and staggered a few steps to where the snow began. I rubbed a handful across my face to cleanse it of the taste and smell of blood. I put a bit of clean snow in my mouth for my tongue felt thick and clotted.
Do you need to rest? Do you need food? Nighteyes asked me anxiously.
Yes and yes. But most of all, we needed to flee. I had no doubt that what I had done would bring them after me. I had done what I had wanted, and beyond all my expectations, it had been real. I had given them a reason to fear me. Now they would never rest until they’d destroyed me. I had also shown them plainly where I was; they’d have a feel for where to send their men. I must not be here when they arrived. I went back to my fire and kicked earth onto it. I stamped it to be sure it was out. Then we fled.
We travelled as swiftly as I could manage. There was no question that I held Nighteyes back. He would look at me pityingly as I toiled up a hill, hip-deep in snow that he but spread toes and ran lightly over. It was not unusual that when I begged for a rest and stopped to lean against a tree, he would range ahead, searching out the best trail. When both light and my strength were near exhausted and I would stop to build a fire for the night, he would disappear to return with meat for both of us. Most often it was white snow hares, but once it was a fat beaver that had ventured too far from its iced-over pond. I made pretence to myself that I cooked my meat, but it was a very brief searing over a fire. I was too tired and too hungry to do more. The meat diet put no fat on my flesh, but it did keep me alive and moving. I had little of true sleep, for I had to constantly replenish my fire to keep from freezing and rise several times a night to stamp feeling back into my feet. Endurance. That was what it was all about. Not swiftness or great strength, but a miserly eking out of my ability to force myself to keep moving every day.
I kept my Skill-walls up tight, but even so I was aware of Will’s battling against them. I did not think he could track me as long as I guarded myself, but I was not certain of that. The constant mental wariness was yet another draw on my strength. Some nights I longed simply to drop all my guards and let him in, to finish me off once and for all. But at such times, all I had to do was recall what Regal was now capable of doing. Without fail it put a bolt of terror through me and inspired me to push myself all the harder to increase the distance between us.
When I arose on the fourth dawn of our travelling, I knew we were deep within the Mountain Kingdom. I had seen no sign of pursuit since we had left Moonseye. Surely this deep within Kettricken’s own land, we were safe.
How much farther is this Jhaampe, and what shall we do when we get there?
I don’t know how much farther. And I don’t know what we shall do.
For the first time, I considered it. I forced myself to think of all that I had not permitted myself to consider before. I knew nothing truly of what had become of Kettricken since the time I had sent her from the King’s side to flee into the night. She had had no word from me or about me. Kettricken would have borne the child by now. By my reckoning, her babe would be close in age to my own daughter. I sudde
nly found myself very curious. I could hold that babe and say to myself, ‘This must be how it feels to hold my daughter.’
Except that Kettricken believed me dead. Executed by Regal and long buried would be what she had heard. She was my queen and Verity’s wife. Surely I could reveal to her how I had survived. But to tell the truth to her would be like dropping a pebble in a pond. Unlike Starling or Kettle or anyone else who had deduced who I was, Kettricken had known me before. It would not be rumour or legend, not a wild tale of someone who had glimpsed me for a moment, but a fact. She could say to others who had known me, ‘Yes, I saw him, and he truly lives. How? Why, by his Wit, of course.’
I trudged along behind Nighteyes through the snow and cold and thought what that would mean to Patience when word reached her. Shame, or joy? Hurt that I had not revealed myself to her? Through Kettricken, word could be sent, to spread to those I had known. Eventually, it would reach Molly and Burrich. What would it do to Molly, to hear it from afar like that, not only that I was alive and had not returned to her, but that I was tainted with the Wit? It had cut me to the heart to know she had kept from me the knowledge that she carried our child. That had been my first true glimpse of how betrayed and hurt she must have felt by all the secrets I had kept from her over the years. To have one more and one of such magnitude pushed in her face might end whatever feelings she might still have for me. My chances of rebuilding a life with her were small enough; I could not bear for them to dwindle further.
And all the others, the stable-folk I had known, the men I had rowed and fought alongside, the common soldiers of Buckkeep would find out as well. However I might feel about the Wit, I had already seen the disgust in one friend’s eyes. I had seen how it had changed even Starling’s attitude toward me. What would folks think of Burrich, that he had had a Witted one in his stable and tolerated me? Would he be discovered as well? I gritted my teeth. I would have to remain dead. Better, perhaps, to by-pass Jhaampe altogether and press on to find Verity. Save that, without supplies I had as much chance of that as Nighteyes had of passing himself off as a lapdog.
And there was one other small matter. The map.
When Verity had departed Buckkeep, it had been on the strength of a map. It was an old one that Kettricken had unearthed in the Buckkeep libraries. It had been faded and ancient, made in the days of King Wisdom, who had first visited the Elderlings and enlisted them to the aid of the Six Duchies. The detail of the map had faded, but both Kettricken and Verity had been convinced that one of the marked trails led to where King Wisdom had first encountered those elusive beings. Verity had left Buckkeep determined to follow the map into the regions beyond the Mountain Kingdom. He had taken with him the fresh copy of the map he had made. I had no idea of what had become of the older map; probably carried off to Tradeford when Regal had looted Buckkeep’s libraries. But the style of the map and the unusual characteristics of the bordering had made me long suspect that the map was a copy of yet an older map. The bordering was in the Mountain style; if the original were to be found anywhere, it would be in the libraries of Jhaampe. I had had some access to them in the months of my convalescence in the Mountains. I knew their library was both extensive and well kept. Even if I did not find the original of that particular map, I might perhaps find others that covered the same area.
During my time in the Mountains, I had also been impressed with what a trusting folk they were. I had seen few locks and no guards such as we had at Buckkeep. It would be no trick to get into the royal residence. Even if they had established a practice of setting guards, the walls were only made of layers of barkcloth that had been plastered over with clay and painted. I felt confident I could get in one way or another. Once within, it would not take me long to rifle through their library and steal what I needed. I could resupply at the same time.
I had the grace to be ashamed of that thought. I also knew that shame would not keep me from doing it. Once again, I had no choice. I slogged up yet another ridge through the snow and it seemed to me my heart beat out that phrase over and over. No choice, no choice, no choice. Never any choice about anything. Fate had made me a killer, a liar and a thief. And the harder I tried to avoid those roles, the more firmly I was pushed into them. Nighteyes padded at my heels, and fretted about my black mood.
So distracted were we that we crested the ridge and both of us stood, foolishly outlined, in full view of the troop of horsemen on the road below us. The yellow and brown of their jackets stood out against the snow. I froze like a startled deer. Even so, we might have escaped their notice were it not for the pack of hounds with them. I took it in at a glance. Six hounds, not wolf-hounds, thank Eda, but short-legged rabbit-hounds, unsuited to this weather or terrain. There was one long-legged dog, a gangly, curly-backed mongrel. He and his handler moved separately from the pack. The pursuit was using whatever it had to find us. There were a dozen men on horseback, however. Almost instantly the mongrel threw his head up and bayed. In an instant the hounds took it up, milling, heads raised to snuff, and giving cry as they found our scents. The huntsman controlling the hounds lifted a hand and pointed up at us as we took to our heels. The mongrel and his handler were already racing toward us.
‘I didn’t even know there was a road there,’ I panted apologetically to Nighteyes as we fled down the hillside. We had a very brief advantage. We went downhill following our own trail, while the hounds and horsemen in pursuit of us must come up a hill of unbroken snow. I hoped that by the time they reached the ridge we had just left, we could be out of view in the brushy ravine below us. Nighteyes was holding back, loath to leave me behind. The hounds were baying and I heard the voices of men raised in excitement as they took up the chase.
RUN! I commanded Nighteyes.
I will not leave you.
I’d have small chance if you did, I admitted. My mind worked frantically. Get to the bottom of the ravine. Lay as much false trail as you can, loop around, go downstream following the ravine. When I get there, we’ll flee uphill. It may delay them a while.
Fox tricks! he snorted, and then raced past me in a blur of grey and vanished into the thick brush of the ravine. I tried to drive myself faster through the snow. Just before I reached the brushy ravine’s edge, I looked back. Dogs and horsemen were just cresting the ridge. I gained the shelter of the snow-cloaked brush and scrabbled down the steep side. Nighteyes had left enough tracks there for a whole pack of wolves. Even as I paused for a quick breath, he raced past me in yet another direction.
Let’s get out of here!
I did not wait for his reply, but took off up the ravine as fast as my legs would carry me. The snow was shallower at the very bottom for the overhanging trees and brush had caught and held most of it. I went half doubled over, knowing that if I snagged on the branches they would dump their cold loads upon me. The belling of the hounds rang in the freezing air. I listened to it as I pushed my way on. When I heard their excitement give way to a frustrated canine yelling, I knew they had reached the muddled trail at the bottom of the ravine. Too soon; they were there too soon and would be coming too fast.
Nighteyes!
Silence, fool! The hounds will hear you! And that other.
My heart near stopped in my chest. I could not believe how stupid I had been. I toiled on through the snowy brush, my ears straining after what was happening behind us. The huntsmen had liked the false trail Nighteyes had left and were all but forcing the hounds along it. There were too many men on horseback for the narrowness of the ravine. They were getting in one an
other’s way, and perhaps fouling our true trail. Time gained, but only a bit of it. Then suddenly I heard alarmed cries and a wild yelping of hounds. I picked up a confused babble of doggy thoughts. A wolf had sprung down on them and raced right through the centre of their pack, slashing as he went, dashing off right through the very legs of the horses the men rode behind them. One man was down and having trouble catching his wild-eyed mount. A dog had lost most of one floppy ear and was agonized with it. I tried to shut my mind to his pain. Poor beast, and all for none of your own gain. My legs were like lead and my mouth dry, but I tried to force speed from myself, to use well the time Nighteyes had gained at such risk to himself. I wanted to cry out to him to leave off his taunting, to flee with me, but dared not betray to the pack the true direction of our retreat. Instead I pushed myself on.
The ravine was getting narrower and deeper. Vines and brambles and brush grew from the steepening sides and dangled down. I suspected I walked on top of a winter-frozen stream. I began to look for a way out of it. Behind me the hounds were yelping again, baying out to one another that they had the true trail now, follow the wolf, the wolf, the wolf. I knew then with certainty that Nighteyes had shown himself to them once more and was deliberately drawing them away from me. Run, boy, run! He flung the thought to me, uncaring that the hounds would hear him. There was a wild merriment to him, a hysterical silliness to his thought. It reminded me of the night I had chased Justin through the halls of Buckkeep, to slaughter him in the Great Hall before all the guests at Regal’s King-in-Waiting ceremony. Nighteyes was in a frenzy that had carried him past worrying over his own survival. I plunged on, my heart in my throat for him, fighting the tears that pricked the corners of my eyes.