Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Chade merely looked at me. But from the hearth corner where Kettle rocked, her old voice rose in com­pla­cent sat­is­fac­tion. ‘The White Scrip­tures say, “He shall thirst for the blood of his own kin, and his thirst shall go un­slaked. The Cata­lyst shall hun­ger for a hearth and chil­dren in vain, for his chil­dren shall be an­other’s, and an­other’s child his own …”’

  ‘No one can force me to ful­fil any such proph­ecies!’ I vowed in a roar. ‘Who made them, any­way?’

  Kettle went on rock­ing. It was the Fool who answered me. He spoke mildly, without look­ing up from his work. ‘I did. In my child­hood, in the days of my dream­ing. Be­fore I knew you any­where, save in my dreams.’

  ‘You are doomed to ful­fil them,’ Kettle told me gently.

  I slammed my cup back onto the table. ‘Damned if I will!’ I shouted. No one jumped or replied. In a ter­rible in­stant of crys­tal­line re­call, I heard Molly’s father’s voice from his chim­ney corner. ‘Damn you, girl!’ Molly had flinched but ig­nored him. She had known there was no reas­on­ing with a drunk. ‘Molly,’ I moaned sod­denly and put my head down on my arms to weep.

  After a time, I felt Chade’s hands on my shoulders. ‘Come, boy, this avails you noth­ing. To bed with you. To­mor­row you must face your queen.’ There was far more pa­tience in his voice than I de­served, and I sud­denly knew the depths of my churl­ish­ness.

  I rubbed my face on my sleeve and man­aged to lift my head. I did not res­ist as he helped me to my feet and steered me to­ward the cot in the corner. As I sat down on the edge of it, I said quietly, ‘You knew. You knew all along.’

  ‘Knew what?’ he asked me tiredly.

  ‘Knew all this about the Cata­lyst and the White Prophet.’

  He blew air out through his nose. ‘I “know” noth­ing of that. I knew some­thing of the writ­ings about them. Re­call that things were com­par­at­ively settled be­fore your father ab­dic­ated. I had many long years after I had taken to my tower, when my king did not re­quire my ser­vices for months at a time. I had much time for read­ing, and many sources for scrolls. So I had en­countered some of the for­eign tales and writ­ings that deal with a Cata­lyst and a White Prophet.’ His voice be­came milder, as if he’d for­got­ten the an­ger in my ques­tion.

  ‘It was only after the Fool had come to Buck­keep, and I had quietly dis­covered that he had a strong in­terest in such writ­ings, that my own in­terest was piqued. You your­self once told me that he had re­ferred to you as the Cata­lyst. So I began to won­der … but in truth, I give all proph­ecies small cre­dence.’

  I lay back gingerly. I could al­most sleep on my back again. I rolled to my side, kicked off my boots and dragged a blanket up over me.

  ‘Fitz?’

  ‘What?’ I asked Chade grudgingly.

  ‘Kettricken is angry with you. Do not ex­pect her pa­tience to­mor­row. But keep in mind that she is not only our queen. She is a wo­man who has lost a child and been kept in sus­pense over her hus­band’s fate for over a year, houn­ded away from her ad­op­ted coun­try, only to have trouble dog her steps to her nat­ive land. Her father is un­der­stand­ably bit­ter. He turns a war­rior’s eyes to­ward the Six Duch­ies and Regal, and has no time for quests to search for the brother of his en­emy, even if he be­lieved he lived. Kettricken is alone, more griev­ously alone than you or I can ima­gine. Find tol­er­ance for the wo­man. And re­spect for your queen.’ He paused un­com­fort­ably. ‘You will need both to­mor­row. I can be of little help to you with her.’

  I think he went on after that, but I had ceased to listen. Sleep soon dragged me un­der its waves.

  It had been some time since Skill-dreams had troubled me. I do not know if my phys­ical weak­ness had fi­nally ban­ished my dreams of battle, or if my con­stant guard against Regal’s co­terie had blocked them from my mind. That night my brief res­pite ended. The strength of the Skill-dream that snatched me from my body was as if a great hand had reached in­side me, seized me by the heart and dragged me out of my­self. I was sud­denly in an­other place.

  It was a city, in the sense that folk dwelt there in great num­bers. But the folk were un­like any I had ever seen, nor had I ever seen such dwell­ings. The build­ings soared and spir­al­led to airy heights. The stone of the walls seemed to have flowed into their forms. There were bridges of del­ic­ate tracery and gar­dens that both cas­ca­ded down and tendrilled up the sides of the struc­tures. There were foun­tains that danced and oth­ers that pooled si­lently. Every­where brightly-clad people moved through the city, as nu­mer­ous as ants.

  Yet all was si­lent and still. I sensed the flow of folk, the play of the foun­tains, the per­fume of the un­fold­ing blos­soms in the gar­dens. All was there, but when I turned to be­hold it, it was gone. The mind could sense the del­ic­ate tracery of the bridge but the eye saw only the fallen rubble gone to rust and rot. Fres­coed walls had been wind-pol­ished away to roughly plastered bricks. A turn of the head changed a leap­ing foun­tain to weedy dust in a cracked basin. The hasten­ing crowd in the mar­ket spoke only with the voice of a ra­cing wind heavy with sting­ing sand. I moved through this ghost of a city, bod­i­less and seek­ing, un­able to de­cipher why I was there or what was draw­ing me. It was neither light nor dark there, neither sum­mer nor winter. I am out­side time, I thought to my­self, and wondered if this was the ul­ti­mate hell of the Fool’s philo­sophy or the fi­nal free­dom.

  I saw at last, far ahead of me, a small fig­ure plod­ding along one of the vast streets. His head was bowed to the wind and he held his cloak’s hem over his mouth and nose as he walked to shield him from the sand-laden wind. He was not a part of the ghostly crowd but moved through the rubble, skirt­ing the places where some un­rest in the earth had sunken or ridged the paved street. I knew in that in­stant of sight­ing him that this was Ver­ity. I knew by the jerk of life I felt in my chest, and knew then that what had pulled me here was the tiny pebble of Ver­ity’s Skill that hid still within my own con­scious­ness. I sensed also that the danger to him was ex­treme. Yet I saw noth­ing to threaten him. He was at a great dis­tance from me, seen through the hazy shad­ows of build­ings that had been, veiled in the ghosts of a mar­ket-day crowd. He trudged heav­ily along, alone and im­mune to the ghost city, and yet en­twined in it. I saw noth­ing, but danger loomed over him like a gi­ant’s shadow.

  I hastened after him and in the blink­ing of an eye was be­side him. ‘Ah,’ he greeted me. ‘So you have come at last, Fitz. Wel­come.’ He did not pause as he walked, nor turn his head. Yet I felt a warmth as if he had clasped my hand in greet­ing, and I felt no need to reply. In­stead I saw with his eyes the lure and the danger.

  A river flowed ahead. It was not wa­ter. It was not glisten­ing stone. It par­took of both those things, but was neither. It sliced through the city like a gleam­ing blade, slid­ing out of the riven moun­tain be­hind us and con­tinu­ing un­til it dis­ap­peared into a more an­cient river of wa­ter. Like a seam of coal bared by a cut­ting tide, or gold vein­ing quartz, it lay ex­posed on the earth’s body. It was ma­gic. Purest an­cient ma­gic, in­ex­or­able and heed­less of men, flowed there. The river of Skill I had so te­di­ously learned to nav­ig­ate was to this ma­gic as the bou­quet of wine is to wine. That which I glimpsed with Ver­ity’s eyes had a phys­ical ex­ist­ence as con­crete as my own. I was im­me­di­ately drawn to it as a moth is drawn to a candle flame.

  It was not just the beauty of that shin­ing flow. The ma­gic filled every one of Ver­ity’s senses. The sound of its rush­ing was mu­sical, a run­ning of notes that kept one wait­ing and listen­ing, in the cer­tainty that the sound was build­ing to some­thing. The wind car­ried its scent, elu­sive and change­able, one mo­ment the edge of lemon blos­soms and the next a smoky coil­ing of spices. I tasted it on every breath, and longed to plunge my­self into it. I was sud­denly sure that it could quench every ap­p
et­ite I had ever suffered, not just those of my body but the vague yearn­ings of my soul as well. I longed for my body to be here as well, that I might ex­per­i­ence it as com­pletely as Ver­ity did.

  Ver­ity paused, lift­ing his face. He drew in a deep breath, air laden with Skill as fog is laden with mois­ture. Sud­denly I could taste in the back of Ver­ity’s throat a hot metal­lic tang. The long­ing he had felt for it sud­denly be­came an all-con­sum­ing de­sire. He thirsted for it. When he got to it, he would throw him­self on his knees and drink his fill. He would be filled with all the con­scious­ness of the world, he would par­take of the whole and be­come the whole. At last he would know com­ple­tion.

  But Ver­ity him­self would cease to ex­ist.

  I drew back in fas­cin­ated hor­ror. I don’t think there is any­thing more fright­en­ing than to en­counter the true will for self-de­struc­tion. Des­pite my own at­trac­tion to the river, it touched off an an­ger in me. This was not worthy of Ver­ity. Neither the man nor the prince I had known could be cap­able of such a cow­ar­dly act. I looked at him as if I had never seen him.

  And real­ized how long it had been since I had seen him.

  The bright black­ness of his eyes had be­come a dull dark­ness. The cloak that the wind snapped about him was a rent rag of a thing. The leather of his boots had long ago cracked, the stitches of the seams giv­ing way and gap­ing open. The steps he took were un­cer­tain, un­even things. Even if the wind had not buf­feted him, I doubted his stride would have been steady. His lips were pale and cracked and his flesh had a grey­ish over­tone to it as if the very blood of his body had for­saken it. There had been sum­mers when he Skilled against the Red Ships to such an ex­tent that the flesh and muscle fell from his body, leav­ing him a gaunt skel­eton of a man with no phys­ical stam­ina. Now he was a man of stam­ina alone, ropy muscles stretched on a frame­work of bones that was scarcely cloaked in flesh at all. He was the em­bod­i­ment of weary pur­pose. Only his will kept him up­right and mov­ing. To­ward the ma­gic flow.

  I do not know where I found my own will to res­ist it. Pos­sibly it was be­cause I had paused and fo­cused my­self on Ver­ity for an in­stant, and seen all that the world would lose if he ceased to ex­ist as him­self. Whatever the source of my strength, I pit­ted it against his. I threw my­self into his path but he walked through me. There was noth­ing to me, here. ‘Ver­ity, please, stop, wait!’ I cried and flung my­self at him, a furi­ous feather on the wind. I had no ef­fect on him. He didn’t even pause.

  ‘Someone has to do it,’ he said quietly. Three steps later he ad­ded, ‘For a time, I hoped it would not be me. But over and over, I have asked my­self, “Who else, then?”’ He turned to look at me with those burnt-to-ashes eyes. ‘No other an­swer has ever come. It has to be me.’

  ‘Ver­ity, stop,’ I pleaded, but he con­tin­ued to walk. Not hur­ry­ing, not lag­ging, but simply trudging along the way a man does when he has meas­ured the dis­tance he must go and matched his strength to it. He had the en­dur­ance to get there if he walked.

  I with­drew a bit, feel­ing my strength ebbing. For a mo­ment, I feared I would lose him by be­ing drawn back to my sleep­ing body. Then I real­ized an equally po­tent fear. Linked so long, and even now be­ing pulled along after him, I might find my­self drowned along­side him in that vein of ma­gic. If I had had a body in that realm, I prob­ably would have seized onto some­thing and held on. As I pleaded with Ver­ity to stop and listen to me, I in­stead anchored my­self in the only other way I could ima­gine. I reached with my Skill, grasp­ing after those oth­ers whose lives touched mine: Molly, my daugh­ter, Chade and the Fool, Burrich and Kettricken. I had no true Skill-links with any of them so my grip was a tenu­ous one at best, lessened by my frantic fear that at any mo­ment Will or Car­rod or even Burl might some­how be­come aware of me. It seemed to me that it slowed Ver­ity. ‘Please wait,’ I said again.

  ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t seek to dis­suade me, Fitz. It’s what I have to do.’

  I had never thought to meas­ure my Skill-strength against Ver­ity’s. I had never ima­gined we could be op­posed to each other. But as I pro­ceeded to bat­ter my­self against him, I felt very much like a child kick­ing and scream­ing as his father calmly car­ried him off to bed. Ver­ity not only ig­nored my at­tack, I sensed that his will and con­cen­tra­tion were else­where. He moved im­plac­ably on to­ward the black flow and my con­scious­ness was borne along with him. Self-pre­ser­va­tion lent a frantic new strength to my struggles. I strove to push him away, to drag him back, but it availed me noth­ing.

  But there was a ter­rible du­al­ity to my struggle. I longed for him to win. If he over­powered me and dragged me down with him, then I need take no re­spons­ib­il­ity for it. I could open my­self to that flow of power and be quenched in it. It would be an end to all tor­ments, sur­cease at last. I was so tired of doubts and guilts, so weary of du­ties and debts. If Ver­ity car­ried me into that flow of Skill with him I could fi­nally sur­render with no shame.

  There came a mo­ment when we stood on the brink of that iri­des­cent flow of power. I stared down at it with his eyes. There was no gradual shore. In­stead there was a knife’s edge brink where solid earth gave way to a stream­ing oth­er­ness. I stared at it, see­ing it as a for­eign thing in our world, a warp­ing of our very world’s nature. Pon­der­ously Ver­ity lowered him­self to one knee. He stared into that black lu­min­es­cence. I did not know if he hes­it­ated to say farewell to our world, or if he paused to gather his will to des­troy him­self. My will to res­ist was sus­pen­ded. This was a door to an oth­er­ness I could not even ima­gine. Hun­ger and curi­os­ity drew us closer to the brink.

  In the next mo­ment he plunged his hands and fore­arms into the ma­gic.

  I shared that sud­den know­ledge with him. So I screamed with him as the hot cur­rent ate the flesh and muscle from his arms. I swear I felt the acid lick of it across the bared bones of his fin­gers and wrist and fore­arm. I knew his pain. Yet it was crowded from his fea­tures by the rap­tur­ous smile that over­whelmed his face. My link with him was sud­denly a clumsy thing that barred me from sens­ing in full what he felt. I longed to be be­side him, to bare my own flesh to that ma­gic river. I shared his con­vic­tion that he could end all pain if only he would give in and plunge the rest of him­self into the stream. So easy. All he had to do was lean for­ward a bit and let go. He crouched over the stream on his knees, sweat drip­ping from his face only to dis­ap­pear as tiny puffs of steam when it fell into the flow. His head was bowed, and his shoulders moved up and down with the strength of his pant­ing. Then he begged me sud­denly, in a tiny voice, ‘Pull me back.’

  I had not had the strength to op­pose his de­term­in­a­tion. But when I joined my will to his and to­gether we fought the ter­rible al­lure of the power, it was just enough. He was able to draw his fore­arms and hands free from the stuff, though it felt as if he drew them out of solid stone. It gave him up re­luct­antly and as he staggered back I sensed in full for a mo­ment what he had shared. There was the one­ness of the world flow­ing there, like a single sweet note drawn out purely forever. It was not the song of hu­man­ity but an older, greater song of vast bal­ances and pure be­ing. Had Ver­ity sur­rendered to it, it would have ended all his tor­ments.

  In­stead, he tottered to his feet and turned away from it. He car­ried his fore­arms stretched out be­fore him, palms up, the fin­gers curled into cups as if he begged some­thing. In shape they had not changed. But now arms and fin­gers gleamed sil­ver with the power that had pen­et­rated and fused with his flesh. As he began to walk away from the stream with the same stud­ied pur­pose­ful­ness with which he had ap­proached it, I felt how his arms and hands burned as if with frost­bite.

  ‘I don’t un­der­stand,’ I said to him.

  ‘I don’t want you to. Not yet.’ I felt a du­al­ity in him. T
he Skill burned in him like a forge-fire of in­cred­ible heat, but the strength of his body was only suf­fi­cient to keep him walk­ing. It was ef­fort­less for him to shield my mind from the pull of that river now. But for him to move his own body up the path taxed both his flesh and his will. ‘Fitz. Come to me. Please.’ It was no Skill-or­der this time, not even the com­mand of a prince, only the plea of a man to an­other. ‘I have no co­terie, Fitz. Only you. If the co­terie that Ga­len cre­ated for me had been true, then I would have more faith that what I must do is pos­sible. Yet not only are they false to me, but they seek to de­feat me. They peck at me like birds on a dy­ing buck. I do not think their at­tacks can des­troy me, but I fear they may weaken me enough that I do not suc­ceed. Or worse yet, that they may dis­tract me and suc­ceed in my place. We can­not al­low that, boy. You and I are all that stand between them and their tri­umph. You and I. The Farseers.’

  I was not there in any phys­ical sense. Yet he smiled at me and lif­ted one ter­rible gleam­ing hand to cup my face. Did he in­tend what he did? I do not know. The jolt was as power­ful as if a war­rior had slammed his shield into my face. But not pain. Aware­ness. Like sun­light burst­ing through clouds to il­lu­min­ate a clear­ing in the forest. Everything sud­denly stood out clearly, and I saw all the hid­den reas­ons and pur­poses for what we did, and I un­der­stood with a pain­ful pur­ity of en­light­en­ment why it was ne­ces­sary I fol­low the path be­fore me.

  Then all was gone, and I dwindled off into black­ness. Ver­ity was gone and my un­der­stand­ing with him. But for one brief in­stant, I had glimpsed the com­plete­ness of it. Only I re­mained now, but my self was so tiny I could only ex­ist if I held on with all my might. So I did.