by Robin Hobb
It was early afternoon when we came to the wide trail marked on the map. Our narrow path merged into it as a stream joins a river. For some days we were to follow it. Sometimes it led us past small villages tucked into sheltered folds of the Mountains, but Kettricken hastened us past them without stopping. We passed other travellers on the road, and these she greeted courteously, but firmly turned aside all efforts at conversation. If any recognized her as Eyod’s daughter, they gave no sign of it. There came a day, however, when we passed the entire day without so much as a glimpse of another traveller, let alone a village or hut. The trail grew narrower, and the only tracks upon it were old ones, blurred by fresh snow. When we rose the next day and set forth upon it, it soon dwindled to no more than a vague track through the trees. Several times Kettricken paused and cast about, and once she made us backtrack and then go on in a new direction. Whatever signs she was following were too subtle for me.
That night, when we camped, she again took out her map and studied it. I sensed her uncertainty, and came to sit beside her. I asked no questions and offered no advice, only gazing with her at the map’s worn markings. Finally she glanced up at me.
‘I think we are here,’ she said. Her finger showed me the end of the trade trail we had followed. ‘Somewhere north of us, we should find this other road. I had hoped there would be some ancient connecting trail between the two. It was an idea that made sense to me, that this old road would perhaps connect to one even more forgotten. But now …’ she sighed. ‘Tomorrow, I suppose we blunder on and hope for luck to aid us.’
Her words did not put heart into any of us.
Nevertheless, the next day we moved on. We moved steadily north, through forest that seemed to have been forever untouched by an axe. Branches laced and intertwined high above us, while generations of leaves and needles lay deep beneath the uneven blanketing of snow that had filtered down to the forest floor. To my Wit-sense, these trees had a ghostly life that was almost animal, as if they had acquired some awareness simply by virtue of their age. But it was an awareness of the greater world of light and moisture, soil and air. They regarded our passage not at all, and by afternoon I felt no more significant than an ant. I had never thought to be disdained by a tree.
As we travelled on, hour after hour, I am sure I was not the only one to wonder if we had lost our way completely. A forest this old could have swallowed a road a generation ago. Roots would have lifted its cobbles, leaves and needles blanketed it. What we sought might no longer exist except as a line on an old map.
It was the wolf, ranging well ahead of us as always, who found it first.
I like this not at all, he announced.
‘The road is that way,’ I called to Kettricken ahead of me. My puny human voice seemed like a fly’s buzzing in a great hall. I was almost surprised when she heard me and looked back. She took in my pointing hand, then, with a shrug, led her pack sheep in a more westerly direction. We still walked for some time before I saw an arrow-straight break in the clustering trees ahead of us. A stripe of light penetrated the forest there.
What is wrong with it?
The wolf shook himself all over as if to rid his coat of water. It is too much of man. Like a fire to cook meat over.
I do not understand.
He lay back his ears. Like a great force made small and bent to a man’s will. Always fire seeks a way to escape containment. So does this road.
His answer made no sense to me. Then we came to the road. Kettricken led her pack sheep down onto it. I hesitated. The wide road was a straight cut through the trees, its surface lower than that of the forest floor, as when a child drags a stick through sand and leaves a trough behind. The forest trees grew alongside it and leaned over it, but none of them had sent roots thrusting out into the road, nor had any saplings sprouted up from it. Neither had the snow that covered the road’s surface been marred, not even by a bird’s track. There were not even the muted signs of old tracks covered with snow. No one had trodden this road since the winter snows had begun. As far as I could see, no game trails even crossed it.
I stepped down onto the road’s surface.
It was like walking into trailing cobwebs face first. A piece of ice down the back. Stepping into a hot kitchen after being out in an icy wind. It was a physical sensation that seized me, as sharply as any of those others, and yet as indescribable as wet or dry is. I halted, transfixed. Yet none of the others showed any awareness of it as they hopped down from the lip of the forest onto the road surface. Starling’s only comment, to herself, was that at least here the snow was shallower and the walking better. She did not even ask herself why the snow should be shallower on the road, but only hurried after the trailing line of jeppas. I was still standing on the road, looking about me, some minutes later when Kettle stepped out of the trees and onto the road’s surface. She, too, halted. For an instant, she seemed startled and muttered something.
‘Did you say Skill-wrought?’ I demanded of her.
Her eyes jumped to me as if she had been unaware of me standing right there before her. She glared. For a moment she didn’t speak. Then, ‘I said “Hell-rot!”’ she declared. ‘Near twisted my ankle jumping down. These mountain boots are no stiffer than socks.’ She turned away from me and trudged off after the others. I followed her. For some reason, I felt as if I were wading in water, save without the resistance of water. It is a difficult sensation to describe. As if something flowed uphill around me and hurried me along with its current.
It seeks a way to escape containment, the wolf observed again sourly. I glanced up to find him trotting along beside me, but on the lip of the forest rather than on the smooth road surface. You’d be wiser to travel up here, with me.
I thought about it. I seem to be all right. Walking is easier here. Smoother.
Yes, and fire makes you warmer, right up until the time it burns you.
I had no reply to that. Instead I walked alongside Kettle for a way. After days of travelling single file on the narrow trail, this seemed easier and more companionable. We walked all the rest of the afternoon on the ancient road. It climbed ever upward, but always angling across the faces of the hills, so that the going was never too steep. The only things that ever marred the smooth coat of snow on its surface were occasional dead branches dropped from trees above, and most of these were decaying into sawdust. Not once did I see any animal tracks, either on the road or crossing it.
Not even a sniff of any game, Nighteyes confirmed woefully. I shall have to range this night to find fresh meat for myself.
You could go now, I suggested.
I trust you not alone upon this road, he informed me sternly.
What could harm me? Kettle is right here beside me, so I would not be alone.
She is as bad as you are, Nighteyes insisted stubbornly. But despite my questions, he could not explain to me what he meant.
Yet as afternoon deepened into evening, I began to have notions of my own. Time and again, I caught my mind drifting in vivid daydreams, musings so engrossing that coming out of them was like waking with a start. And like many a dream, they popped like bubbles, leaving me with almost no recall of what I had been thinking. Patience giving military commands as if she were Queen of the Six Duchies. Burrich bathing a baby and humming as he did so. Two people I did not know, setting charred stones upon one another as they rebuilt a house. Foolish, bright-coloured images they seemed, but edged so vividly that almost I believed my own musings. The easy walking on the road that had seemed so pleas�
�ant at first began to seem an involuntary hurrying, as if a current urged me on independent of my own will. Yet I could not have been hurrying much, for Kettle kept pace with me all the afternoon. Kettle broke in often on my thoughts, to ask me trivial questions, to draw my attention to a bird overhead, or to ask if my back was bothering me. I endeavoured to answer, but moments later I could not recall what we had been talking about. I could not blame her for frowning at me, so muddle-witted was I, but neither could I seem to find a remedy for my absent mind. We passed a fallen log across the road. I thought something odd about it, and intended to mention it to Kettle but the thought fled before I could master it. So caught up was I in nothing at all, that when the Fool hailed me, I startled. I peered ahead, but could not even see the jeppas any more. Then, ‘FitzChivalry!’ he shouted again, and I turned around, to find I had walked past not only him, but our whole expedition. Kettle at my side muttered to herself as she turned back.
The others had halted and were already unloading the jeppas. ‘Surely you don’t mean to pitch the tent in the centre of the road?’ Kettle asked in alarm.
Starling and the Fool looked up from where they were stretching out the goat leather shape of the yurt. ‘Fear ye the hurrying throngs and carts?’ the Fool asked sarcastically.
‘It’s flat and level. Last night, I had a root or a rock under my bedding,’ Starling added.
Kettle ignored them and spoke to Kettricken. ‘And we’d be in full view for anyone who stepped onto this road for quite a way in both directions. I think we should move off and camp under the trees.’
Kettricken glanced about. ‘It’s nearly dark, Kettle. And I do not think we have a great deal to fear from pursuit. I think …’
I flinched when the Fool took my arm and walked me to the edge of the road. ‘Climb up,’ he told me gruffly when we got to the edge of the forest. I did, scrambling up to stand once more on forest moss. Once I was there, I yawned, feeling my ears pop. Almost right away, I felt more alert. I glanced back to the road where Starling and Kettricken were gathering up the yurt hides to move them. Kettle was already dragging the poles off the road. ‘So, we’ve decided to camp off the road,’ I observed stupidly.
‘Are you all right?’ the Fool asked me anxiously.
‘Of course. My back is no worse than usual,’ I added, thinking he referred to that.
‘You were standing there, staring off up the road, paying no heed to anyone. Kettle says you’ve been like that most of the afternoon.’
‘I’ve been a bit muddled,’ I admitted. I dragged off my mitten to touch my own face. ‘I don’t think I’m getting a fever. But it was like that … bright-edged fever thoughts.’
‘Kettle says she thinks it’s the road. She said that you said it was Skill-wrought.’
‘She said I said? No. I thought that was what she said when we came onto it. That it was Skill-wrought.’
‘What is “Skill-wrought”?’ the Fool asked me.
‘Shaped by the Skill,’ I replied, then added, ‘I suppose. I’ve never heard of the Skill used to make or shape something.’ I looked wondering back at the road. It flowed so smoothly through the forest, a pure white ribbon, vanishing off under the trees. It drew the eye, and almost I could see what lay beyond the next fold of the forested hillside.
‘Fitz!’
I jerked my attention back to the Fool in annoyance. ‘What?’ I demanded.
He was shivering. ‘You’ve just been standing there, staring off down the road since I left you. I thought you’d gone to get firewood, until I looked up and saw you standing here still. What is the matter?’
I blinked my eyes slowly. I had been walking in a city, looking at the bright yellow and red fruit heaped high in the market stalls. But even as I groped after that dream, it was gone, leaving only a confusion of colour and scent in my mind. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps I am feverish. Or just very weary. I’ll go get the wood.’
‘I’m going with you,’ the Fool announced.
By my knee, Nighteyes whined anxiously. I looked down at him. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him aloud.
He looked up at me, the fur between his eyes ridged with worry. You do not seem to hear me. And your thoughts are not … thoughts.
I’ll be all right. The Fool is with me. Go and hunt. I can feel your hunger.
And I feel yours, he answered ominously.
He left then, but reluctantly. I followed the Fool into the woods, but did little more than carry the wood he picked up and handed to me. I felt as if I could not quite wake up. ‘Have you ever been studying something tremendously interesting, only to suddenly look up and realize hours have passed? That is how I feel just now.’
The Fool handed me another stick of wood. ‘You are frightening me,’ he informed me quietly. ‘You speak much as King Shrewd did in the days he was weakening.’
‘But he was drugged then, against pain,’ I pointed out. ‘And I am not.’
‘That is what is frightening,’ he told me.
We walked together back to camp. We had been so slow that Kettle and Starling had gathered some fuel and got a small fire going already. The light of it illuminated the dome-shaped tent and the folk moving around it. The jeppas were shadows drifting nearby as they browsed. As we piled our wood by the fire for later use, Kettle looked up from her cooking.
‘How are you feeling?’ she demanded.
‘Better, somewhat,’ I told her.
I glanced about for any chores that needed doing, but camp had been set without me. Kettricken was inside the tent, poring over the map by candlelight. Kettle stirred porridge by the fire while, strange to say, the Fool and Starling conversed quietly. I stood still, trying to recall something I’d meant to do, something I’d been in the middle of doing. The road. I wanted another look at the road. I turned and walked toward it.
‘FitzChivalry!’
I turned, startled at the sharpness in Kettle’s call. ‘What is it?’
‘Where are you going?’ she asked. She paused, as if surprised by her own question. ‘I mean, is Nighteyes about? I haven’t seen him for a bit.’
‘He went to hunt. He’ll be back.’ I started toward the road again.
‘Usually he’s made his kill and come back by now,’ she continued.
I paused. ‘There’s not much game near the road, he said. So he’s had to go further.’ I turned away again.
‘Now there’s a thing that seems odd,’ she went on. ‘There’s no sign of human traffic on the road. And yet the animals avoid it still. Doesn’t game usually follow whatever path is easiest?’
I called back to her, ‘Some animals do. Others prefer to keep to cover.’
‘Go and get him, girl!’ I heard Kettle tell someone sharply.
‘Fitz!’ I heard Starling call, but it was the Fool who caught up with me and took me by the arm.
‘Come back to the tent,’ he urged me, tugging at my arm.
‘I just want to have another look at the road.’
‘It’s dark. You’ll see nothing now. Wait until morning, when we’re travelling on it again. For now, come back to the tent.’
I went with him, but told him irritably, ‘You’re the one who is acting strange, Fool.’
‘You’d not say that, had you seen the look on your face but a moment ago.’
The rations that night were much the same as they had been since we left Jhaampe: thick grain porridge with some chopped dried apple in it, some dried meat, and tea. It was filling, but not exciting. It did nothing to distract me from the intent way the others watched me. I finally set down my tea mug and demanded, ‘What?�
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No one said anything at first. Then Kettricken said, bluntly, ‘Fitz, you don’t have a watch tonight. I want you to stay in the tent and sleep.’
‘I’m fine, I can stand a watch,’ I began to object, but it was my queen who ordered, ‘I tell you to stay within the tent tonight.’
For a moment I fought my tongue. Then I bowed my head. ‘As you command. I am, perhaps, overly tired.’
‘No. It is more than that, FitzChivalry. You scarcely ate tonight, and unless one of us forces you to speak you do nothing save gaze off into the distance. What distracts you?’
I tried to find an answer to Kettricken’s blunt question. ‘I do not know. Exactly. At least, it is a difficult thing to explain.’ The only sound was the tiny crackling of the fire. All eyes were on me. ‘When one is trained to Skill,’ I went on more slowly, ‘one becomes aware that the magic itself has a danger to it. It attracts the attention of the user. When one is using the Skill to do a thing, one must focus one’s attention tightly on the intent and refuse to be distracted by the pulling of the Skill. If the Skill-user loses that focus, if he gives in to the Skill itself, he can become lost in it. Absorbed by it.’ I lifted my eyes from the fire and looked around at their faces. Everyone was still save for Kettle, who was nodding ever so slightly.
‘Today, since we found the road, I have felt something that is almost like the pull of the Skill. I have not attempted to Skill; actually, for some days, I have blocked the Skill from myself as much as I can, for I have feared that Regal’s coterie may try to break into my mind and do me harm. But despite that, I have felt as if the Skill were luring me. Like a music I can almost hear, or a very faint scent of game. I catch myself straining after it, trying to decide what calls me …’
I snapped my gaze back to Kettle, saw the distant hunger in her eyes. ‘Is it because the road is Skill-wrought?’