by Robin Hobb
The Fool took hold of my hand and led me into the tent. He pushed at me until I sat down, and took off my hat and mittens and outer coat. Without a word, he put a hot mug into my hands. That I could understand, but the rapid, worried conversation of the others was like the frightened squawking of a coop full of chickens. The wolf came and lay down beside me, to rest his big head on one of my thighs. I reached down to stroke the broad skull and finger the soft ears. He pressed closer against me as if pleading. I scratched him behind the ears, thinking that might be what he wanted. It was terrible not to know.
I was not much use to anyone that evening. I tried to do my share of the chores, but the others kept taking them out of my hands. Several times I was pinched, or poked and bid, ‘Wake up!’ by Kettle. One time I became so fascinated by the motion of her mouth as she scolded me that I didn’t realize when she walked away from me. I don’t remember what I was doing when the back of my neck was seized in her claw-like grip. She dragged my head forward and kept her hold while she tapped each stone in turn on her gamecloth. She put a black stone in my hand. For a time I just stared at the markers. Then suddenly I felt that shift in perception. There was no space between me and the game. For a time I tried my pebble in various positions. I finally found the perfect move, and when I set my stone in place, it was as if my ears had suddenly cleared, or like blinking sleep from my eyes. I lifted my eyes to consider those around me.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered inadequately. ‘Sorry.’
‘Better now?’ Kettle asked me softly. She spoke as if I were a toddler.
‘I’m more myself now,’ I told her. I looked up at her, suddenly desperate. ‘What happened to me?’
‘The Skill,’ she said simply. ‘You just aren’t strong enough in it. You nearly followed the road where it no longer goes. There is some sort of marker there, and once the road diverged there, one track going down into the valley and the other continuing across the mountainside. The downhill path is sheared off, carried away in a cataclysm years ago. There is nothing but tumbled stone at the bottom, but one can just see where the road emerges from the ruin and continues. It vanishes in another jumble of stone in the distance. Verity could not have gone there. But you nearly followed its memory to your death.’ She paused and looked at me severely. ‘In my days … you haven’t been trained enough to do what you’ve been doing, let alone face this challenge. If this is the best you were taught … Are you certain Verity is alive?’ she suddenly demanded of me. ‘That he survived this trial alone?’
I decided one of us had to stop keeping secrets. ‘I saw him, in a Skill-dream. In a city, with folk such as we passed today. He laved his hands and arms in a magic river, and walked away laden with power.’
‘God of fishes!’ Kettle swore. Something of horror and something of awe lit in her face.
‘We passed no folk today,’ Starling objected. I had not been aware she had seated herself by me until she spoke. I jumped, startled that someone could get that close to me and I had not sensed it.
‘All those who have ever trodden this road have left something of themselves upon it. Your senses are muffled to those ghosts, but Fitz walks here naked as a new-born child. And as naive.’ Kettle leaned back suddenly against her bedroll, and all the lines in her face deepened. ‘How can such a child be the Catalyst?’ she asked of no one in particular. ‘You don’t know how to save yourself from yourself. How are you going to save the world?’
The Fool leaned over from his bedroll suddenly to take my hand. Something like strength flowed into me with that reassuring touch. His tone was light, but his words sank into me. ‘Competence was never guaranteed in the prophecies. Only persistence. What does your White Colum say? “They come like raindrops against the stone towers of time. But in time it is always the rain that prevails, not the tower.’” He gave my hand a squeeze.
‘Your fingers are like ice,’ I told him as he let go.
‘I am cold past belief,’ he agreed with me. He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. ‘Cold and tired. But persistent.’
I lifted my eyes from him to find Starling with a knowing smile on her face. Gods, how it irked me. ‘I have elfbark in my pack,’ I suggested to the Fool. ‘It gives warmth as well as strength.’
‘Elfbark.’ Kettle scowled, as if it were disgusting. But after a moment’s reflection, she said excitedly, ‘Actually, that might be a good idea. Yes. Elfbark tea.’
When I took the drug out of my pack, Kettle snatched it out of my hands as if I might cut myself on it. She muttered to herself as she measured tiny portions of it into mugs for us. ‘I’ve seen what kind of doses you expose yourself to,’ she chided me, and brewed the tea herself. She put none of it in the tea she prepared for Kettricken, Starling and herself.
I sipped at my hot tea, tasting first the acrid bite of the elfbark and then the warmth of it in my belly. Its enervating heat spread through me. I watched the Fool, and saw him relax in its embrace, even as his eyes began to sparkle with it.
Kettricken had her map out and was frowning over it. ‘FitzChivalry, study this with me,’ the Queen suddenly commanded. I moved around the brazier to sit next to her. I was scarcely settled before she began. ‘I believe we are here,’ she told me. Her finger tapped the first juncture of the trail that was marked on the map. ‘Verity said he would visit all three places that were marked on the map. I believe that when this map was made, the road that you nearly followed tonight was intact. Now it is no longer there. And has not been there for some time.’ Her blue eyes met mine. ‘What do you suppose Verity did when he reached this point?’
I considered a moment. ‘He’s a pragmatic man. This other, second destination looks no more than three or four days from here. I think he might go there first, seeking the Elderlings there. And this third one is but, oh, seven days past there. I think he would decide it would be fastest to visit those two places first. Then, if he had no success there, he might return here, to try and find a way down to … whatever’s there.’
She wrinkled her brow. I suddenly recalled how smooth it had been when she was first his bride. Now I seldom saw her without lines of care and worry in her face. ‘He has been gone long, my husband. Yet it did not take us all that long to reach here. Perhaps he has not yet returned because he is down there. Because it took him so long to find a way down there to continue his journey.’
‘Perhaps,’ I agreed uneasily. ‘Bear in mind that we are well supplied and travel together. By the time Verity reached this far, he would have been alone, and with few resources.’ I refrained from telling Kettricken that I suspected he had been injured in that last battle. There was no sense in giving her more anxiety. Against my will, I felt a part of me groping out toward Verity. I shut my eyes and resolutely sealed myself in again. Had I imagined a taint upon the Skill-current, a too-familiar feeling of insidious power? I set my walls again.
‘… split the party?’
‘I beg pardon, my queen,’ I said humbly.
I did not know if the look in her eyes were exasperation or fear. She took my hand and held it firmly. ‘Attend me,’ she commanded. ‘I said, tomorrow we shall seek a way down. If we see anything that looks promising, we will attempt it. But I think we should give such a search no more than three days. If we find nothing, we should move on. But an alternative is to split the party. To send …’
‘I do not think we should split the party,’ I said hastily.
‘You are most likely correct,’ she conceded. ‘But it takes so long, so very long, and I have been alone with
my questions too long.’
I could think of nothing to say to that, so I pretended to be busy rubbing Nighteyes’ ears.
My brother. It was a whisper, no more, but I looked down at Nighteyes beside me. I rested a hand on his ruff, strengthening the bond with a touch. You were as empty as an ordinary human. I could not make you even feel me.
I know. I don’t know what happened to me.
I do. You are moving ever farther from my side to the other side. I fear you will go too far and be unable to return. I feared it had already happened today.
What do you mean, my side, and the other side?
‘Can you hear the wolf again?’ Kettricken asked me worriedly. I was surprised, when I looked up, to see how anxiously she regarded me.
‘Yes. We are together again,’ I told her. A thought occurred to me. ‘How did you know we were unable to communicate?’
She shrugged. ‘I suppose I assumed it. He seemed so anxious and you seemed so distant from everyone.’
She has the Wit. Don’t you, my queen?
I can not say for certain that something passed between them. Once, long before in Buckkeep, I thought I had sensed Kettricken using the Wit. I suppose she well could have been using it then, for my own sense of it was so diminished I could scarce sense my own bond-animal. In any case Nighteyes lifted his head to look at her and she returned his gaze steadily. With a small frown, Kettricken added, ‘Sometimes I wish I could speak to him as you do. Had I his speed and stealth at my disposal, I could be more certain of the safety of the road, both before us and behind. He might be able to find a path down, one not apparent to our eyes.’
If you can keep your Wits about you enough to tell her what I see, I would not mind doing such a task.
‘Nighteyes would be most pleased to help you in such a way, my queen,’ I offered.
She gave a weary smile. ‘Then, I suppose, if you can keep aware of both of us, you may serve as go-between.’
Her eerie echoing of the wolf’s thought unsettled me, but I only nodded my assent. Every aspect of conversation now demanded my complete attention, or it slipped away from me. It was like being horribly tired and having to constantly fight off sleep. I wondered if it were this hard for Verity.
There is a way to ride it, but lightly, lightly, like mastering an ill-tempered stallion who rebels against every touch of the rein or heel. But you are not ready to do so yet. So fight it, boy, and keep your head above water. Would that there were another way for you to come to me. But there is only the road, and you must follow it – No, make no reply to me. Know that there are others that listen avariciously if not as keenly as I. Be wary.
Once, in describing my father Chivalry, Verity had said that when he Skilled it was like being trampled by a horse, that Chivalry would rush into his mind, dump out his messages and flee. I now had a better understanding of what my uncle had meant. I felt rather like a fish suddenly deserted by a wave. There was that gaping sense of something missing in the instant after Verity’s departure. It took me a moment to remember I was a person. Had I not been fortified already with the elfbark, I think I might have fainted. As it was, the drug was increasing its hold on me. I had a sense of being muffled in a warm soft blanket. My weariness was gone, but I felt muted. I finished the little that was left in my cup and waited for the flush of energy that elfbark usually gave me. It didn’t come.
‘I don’t think you used enough,’ I told Kettle.
‘You have had plenty,’ she said with asperity. She sounded like Molly did when she thought I was drinking too much. I braced myself, expecting images of Molly to fill my mind. But I stayed within my own life. I do not know if I felt relieved or disappointed. I longed to see her and Nettle. But Verity had warned me … belatedly I announced to Kettricken, ‘Verity Skilled to me. Just now.’ Then I cursed myself as a churl and a lackwit as I saw the hope flush her face. ‘It was not really a message,’ I amended hastily. ‘Just a warning reminder to me that I am to avoid Skilling. He still believes there may be others seeking me that way.’
Her face fell. She shook her head to herself. Then she looked up to demand, ‘He had no word at all for me?’
‘I do not know if he realizes you are with me,’ I hastily sidestepped the question.
‘No words,’ she said dully as if she had not heard me. Her eyes were opaque as she asked, ‘Does he know how I have failed him? Does he know about … our child?’
‘I do not believe he does, my lady. I sense no such grief in him, and well I know how it would grieve him.’
Kettricken swallowed. I cursed my clumsy words, and yet, was it my place to utter words of comfort and love to his wife? She straightened up abruptly, then rose. ‘I think I shall bring in a bit more firewood for tonight,’ she announced. ‘And grain the jeppas. There is scarcely a twig for them to browse on here.’
I watched her leave the tent for the dark and still cold outside. No one spoke a word. After a breath or two, I rose and followed her. ‘Don’t be long,’ Kettle warned me enigmatically. The wolf shadowed after me.
Outside the night was clear and cold. The wind was no worse than usual. Familiar discomforts can almost be ignored. Kettricken was neither fetching wood nor graining the jeppas. I was sure both tasks had already been done earlier. Instead she was standing at the edge of the cloven road, staring out over the blackness of cliff at her feet. She stood tall and stiff as a soldier reporting to his sergeant and made not a sound. I knew she was crying.
There is a time for courtly manners, a time for formal protocol and a time for humanity. I went to her, took her by the shoulders and turned her to face me. She radiated misery and the wolf beside me whined high. ‘Kettricken,’ I said simply. ‘He loves you. He will not blame you. He will grieve, yes, but what kind of a man would not? As for Regal’s deeds, they are Regal’s deeds. Do not take the blame for those to yourself. You could not have stopped him.’
She wiped a hand across her face and did not speak. She looked past me, her face a pale mask in the starlight. She sighed heavily, but I could sense her strangling on her sorrow. I set my arms about my Queen and pulled her to me, pressing her face to my shoulder. I stroked her back, feeling the terrible tension there. ‘It’s all right,’ I lied to her. ‘It’s going to be all right. In time, you’ll see. You’ll be together again, you’ll make another child, both of you will sit in the Great Hall at Buckkeep and listen to the minstrels sing. There will be peace again, somehow. You’ve never seen Buckkeep at peace. There will be time for Verity to hunt and fish, and you’ll ride at his side. Verity will laugh and shout and roar through the halls like the north wind again. Cook used to chase him out of the kitchen for slicing the meat from the roast before it was cooked through, he would come home from the chase that hungry. He’d come right in and cut the leg off a cooking fowl, that he would, and carry it about with him, telling stories in the guardroom, waving it about like a sword …’
I patted her back as if she were a child and told her tales of the bluff, hearty man I remembered from my boyhood. For a time her forehead rested on my shoulder and she was completely still. Then she coughed once, as if starting to choke, but instead terrible sobs welled up from her. She cried suddenly and unabashedly as a child that has taken a bad fall and is hurt as well as frightened. I sensed these were tears that had long gone unshed, and I did not try to help her stop. Instead I went on talking and patting her, scarcely hearing what I was saying myself, until her sobs began to quiet and her shaking to still. At last she drew away from me a little, to grope in her pocket for a kerchief. She wiped her face and eyes a
nd blew her nose before she tried to speak.
‘I’m going to be all right,’ she said. To hear the strength of her belief in those words made my heart ache. ‘It’s just … It’s hard just now. Waiting to tell him all these terrible things. Knowing how they will hurt him. They taught me so many things about being Sacrifice, Fitz. From the beginning, I knew I might have terrible sorrows to bear. I am strong enough … to bear these things. But no one warned me that I might come to love the man they’d choose for me. To bear my sorrow is one thing. To bring sorrow to him is another.’ Her throat closed on the words and she bowed her head. I feared she might begin to weep again. Instead when she lifted her head she smiled at me. Moonlight touched the silver wetness on her cheeks and lashes. ‘Sometimes I think only you and I see the man beneath the crown. I want him to laugh, and roar about, and leave his bottles of ink open and his maps scattered about. I want him to put his arms about me and hold me. Sometimes I want those things so much, I forget about the Red Ships and Regal and … everything else. Sometimes I think that if we could only be together again, all the rest would come right as well. It is not a very worthy thought to have. A Sacrifice is supposed to be more …’
A glint of silver behind her caught my eyes. I saw the black column over her shoulder. It leaned at a cant over the broken edge of the road, half its stone support gone. I did not hear the rest of what she said. I wondered how I had not seen it before. It gleamed brighter than the moon on the sparkling snow. It was hewn of black stone webbed with glittering crystal. Like moonlight on a rippling river of Skill. I could decipher no writing on its surface. The wind was screaming behind me as I reached out and ran a hand down that smooth stone. It welcomed me.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The City
There runs through the Mountain Kingdom an old trade trail that serves none of the present-day towns of the Mountain Kingdom. Portions of this old highway appear as far south and east as the shore of Blue Lake. The trail is not named, no one recalls who constructed it, and few use it even for the stretches that remain intact. In places the road has been gradually destroyed by the freezing swells that are common to the Mountains. In other places flooding and landslides have reduced it to rubble. Occasionally an adventurous Mountain youth will undertake to trace the road to its source. Those who return have tall tales of ruined cities and steaming valleys where sulphurous ponds smoke, and they speak too, of the forbidding nature of the territory the road spans. No game and poor hunting, they say, and it is not recorded anywhere that anyone has ever been impressed enough to make a return trip to the road’s end.