by Robin Hobb
I stumbled to my knees in the snowy street. I got to my feet slowly, groping for a memory. Had I got drunk? The queasiness, the dizziness were right for that. But not this darkly gleaming and silent city. I looked all around me. I was in a town square of some sort, standing in the shadow of a looming stone memorial of some kind. I blinked my eyes, squeezed them shut, then opened them again. The nebulous light still fogged me. I could scarcely see more than an arm’s length in any direction. I waited in vain for my eyes to adjust to the vague starlight. But soon I began to shiver, so I began to walk silently through the empty streets. My natural wariness came back first, followed by a dim recollection of my companions, the tent, the sundered road. But between that hazy memory and my standing up in this street, there was nothing.
I looked back the way I had come. Darkness had swallowed the road behind me. Even my footprints were being filled in by the slowly falling damp snowflakes. I blinked snowflakes from my eyelashes and peered about me. I saw the damply glistening sides of stone buildings to either side of the street. My eyes could make no sense of the light. It was sourceless and evenly insufficient. There were no looming shadows or especially dark alleys. But neither could I make out where I was going. The heights and styles of the buildings, the destinations of the streets remained a mystery.
I felt panic rise in me and fought it down. The sensations I had reminded me too vividly of how I had been Skill-deceived in Regal’s manor. I was terrified to grope out with the Skill lest I encounter Will’s taint in this city. But if I moved blindly on, trusting that I was not being deceived, I might blunder into a trap. In the shelter of a wall, I paused and forced myself to composure. I tried once more to recall how I had come here, how long ago I had left my companions and why. Nothing came to me. I quested out with my Wit-sense, trying to find Nighteyes, but I sensed nothing else alive. I wondered if there were truly no living creatures nearby, or if my Wit-sense had once more failed. I had no answers to that either. When I listened, I heard only wind. I smelled only damp stone, fresh snow and somewhere, perhaps, river water. Panic rose in me once more and I leaned back against the wall.
The city suddenly sprang to life around me. I perceived I was leaning up against the wall of an inn. From within I heard the sounds of a shrill piping instrument and voices lifted in an unfamiliar song. A wagon rumbled past in the street, and then a young couple darted past the mouth of the alley, hand in hand, laughing as they ran. It was night in this strange city, but it was not sleeping. I lifted my eyes to the impossible heights of their strangely-spired buildings, and saw lights burning in the upper storey. In the distance, a man called loudly to someone.
My heart was hammering. What was wrong with me? I steeled myself and found the resolve to go forth and find out what I could about this strange city. I waited until another keg-laden ale-wagon had rumbled past the mouth of my alley. Then I stepped away from the wall.
And in that instant, all was once more quiet, gleaming darkness. Gone was the song and laughter from the tavern; no one passed in the streets. I ventured to the mouth of the alley and peered cautiously in both directions. Nothing. Only softly falling wet snow. At least, I told myself, the weather was milder here than it had been on the road above. Even if I had to spend the entire night out of doors, I would not suffer too much.
I wandered a time through the city. At every intersection, I chose the widest road to follow, and soon realized a pattern of always going gently downhill. The river smell grew stronger. I paused once to rest on the edge of a great circular basin that might have enclosed a fountain or been a washing court. Immediately the city once more sprang to life around me. A traveller came and watered his horse at the dry basin so close that I could have reached out to touch him. He noticed me not at all, but I marked well the strangeness of his garb and the odd shape of the saddle the horse wore. A group of women walked past me, talking and laughing quietly together. They wore long, straight garments that hung softly from their shoulders and fluttered about their calves as they walked. All wore their long fair hair loose to their hips, and their boots rang on the cobbled street. When I rose to speak to them, they vanished and the light with them.
Twice more I woke the city before I realized all it took was the touch of my hand on a crystal-veined wall. It took an unreasonable amount of courage but I began to walk with just my fingers trailing along the buildings’ sides. When I did so, the city bloomed into life about me as I walked. It was night and the quiet snow still fell. The passing wagons left no tracks in it. I heard the slamming of doors that had long since rotted away and saw folk walk lightly over a deep gully some wild rainstorm had created down one street. It was hard to dismiss them as ghosts when they called greetings aloud to one another. I was the one who was ignored and invisible as I drifted along.
At length I came to a wide black river flowing smoothly under the starlight. Several ghost quays ran out into it and two immense ships were anchored out in the river. Lights shone from their decks. Hogsheads and bales waited dockside to be loaded. A huddle of folk were engaged in some game of chance and someone’s honesty was being loudly disputed. They dressed differently from the river-rats who came into Buck and the language was different, but in all else that I could tell, they were the same breed. As I watched, a fight broke out and spread to become a general brawl. It dispersed quickly when the whistle of the night-watch sounded, combatants fleeing in all directions before the city guard arrived.
I lifted my hand from the wall. I stood a moment in the snowspangled darkness, letting my eyes adjust. Ships, quays, river folk were all gone. But the quiet black water still flowed, steaming in the colder air. I walked toward it, feeling the road go rough and broken under my feet as I advanced. The waters of this river had risen and fallen over this street, working their damage with no one to oppose them. When I turned my back to the river and studied the skyline of the city, I could see the faint silhouettes of fallen spires and crumpled walls. Once again I quested out about me; once again I found no life.
I turned back to the river. Something in the general configuration of the land tugged at my memory. It was not precisely here, I knew that, but I felt sure that this was the river where I had seen Verity lave his hands and arms and bring them out gleaming with magic. Cautiously I walked over broken paving stones right down to the edge of the river. It looked like water, it smelled like water. I crouched down beside it and thought. I had heard tales of pools of tarry mud covered over with water; I knew well how oil floated upon water. Perhaps beneath the black water there flowed another river, one of silver power. Perhaps, further upstream or down, was the tributary of pure Skill I had seen in my vision.
I drew off my mitten and bared my arm. I set my hand upon the flow of the water, feeling its icy kiss against my bare palm. Senses straining, I tried to detect whether there was Skill beneath that surface; I felt nothing. But perhaps if I plunged in my arm and hand, they would come up gleaming with strength. I dared myself to reach in to discover for myself.
That was as far as my courage went. I was no Verity. I knew the strength of his Skilling, and I had seen how his immersion in the magic had tried his will. I was no match for it. He had marched alone up the Skill road while I … My mind darted back to that puzzle. When had I left the Skill road and my companions? Perhaps I never had. Perhaps all this was a dream. I reached up and patted cold water on my face. I felt no different. I set my nails to my face and scratched the skin until it hurt. It proved nothing to me but only made me wonder if I could drea
m pain. I had found no answers in this strange dead city, only more questions.
With great resolve I turned my steps back the way I had come. Visibility was poor and the clinging snow was rapidly filling my footprints. With reluctance I set my fingers to the stone of a wall. It was easier to trace my way back that way, for the living city had had more landmarks than the cold cinders of it did. Yet as I hurried through the snowy streets, I wondered when all these folk had been here. Did I view the events of a night a hundred years ago? Had I come here another night would I view the same events played out or see a different night from the city’s history? Or did these shades of folk perceive themselves as living now, was I an odd cold shadow that crept through their lives? I forced myself to stop wondering about things I had no answer to. I had to trace my way back the way I had come.
Either I came to the end of places I could remember or I took a wrong turning. The result was the same. I found myself wandering up a road I was sure was unfamiliar. I trailed my fingers down the fronts of a row of shops, all locked up tight for the night. I passed two lovers locked in an embrace in a doorway. A ghost dog padded past me without giving me so much as a curious sniff.
Despite the milder weather, I was getting cold. And tired. I glanced up at the sky. It would soon be morning. By daylight, I could perhaps climb up one of the buildings and get the lay of the land. Perhaps when I awoke, I would recall how I came here. Foolishly, I cast about for some overhanging eave or shed where I might shelter before it occurred to me that there was no reason not to go inside one of the buildings. Even so, I felt queer as I chose a door and walked through it. While I touched a wall, I saw a dim interior. Tables and shelves were laden with fine pottery and glassware. A cat slept by a banked hearth. When I lifted my hand from the wall, all was cold and pitch-black. So I trailed my fingers along the wall, nearly stumbling over the crumbling remains of one of the tables. I stooped, and gathered together the bits by touch and took them to the hearth. By great perseverance, I made a true fire of them where the ghost fire burned.
When it was going well and I stood over it to warm myself, its flickering light showed me a different view of the room. Bare walls and debris-strewn floor. There was no trace of the fine crockery and glassware, though there were a few more bits of wood from long-fallen shelves. I thanked my luck that they had been made of good oak, for surely they would have rotted to splinters long ago if they had not. I decided to lay my cloak on the floor to save me from the stone’s chill and trust my fire to keep me warm enough. I lay down and closed my eyes and tried not to think of ghost cats or what phantom folk slept in their beds on the floor above me.
I tried to set my Skill-walls before I slept, but it was rather like drying one’s feet while standing in a river. The closer I came to sleep, the harder it was to recall where those boundaries lay. How much of my world was me and how much was the folk I cared about? I dreamed first of Kettricken, Starling, Kettle and the Fool wandering about with torches while Nighteyes ran back and forth, back and forth whining. It was not a comfortable dream and I turned away from it and drifted deeper into myself. Or so I supposed.
I found the familiar hut. I knew the simple room, the rough table, the tidy hearth, the narrow bed so neatly made. Molly sat in her nightrobe by the hearth, rocking Nettle and singing softly a song about stars and starfish. I could recall no lullabies and was as charmed by it as Nettle. The baby’s wide eyes were on Molly’s face as her mother sang. She gripped one of Molly’s forefingers in her small fist. Molly sang the song over and over and over, but I found no boredom there. It was a scene I could watch for a month, for a year, and never know tedium.
But the babe’s eyelids slid shut, once, to open quickly. They closed more slowly a second time, and stay closed. Her tiny pursed mouth moved as if she suckled in her sleep. Her black hair had begun to curl. Molly lowered her face to brush her lips across Nettle’s forehead.
Molly rose wearily and carried the baby to her bed. She pulled open the blanket, nestled the child in, and then went back to the table to blow out the single candle there. By the light from the hearth, I watched her ease into bed beside the child and draw the blankets up over them both. She closed her eyes and sighed and did not stir again. I watched over her leaden sleep, recognizing it as the sleep of exhaustion. I knew sudden shame. This hard, bare life was not anything I ever envisioned for her, let alone our child. Were it not for Burrich, life would be even harder for them. I fled from seeing them this way, promising myself that things would get better, that somehow I would make things better for them. When I returned.
‘I expected that by the time I returned, things would be better. But this is too good to trust, in a way.’
It was Chade’s voice. He leaned over a table in a darkened room, studying a scroll. A branch of candles lit his face and the unrolled map before him. He looked tired but in good spirits. His grey hair was dishevelled. His white shirt was half open and loose of his breeches so it hung about his hips like a skirt. The old man was lean and muscular where before he was skinny. He took a long draw from a steaming mug and shook his head over something. ‘Regal seems to gain no ground in his war against the Mountains. In every attack against the border towns, the Usurper’s troops feint and then withdraw. There is no concerted effort to seize territory they have ravaged, no massing of troops to force their way to Jhaampe. What is his game?’
‘Come here and I’ll show you.’
Chade looked up from his scroll, half amused and half annoyed. ‘I’ve a serious question to ponder. I’ll not find the answer to this in your bed.’
The woman threw back the bedding and rose, to pad softly over to the table. She moved like a stalking cat. Her nakedness was not vulnerability, but armour. Her long brown hair had pulled loose of its warrior tail to reach past her shoulders. She was not young, and long ago a sword had left its tracks down her ribs. She was still breathtaking in a formidable, female way. She bent over the map beside him and pointed to something. ‘Look here. And here. And here. Were you Regal, why would you attack all these places at once, with forces too small to hold any of them?’
When Chade did not answer, she moved her finger to tap another spot on the map. ‘None of those attacks came as any great surprise. Mountain troops that had been gathered here were diverted to these two villages. Another second force from this location went to the third village. Now, see where the Mountain troops were not?’
‘There’s nothing along there worth having.’
‘Nothing,’ she agreed. ‘But once there was a trade route that went through the lesser pass, here, and thence into the heart of the Mountains. It bypasses Jhaampe, and is little used any more for that reason. Most traders want a route that will allow them to sell and trade in Jhaampe as well as the lesser towns.’
‘Of what value is that to Regal? Does he seek to take and hold it?’
‘No. No troops have been seen there at all.’
‘Where does the trail lead?’
‘Now? Nowhere save a few scattered villages. But it is good travelling for a small force moving fast.’
‘Where does it go?’
‘It dwindles away at Shishoe.’ She tapped another spot on the map. ‘But it would carry that hypothetical band of warriors deep into Mountain territory. Well behind all the troops watching and guarding the border. West of Jhaampe and unsuspected.’
‘But what would be their goal?’
The woman shrugged casually, and smiled to see Chade’s eyes leave the map. ‘Perhaps an assassination attempt on King Eyod? Perhaps an attempt to recapture this bastard that
is supposed to be sheltering in the Mountains. You tell me. This is more your trade than mine. Poison the wells at Jhaampe?’
Chade suddenly paled. ‘It’s been a week. They’ll already be in place, their plot already in motion.’ He shook his head. ‘What am I to do?’
‘Were it I, I’d send a swift courier to King Eyod. A lass on a horse. Alert him that there may be spies at his back.’
‘I suppose that’s best,’ Chade agreed. There was a sudden weariness in his voice. ‘Where are my boots?’
‘Relax. The messenger was sent yesterday. By now King Eyod’s trackers will be working the trail. He has very good trackers. I can vouch for that.’
Chade looked at her consideringly in a way that had nothing to do with her nakedness. ‘You know the quality of his trackers. Yet you sent one of your own lasses to his very doorstep, with a missive penned by your own hand, to warn him.’
‘I saw no good in letting such tidings wait.’