Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  The oth­ers were do­ing like­wise, mov­ing from cover to cover, all of us en­deav­our­ing to keep at least one other of our party in sight. I had thought I could see noth­ing more dis­turb­ing than that crude stone carving, but the next one we passed wrenched at me. Someone had carved, in heart-break­ing de­tail, a mired dragon. The thing’s wings were half spread and its half-lid­ded eyes were rolled up in agony. A hu­man rider, a young wo­man, be­strode it. She clutched the un­du­lant neck and leaned her cheek against it. Her face was a mask of agony, her mouth open and the lines of her face taut, the muscles of her throat stand­ing out like cords. Both the girl and the dragon had been worked in de­tailed col­ours and lines. I could see the wo­man’s eye­lashes, the in­di­vidual hairs on her golden head, the fine green scales about the dragon’s eyes, even the droplets of saliva that clung to its lips. But where the dragon’s mighty feet and lash­ing tail should have been, there was only puddled black stone, as if the two had landed in a tar pit and been un­able to es­cape it.

  Just as a statue, it was wrench­ing. I saw Kettle turn her face aside from it, tears start­ing in her eyes. But what un­nerved Nighteyes and me was the writh­ing of Wit-sense that it gave off. It was fainter than what we had sensed in the statues back in the garden, but all the more poignant for that. It was like the fi­nal death throes of a trapped creature. I wondered what tal­ent had been used to in­fuse such a liv­ing nu­ance into a statue. Even as I ap­pre­ci­ated the artistry of what had been done, I was not sure I ap­proved it. But that was true of much that this an­cient Skilled race had wrought. As I crept past the statue, I wondered if this was what the wolf and I had sensed. It prickled my skin to see the Fool turn and stare back at it, his brow fur­rowed in dis­com­fort. Plainly he sensed it, though not as well. Per­haps this is what we sensed, Nighteyes. Per­haps there is no liv­ing creature in the quarry after all, only this monu­ment to slow death.

  No. I smell some­thing.

  I widened my nos­trils, cleared them with a si­lent snort, then took in a deep slow breath of air. My nose was not as keen as Nighteyes’, but the wolf’s senses aug­men­ted my own. I smelled sweat and the faint tang of blood. Both were fresh. Sud­denly the wolf pressed close to me and as one we slunk around the end of a block of stone the size of two huts.

  I peered around the corner, then cau­tiously crept forth. Nighteyes slipped past me. I saw the Fool round the other end of the stone, and felt the oth­ers draw­ing near as well. No one spoke.

  It was an­other dragon. This one was the size of a ship. It was all of black stone, and it sprawled sleep­ing upon the block of stone it was emer­ging from. Chips and chunks and grind­ings of rock dust sur­roun­ded the ground around the block. Even from a dis­tance, it im­pressed me. Des­pite its sleep, every line of the creature spoke of both strength and no­bil­ity. The wings fol­ded along­side it were like furled sails while the arch of the power­ful neck put me in mind of a battle char­ger. I had looked at it for some mo­ments be­fore I saw the small grey fig­ure that sprawled along­side it. I stared at him and tried to de­cide if the flick­er­ing life I sensed came from him or the stone dragon.

  The dis­carded frag­ments of stone were al­most a ramp up to the block the dragon was emer­ging from. I thought the fig­ure would stir to my crunch­ing foot­steps, but he did not move. Nor could I de­tect any small mo­tions of breath. The oth­ers hung back, watch­ing my as­cent. Only Nighteyes ac­com­pan­ied me, and he came hackles ab­ristle. I was within arm’s reach of the fig­ure when he jerkily arose and faced me.

  He was old and thin, grey of both hair and beard. His ragged gar­ments were grey with stone dust, and a smear of grey coated one of his cheeks. The knees that showed through the legs of his trousers were scabbed and bloody from kneel­ing on broken stone. His feet were wrapped in rags. He gripped a much-notched sword in a grey-gaunt­leted hand, but he did not bring it up to the ready. I felt it taxed his strength to hold the blade at all. Some in­stinct made me lift my arms wide of my body, to show him I held no weapon. He looked at me dully for a bit; then he slowly lif­ted his eyes to my face. For a time we stared at one an­other. His peer­ing, near-blind gaze re­minded me of Harper Josh. Then his mouth gaped wide in his beard, bar­ing sur­pris­ingly white teeth. ‘Fitz?’ he said hes­it­antly.

  I knew his voice, des­pite the rust. He had to be Ver­ity. But all I was cried out aghast that he could have come to this, this wreck­age of a man. Be­hind me I heard the swift crunch­ing of foot­steps and turned in time to see Kettricken char­ging up the ramp of crum­bling stone. Hope and dis­may battled in her face, yet, ‘Ver­ity!’ she cried, and there was only love in the word. She charged, arms reach­ing for him, and I was barely able to catch her as she hurtled past me.

  ‘No!’ I cried aloud to her. ‘No, don’t touch him!’

  ‘Ver­ity!’ she cried again, and then struggled against my grip, cry­ing out, ‘Let me go, let me go to him.’ It was all I could do to hold her back.

  ‘No,’ I told her quietly. As some­times hap­pens, the soft­ness of my com­mand made her stop strug­gling. She looked her ques­tion at me.

  ‘His hands and arms are covered with ma­gic. I do not know what would hap­pen to you, were he to touch you.’

  She turned her head in my rough em­brace to stare at her hus­band. He stood watch­ing us, a kindly, rather con­fused smile on his face. He tilted his head to one side as if con­sid­er­ing us, then stooped care­fully to set down his sword. Kettricken saw then what I had glimpsed be­fore. The be­tray­ing shim­mer of sil­ver crawled over his fore­arms and fin­gers. Ver­ity wore no gaunt­lets; the flesh of his arms and hands was im­preg­nated with raw power. The smudge on his face was not dust, but a smear of power where he had touched him­self.

  I heard the oth­ers come up be­hind us, their foot­steps crunch­ing slowly over the stone. I did not need to turn to feel them star­ing. Fi­nally the Fool said softly, ‘Ver­ity, my prince, we have come.’

  I heard a sound between a gasp and a sob. That turned my head, and I saw Kettle slowly set­tling, go­ing down like a holed ship. She clasped one hand to her chest and one to her mouth as she sank to her knees. Her eyes goggled as she stared at Ver­ity’s hands. Starling was in­stantly be­side her. In my arms, I felt Kettricken calmly push against me. I looked at her stricken face, then let her go. She ad­vanced to Ver­ity a slow step at a time and he watched her come. His face was not im­pass­ive, but neither did he show any sign of spe­cial re­cog­ni­tion. An arm’s length away from him, she stopped. All was si­lence. She stared at him for a time, then slowly shook her head, as if to an­swer the ques­tion she voiced. ‘My lord hus­band, do you not know me?’

  ‘Hus­band,’ he said faintly. His brow creased deeper, his de­mean­our that of a man who re­calls some­thing once learned by rote. ‘Prin­cess Kettricken of the Moun­tain King­dom. She was given me to wife. Just a little slip of a girl, a wild little moun­tain cat, yel­low-haired. That was all I could re­call of her, un­til they brought her to me.’ A faint smile eased his face. ‘That night, I un­bound golden hair like a flow­ing stream, finer than silk. So fine I durst not touch it, lest it snag in my cal­lused hands.’

  Kettricken’s hands rose to her hair. When word had reached her of Ver­ity’s death, she had cut her hair to no more than a brush on her skull. It now reached al­most to her shoulders, but the fine silk of it was gone, roughened by sun and rain and road-dust. But she freed it from the fat braid that con­fined it and shook it loose around her face. ‘My lord,’ she said softly. She glanced from me to Ver­ity. ‘May I not touch you?’ she begged.

  ‘Oh –’ He seemed to con­sider the re­quest. He glanced down at his arms and hands, flex­ing his sil­very fin­gers. ‘Oh, I think not, I’m afraid. No. No, it were bet­ter not.’ He spoke re­gret­fully, but I had the sense that it was only that he must re­fuse her re­quest, not that he re­gret­ted be­ing un­able to touch her.

  Ke
ttricken drew a ragged breath. ‘My lord,’ she began, and then her voice broke. ‘Ver­ity, I lost our child. Our son died.’

  I did not un­der­stand un­til then what a bur­den it had been for her, seek­ing for her hus­band, know­ing she must tell him this news. She dropped her proud head as if ex­pect­ing his wrath. What she got was worse.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. Then, ‘Had we a son? I do not re­call …’

  I think that was what broke her, to dis­cover that her earth­shak­ing tid­ings did not an­ger nor sor­row him, but only con­fused him. She had to feel be­trayed. Her des­per­ate flight from Buck­keep Castle and all the hard­ships she had en­dured to pro­tect her un­born child, the long lonely months of her preg­nancy, cul­min­at­ing in the heart-rend­ing still­birth of her child, and her dread that she must tell her lord how she had failed him: that had been her real­ity for the past year. And now she stood be­fore her hus­band and her king, and he fumbled to re­call her and of the dead child said only ‘Oh.’ I felt shamed for this dod­der­ing old man who peered at the Queen and smiled so wear­ily.

  Kettricken did not scream or weep. She simply turned and walked slowly away. I sensed great con­trol in that pas­sage, and great an­ger. Starling, crouched by Kettle, looked up at the Queen as she passed. She star­ted to rise and fol­low, but Kettricken made a tiny move­ment of her hand that for­bade it. Alone she des­cen­ded from the great stone dais and strode off.

  Go with her?

  Please. But do not bother her.

  I am not stu­pid.

  Nighteyes left me, to shadow off after Kettricken. Des­pite my cau­tion to him, I knew he went straight to her, to come up be­side her and press his great head against her leg. She dropped sud­denly to one knee and hugged him, push­ing her face against his coat, her tears fall­ing into his rough fur. He turned and licked her hand. Go away, he chided me, and I pulled my aware­ness back from them. I blinked, real­iz­ing I had been star­ing at Ver­ity all the while. His eyes met mine.

  He cleared his throat. ‘FitzChiv­alry,’ he said, and drew a breath to speak. Then he let half of it out. ‘I am so weary,’ he said piteously. ‘And there is still so much to do.’ He ges­tured at the dragon be­hind him. Pon­der­ously he sank, to sit be­side the statue. ‘I tried so hard,’ he said to no one in par­tic­u­lar.

  The Fool re­covered his senses be­fore I did mine. ‘My lord Prince Ver­ity,’ he began then paused. ‘My king. It is I, the Fool. May I be of ser­vice to you?’

  Ver­ity looked up at the slender pale man who stood be­fore him. ‘I would be hon­oured,’ he said after a mo­ment. His head swayed on his neck. ‘To ac­cept the fealty and ser­vice of one who served both my father and my queen so well.’ For an in­stant I glimpsed some­thing of the old Ver­ity. Then the cer­tainty flickered out of his face again.

  The Fool ad­vanced and then knelt sud­denly be­side him. He pat­ted Ver­ity on the shoulder, send­ing up a small cloud of rock dust. ‘I will take care of you,’ he said. ‘As I did your father.’ He stood up sud­denly and turned to me. ‘I am go­ing to fetch fire­wood, and find clean wa­ter,’ he an­nounced. He glanced past me to the wo­men. ‘Is Kettle all right?’ he asked Starling.

  ‘She nearly fain­ted,’ Starling began. But Kettle cut in ab­ruptly with, ‘I was shocked to my core, Fool. And I am in no hurry to stand up. But Starling is free to go and do whatever must be done.’

  ‘Ah. Good.’ The Fool ap­peared to have taken com­plete con­trol of the situ­ation. He soun­ded as if he were or­gan­iz­ing tea. ‘Then, if you would be so kind, Mis­tress Starling, would you see to the set­ting up of the tent? Or two tents, if such a thing can be con­trived. See what food we have left, and plan a meal. A gen­er­ous meal, for I think we all need it. I shall re­turn shortly with fire­wood, and wa­ter. And greens, if I am lucky.’ He cast a quick look at me. ‘See to the King,’ he said in a low voice. Then he strode away. Starling was left gap­ing. Then she arose and went in search of the stray­ing jep­pas. Kettle fol­lowed her more slowly.

  And so, after all that time and travel, I was left stand­ing alone be­fore my king. ‘Come to me’, he had told me, and I had. There was an in­stant of peace in real­iz­ing that that nag­ging voice was fi­nally stilled. ‘Well, I am here, my king,’ I said quietly, to my­self as much as to him.

  Ver­ity made no reply. He had turned his back to me and was busy dig­ging at the statue with his sword. He knelt, clutch­ing the sword by the pom­mel and by the blade and scraped the tip along the stone at the edge of the dragon’s fore­leg. I stepped close to watch him scratch­ing at the black rock of the dais. His face was so in­tent, his move­ment so pre­cise that I did not know what to make of it. ‘Ver­ity, what are you do­ing?’ I asked softly.

  He did not even glance up at me. ‘Carving a dragon,’ he replied.

  Sev­eral hours later, he still toiled at the same task. The mono­ton­ous scrape, scrape, scrape of the blade against the stone set my teeth on edge and shred­ded every nerve in my body. I had re­mained on the dais with him. Starling and the Fool had set up our tent, and a second smal­ler one cobbled to­gether from our now ex­cess winter blankets. A fire was burn­ing. Kettle presided over a bub­bling pot. The Fool was sort­ing the greens and roots he had gathered while Starling ar­ranged bed­ding in the tents. Kettricken had re­joined us briefly, but only to get her bow and quiver from the jep­pas’ packs. She had an­nounced she was go­ing hunt­ing with Nighteyes. He had given me one lam­bent glance from his dark eyes, and I had held my tongue.

  I knew but little more than I had when we had first found Ver­ity. His Skill walls were high and tight. I re­ceived al­most no sense of the Skill from him. What I dis­covered when I ques­ted to­ward him was even more un­nerv­ing. I grasped the flut­ter­ing Wit-sense I had of him, but could not un­der­stand it. It was as if his life and aware­ness fluc­tu­ated between his body and the great statue of the dragon. I re­called the last time I had en­countered such a thing. It had been between the Wit-man and his bear. They had shared the same flow­ing of life. I sus­pec­ted that if any­one had ques­ted to­ward the wolf and me, they would dis­cover the same sort of pat­tern. We had shared minds for so long that in some ways we were one creature. But that did not ex­plain to me how Ver­ity could have bon­ded with a statue, nor why he per­sis­ted in scrap­ing at it with his sword. I longed to grab hold of the sword and snatch it from his grasp, but I re­frained. In truth, he seemed so ob­sessed with what he did that I al­most feared to in­ter­rupt him.

  Earlier I had tried ask­ing him ques­tions. When I asked him what had be­come of those who left with him, he had shaken his head slowly. ‘They har­ried us as a flock of crows will haunt an eagle. Com­ing close, squawk­ing and peck­ing, and flee­ing when we turned to at­tack them.’ ‘Crows?’ I had asked him, blankly.

  He shook his head at my stu­pid­ity. ‘Hired sol­diers. They shot at us from cover. They came at us at night, some­times. And some of my men were baffled by the co­terie’s Skill. I could not shield the minds of those who were sus­cept­ible. Night fears they sent to stalk them, and sus­pi­cion of one an­other. So I bid them go back; I pressed my own Skill-com­mand into their minds, to save them from any other.’ It was al­most the only ques­tion he truly answered. Of the oth­ers I asked, he did not choose to an­swer many, and the an­swers he did give were either in­ap­pro­pri­ate or evas­ive. So I gave it up. In­stead, I found my­self re­port­ing to him. It was a long ac­count­ing, for I began with the day I had watched him ride away. Much of what I told him, I was sure he already knew, but I re­peated it any­way. If his mind was wan­der­ing, as I feared, it might an­chor him to re­fresh his memory. And if my king’s mind was as sharp as ever be­neath this dusty de­mean­our, then it could not hurt for all the events to be put in per­spect­ive and or­der. I could think of no other way to reach him.

  I had be­gun it, I think, to try to make him real­ize all we had gone through
to be here. Also, I wished to awaken him to what was hap­pen­ing in his king­dom while he loitered here with his dragon. Per­haps I hoped to wake in him some sense of re­spons­ib­il­ity for his folk again. As I spoke, he seemed dis­pas­sion­ate, but oc­ca­sion­ally he would nod gravely, as if I had con­firmed some secret fear of his. And all the time the sword tip moved against the black stone, scrape, scrape, scrape.

  It was ver­ging on full dark when I heard the scuff of Kettle’s foot­steps be­hind me. I paused in re­count­ing my ad­ven­tures in the ruined city and turned to look at her. ‘I’ve brought you both some hot tea,’ she an­nounced.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and took my mug from her, but Ver­ity only glanced up from his per­petual scrap­ing.

  For a time, Kettle stood prof­fer­ing the cup to Ver­ity. When she spoke, it was not to re­mind him of tea. ‘What are you do­ing?’ she asked in a gentle voice.

  The scrap­ing stopped ab­ruptly. He turned to stare at her, then glanced at me as if to see if I, too, had heard her ri­dicu­lous ques­tion. The query­ing look I wore seemed to amaze him. He cleared his throat. ‘I am carving a dragon.’

  ‘With your sword blade?’ she asked. In her tone was curi­os­ity, no more.

  ‘Only the rough parts,’ he told her. ‘For the finer work, I use my knife. And then, for finest of all, my fin­gers and nails.’ He turned his head slowly, sur­vey­ing the im­mense statue. ‘I would like to say it is nearly done,’ he said fal­ter­ingly. ‘But how can I say that when there is still so much to do? So very much to do … and I fear it will all be too late. If it is not already too late.’

  ‘Too late for what?’ I asked him, my voice as gentle as Kettle’s had been.

  ‘Why … too late to save the folk of the Six Duch­ies.’ He peered at me as if I were simple. ‘Why else would I be do­ing it? Why else would I leave my land and my queen, to come here?’

  I tried to grasp what he was telling me, but one over­whelm­ing ques­tion popped out of my mouth. ‘You be­lieve you have carved this whole dragon?’