Assassin's Quest (UK)

Assassin's Quest (UK) Page 87

by Robin Hobb

  I saw little point in re­fus­ing. So I at­temp­ted to ex­plain. He in­ter­rup­ted with a num­ber of ques­tions, few of which I could an­swer. When he de­cided he un­der­stood it as well as words could con­vey it, he quirked a smile at me. ‘Let us go see this girl on a dragon,’ he sug­ges­ted.

  ‘Why?’ I asked war­ily.

  He lif­ted his right hand and waggled his sil­ver fin­ger­tips at me as he lif­ted one eye­brow.

  ‘No,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Afraid?’ he needled me.

  ‘We are on watch here,’ I told him severely.

  ‘Then you will go with me to­mor­row,’ he sug­ges­ted.

  ‘It is not wise, Fool. Who knows what ef­fect it might have on you?’

  ‘Not I. And that is ex­actly why I wish to do it. Be­sides. What call has a Fool to be wise?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I shall have to go alone,’ he said with a mock sigh.

  I re­fused to rise to the bait. After a mo­ment, he asked me, ‘What is it you know about Kettle that I do not?’

  I looked at him un­com­fort­ably. ‘About as much as I know about you that she does not.’

  ‘Ah. That was well spoken. Those words could have been stolen from me,’ he con­ceded. ‘Do you won­der why the co­terie has not tried to at­tack us again?’ he asked next.

  ‘Is this your night to ask un­for­tu­nate ques­tions?’ I de­man­ded.

  ‘Of late, I have no other kind.’

  ‘At the very least, I dare to hope that Car­rod’s death has weakened them. It must be a great shock to lose a mem­ber of your co­terie. Al­most as bad as los­ing a Wit-beast com­pan­ion.’

  ‘And what do you fear?’ the Fool pressed.

  It was a ques­tion I had been push­ing away from my­self. ‘What do I fear? The worst, of course. What I fear is that they are some­how mar­shalling greater strength against us, to off­set Ver­ity’s power. Or per­haps they are set­ting a trap for us. I fear they are turn­ing their Skill to seek­ing out Molly.’ I ad­ded the last with great re­luct­ance. It seemed the greatest bad luck even to think about it, let alone speak it aloud.

  ‘Can­not you Skill a warn­ing to her some­how?’

  As if it had never oc­curred to me. ‘Not without be­tray­ing her. I have never been able to reach Burrich with the Skill. Some­times, I am able to see them, but I can­not make them aware of me. I fear that even mak­ing the ef­fort might be enough to ex­pose her to the co­terie. He may know of her, but not know where she is. You told me that not even Chade him­self knew where she was. And Regal has many places to send his troops and at­ten­tion. Buck is far from Far­row, and the Red Ships have kept it in tur­moil. Surely he would not send troops into that for the sake of find­ing one girl.’

  ‘One girl and a Farseer child,’ the Fool re­minded me gravely. ‘Fitz. I do not speak to grieve you, but only to warn you. I have con­tained his an­ger at you. That night, when they held me …’ He swal­lowed and his eyes went dis­tant. ‘I have tried so hard to for­get it. If I touch those memor­ies at all, they seethe and burn within me like a poison I can­not be rid of. I have felt Regal’s very be­ing in­side my own. Hatred for you squirms through him like mag­gots through rot­ting meat.’ He shook his head, sickened at re­call­ing it. ‘The man is mad. He ascribes to you every evil am­bi­tion he can ima­gine. Your Wit he re­gards with loath­ing, and ter­ror. He can­not con­ceive that what you do, you do for Ver­ity. In his mind, you have de­voted your life to in­jur­ing him since you came to Buck­keep. He be­lieves that both Ver­ity and you have come to these Moun­tains not to wake the Eld­er­lings to de­fend Buck, but to find some Skill-treas­ure or power to use against him. He be­lieves he has no choice but to act first, to find whatever it is you seek and turn it against you. To that, he bends all his re­sources and de­term­in­a­tion.’

  I listened to the Fool in a sort of frozen hor­ror. His eyes had taken on the stare of a man who re­calls tor­ture. ‘Why have you not spoken of this to me be­fore?’ I asked him gently when he paused to catch his breath. The skin of his arms was stand­ing up in goose­flesh.

  He looked away from me. ‘It is not a thing I en­joy re­call­ing.’ He was trem­bling very lightly. ‘They were in my mind like evil, idle chil­dren, smash­ing what they could not grasp. I could keep noth­ing back from them. But they were not in­ter­es­ted in me at all. They re­garded me as less than a dog. Angry, in that mo­ment of find­ing I was not you. They nearly des­troyed me be­cause I was not you. Then they con­sidered how they might use me against you.’ He coughed. ‘If that Skill-wave had not come …’

  I felt like Chade him­self as I said quietly, ‘Now I will turn that back upon them. They could not hold you in thrall like that without re­veal­ing much of them­selves to you. As much as you can, I ask you to reach back to that time, and tell me all you can re­call.’

  ‘You would not ask that, if you knew what you were ask­ing.’

  I thought I did know, but I re­frained from say­ing it. In­stead, I let si­lence bid him think it through. Dawn was grey­ing the sky, and I had just re­turned from walk­ing a cir­cuit of our camp when next he spoke.

  ‘There were Skill books you know noth­ing about. Books and scrolls that Ga­len re­moved from So­li­city’s rooms as she was dy­ing. The in­form­a­tion they held was for a Skill­mas­ter alone, and some were even fastened shut with clever locks. Ga­len had many years to tinker those locks loose. A lock does no more than keep an hon­est man hon­est, you know. Ga­len found there much he did not un­der­stand. But there were also scrolls list­ing those who had been Skill-trained. Ga­len sought out all he could find and ques­tioned them. Then he did away with them, lest oth­ers should ask them the same ques­tions he had. Ga­len found much in those scrolls. How a man might live long and en­joy good health. How to give pain with the Skill, without even touch­ing a man. But in the old­est scrolls he found hints of great power await­ing a strongly Skilled man in the Moun­tains. If Regal could bring the Moun­tains un­der his sway, he could come into power no one could with­stand. To that end did he seek the hand of Kettricken for Ver­ity, with no in­tent that she would ever be his bride. He in­ten­ded that when Ver­ity was dead, he would take her in his brother’s stead. And her in­her­it­ance.’

  ‘I don’t un­der­stand,’ I said gently. ‘The Moun­tains have am­ber and furs and …’

  ‘No. No.’ The Fool shook his head. ‘It was noth­ing like that. Ga­len would not di­vulge the whole of his secret to Regal, for he then would have had no hold over his half-brother. But you can be sure that when Ga­len died, Regal im­me­di­ately pos­sessed those scrolls and books and set to study­ing them. He is no mas­ter of the older lan­guages, but he feared to seek the help of oth­ers, lest they dis­cover the secret first. But he puzzled it out at last, and when he did, he was hor­ri­fied. For by then he had eagerly dis­patched Ver­ity into the Moun­tains to die on some fool­ish quest. He fi­nally ciphered out that the power Ga­len had sought for him was power over the Eld­er­lings. Im­me­di­ately he de­cided Ver­ity had con­spired with you to seek that very power for him­self. How dare he seek to steal the very treas­ure that Regal had worked so long to gain! How dare he try to make a fool of Regal in such a way!’ The Fool smiled weakly. ‘In his mind, his dom­in­a­tion over the Eld­er­lings is his birth­right. You seek to steal it from him. He be­lieves he up­holds what is right and just by try­ing to kill you.’

  I sat nod­ding to my­self. The pieces all fit, every one of them. Holes in my un­der­stand­ing of Regal’s motives were be­ing closed up, to present me with a fright­en­ing pic­ture. I had known the man was am­bi­tious. I also knew he feared and sus­pec­ted any­one or any­thing he could not con­trol. I had been a double danger to him, a rival for his father’s af­fec­tion and with a strange Wit-tal­ent he could neither un­der­stand nor des­troy. To Regal, every other per­son in the world was a
tool or a threat. All threats must be des­troyed.

  He had prob­ably never con­sidered that all I wanted from him was to be left alone.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Kettle’s Secrets

  Nowhere is there men­tion of who raised the Wit­ness Stones that stand on the hill near Buck­keep. They may very well pre-date the ac­tual build­ing of Buck­keep Castle it­self. Their sup­posed power seems to have little to do with the wor­ship of Eda or El, but folk be­lieve in it with the same fierce re­li­gious fer­vour. Even those who pro­fess to doubt the ex­ist­ence of any gods at all would still hes­it­ate to give false oath be­fore the Wit­ness Stones. Black and weathered those tall stones stand. If ever they bore in­scrip­tions of any kind, wind and wa­ter have erased them.

  Ver­ity was the first of the oth­ers to rise that morn­ing. He came stag­ger­ing from his tent as the first true light of day brought col­our back to the world. ‘My dragon!’ he cried as he stood blink­ing in the light. ‘My dragon!’ For all the world as if he ex­pec­ted it to be gone.

  Even when I as­sured him his dragon was fine, he was like a spoiled child. He wished to re­sume his work on it in­stantly. With the greatest dif­fi­culty, I per­suaded him to drink a mug of nettle and mint tea, and eat some of the slow-cooked meat from the skew­ers. He would not wait for the por­ridge to boil, but left the fire with meat and sword in hand. He did not men­tion Kettricken at all. In time the scrape, scrape, scrape of the sword’s point against the black stone re­sumed. The shadow I had seen of Ver­ity last night had fled with the morn­ing’s com­ing.

  It seemed strange to greet a new day and not im­me­di­ately pack up all our be­long­ings. No one was in a good hu­mour. Kettricken was puffy-eyed and si­lent, Kettle sour and re­served. The wolf was still di­gest­ing all the meat he had con­sumed the day be­fore and only wanted to sleep. Starling seemed an­noyed with every­one, as if it were our fault that our quest had ended in such con­fus­ing dis­ap­point­ment. After we had eaten, Starling de­clared that she was go­ing to check on the jep­pas and do some wash­ing in the stream the Fool had found. Kettle grump­ily agreed to go with her for safety, though her eyes strayed of­ten to Ver­ity’s dragon. Kettricken was up there also, gloomily watch­ing her hus­band and king as he gouged away at the black stone. I busied my­self in re­mov­ing the fire-dried meat, wrap­ping it, re­fuel­ling the slow fire and put­ting the rest of the meat to dry over it.

  ‘Let’s go,’ the Fool in­vited me as soon as I was fin­ished.

  ‘Where?’ I asked, think­ing long­ingly of a nap.

  ‘The girl on a dragon,’ he re­minded me. He set off eagerly, not even look­ing back to see if I fol­lowed. He knew I must.

  ‘I think this is a fool­ish idea,’ I called after him.

  ‘Ex­actly,’ he replied with a grin, and would say no more un­til we ap­proached the great statue.

  The girl on a dragon seemed more qui­es­cent this morn­ing, but per­haps I was merely be­com­ing more ac­cus­tomed to the trapped Wit-un­rest I sensed there. The Fool did not hes­it­ate, but im­me­di­ately clambered up on the dais be­side the statue. I fol­lowed more slowly. ‘She looks dif­fer­ent to me today,’ I said quietly.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I can’t say.’ I stud­ied her bent head, the stone tears frozen on her cheeks. ‘Does she look dif­fer­ent to you?’

  ‘I didn’t really look at her that closely yes­ter­day.’

  Now that we were ac­tu­ally here, the Fool’s banter seemed dampened. Very gingerly, I set a hand to the dragon’s back. The in­di­vidual scales were so cun­ningly worked, the curve of the beast’s body so nat­ural that I al­most ex­pec­ted it to heave with breath. It was cold, hard stone. I held my breath, dar­ing my­self, then ques­ted to­ward the stone. It felt un­like any quest­ing I had ever done be­fore. There was no beat­ing heart, no rush of breath, nor any other phys­ical sign of life to guide me. There was only my Wit-sense of life, trapped and des­per­ate. For a mo­ment it eluded me; then I brushed against it, and it ques­ted back to me. It sought the feel of wind on skin, the warm pump­ing of blood, oh, the scents of the sum­mer day, the sen­sa­tion of my cloth­ing against my skin, any and all that was part of the ex­per­i­ence of liv­ing it hungered for. I snatched my hand back, frightened by the in­tens­ity of its reach­ing. Al­most I thought it might draw me in to join it there.

  ‘Strange,’ whispered the Fool, for linked to me as he was, he felt the ripples of my ex­per­i­ence. His eyes met mine and held for some time. Then he reached a single bare sil­ver fin­ger­tip to­ward the girl.

  ‘We should not do this,’ I said, but there was no force in my words. The slender fig­ure astride the dragon was dressed in a sleeve­less jer­kin, leg­gings and san­dals. The Fool touched his fin­ger to her up­per arm.

  A Skill-scream of pain and out­rage filled the quarry. The Fool was flung back­wards off the ped­es­tal, to land hard on his back on the rock be­low. He sprawled there sense­less. My knees buckled un­der me and I fell be­side the dragon. From the tor­rent of Wit-an­ger I felt, I ex­pec­ted the creature to trample me un­der­foot like a maddened horse. In­stinct­ively I curled up, my arms shel­ter­ing my head.

  It was done in an in­stant, yet the echoes of that cry seemed to re­bound end­lessly from the slick black stone walls and blocks all around us. I was shakily clam­ber­ing down to check on the Fool when Nighteyes came rush­ing up to us. What was that? Who threatens us? I knelt by the Fool. He had struck his head and blood was leak­ing onto the black stone, but I didn’t think that was why he was un­con­scious. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have done it. Why did I let you do it?’ I asked my­self as I gathered him up to take him back to camp.

  ‘Be­cause you’re a big­ger fool than he is. And I am the biggest of all, to have left you alone and trus­ted you to act with sense. What did he do?’ Kettle was still puff­ing from her hurry.

  ‘He touched the girl on the dragon. With the Skill on his fin­ger.’

  I glanced up at the statue as I spoke. To my hor­ror, there was a bright sil­ver fin­ger­print on the girl’s up­per arm, out­lined in scar­let against her bronze-toned flesh. Kettle fol­lowed my gaze and I heard her gasp. She spun on me and lif­ted her gnarled hand as if to strike me. Then she clenched her hand into a con­tor­ted fist that trembled and forced it down by her side. ‘Is it not enough that she is trapped there in misery forever, alone and cut off from all she once loved? You two must come to give her pain on top of all that! How could you be so vi­cious?’

  ‘We meant no harm. We did not know …’

  ‘Ig­nor­ance is al­ways the ex­cuse used by the cruelly curi­ous!’ Kettle snarled.

  My own tem­per sud­denly rose to match hers. ‘Don’t re­buke me with my ig­nor­ance, wo­man, when all you have done is re­fuse to lift it for me. You hint and warn and give us omin­ous words, but you re­fuse to speak any­thing that might help us. And when we make mis­takes, you rail at us, say­ing we should have known bet­ter. How? How can we know bet­ter when the one who does re­fuses to share her know­ledge with us?’

  In my arms, the Fool stirred faintly. The wolf had been prowl­ing about my feet. Now he came back with a whine to sniff at the Fool’s dangling hand.

  Care­ful! Don’t let his fin­gers touch you!

  What bit him?

  I don’t know. ‘I don’t know any­thing,’ I said aloud, bit­terly. ‘I’m blun­der­ing in the dark, hurt­ing every­one I care about in the pro­cess.’

  ‘I dare not in­ter­fere,’ Kettle shouted at me. ‘What if some word of mine set you on the wrong course? What of all the proph­ecies then? You must find your own way, Cata­lyst.’

  The Fool opened his eyes to look at me blankly. Then he closed them again and leaned his head on my shoulder. He was start­ing to get heavy and I needed to find out what was wrong with him. I shrugged him up more firmly in my arms. I saw Starling com­ing up be­hind Kettle, her a
rms laden with wet laun­dry. I turned and walked away from them both. As I headed back to camp with the Fool, I said over my shoulder, ‘Maybe that is why you are here. Maybe you were called here, with a part to play. Maybe it is lift­ing our ig­nor­ance so we can ful­fil this be­damned proph­ecy of yours. And maybe keep­ing your si­lence is how you will thwart it. But,’ and I hal­ted to fling the words sav­agely over my shoulder, ‘I think you keep si­lent for reas­ons of your own. Be­cause you are ashamed!’

  I turned away from the stricken look on her face. I covered my shame to have spoken to her so with my an­ger. It gave me new strength of pur­pose. I was sud­denly de­term­ined that I was go­ing to start mak­ing every­one be­have as they should. It was the sort of child­ish res­ol­u­tion that of­ten got me into trouble, but once my heart had seized hold of it, my an­ger gripped it tight.

  I car­ried the Fool into the big tent and laid him out on his bed­ding. I took a ragged sleeve off what re­mained of a shirt, damped it in cool wa­ter, and ap­plied it firmly to the back of his head. When the bleed­ing slowed, I checked it. It was not a large cut, but it was on top of a re­spect­able lump. I still felt that was not why he had fain­ted. ‘Fool?’ I said to him quietly, then more in­sist­ently, ‘Fool?’ I pat­ted his face with wa­ter. He came awake with a simple open­ing of his eyes. ‘Fool?’

  ‘I’ll be all right, Fitz,’ he said wanly. ‘You were right. I should not have touched her. But I did. And I shall never be able to for­get it.’

  ‘What happened?’ I de­man­ded.

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t talk about it just yet,’ he said quietly.

  I shot to my feet, head slap­ping against the tent roof and nearly bring­ing the whole struc­ture down around me. ‘No one in this whole com­pany can talk about any­thing!’ I de­clared furi­ously. ‘Ex­cept me. And I in­tend to talk about everything.’

 

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