Assassin's Quest tft-3

by Robin Hobb

  I think the wolf and I sensed it at the same time. "There's something alive back there," I said quietly. "Deeper in the quarry."

  "What is it?" The Fool asked me.

  "I don't know." A shivering ran all over me. My Wit-sense of whatever was back there ebbed and flowed. The more I tried for a feel of what it was; the more it eluded me.

  "Verity?" Kettricken asked. It broke my heart to see hope quicken once more in her eyes.

  "No," I told her gently. "I don't think so. It doesn't feel like a human. It's like nothing I've ever sensed before." I paused and added, "I think you should all wait here while the wolf and I go see what it is."

  "No." Kettle spoke, not Kettricken, but when I glanced back at my queen, I saw her complete agreement.

  "If anything, I should have you and the Fool hang back while we investigate," she told me severely. "You are the ones at risk here. If Carrod has been here, Burl and Will could be back there."

  In the end it was decided we would all approach, but with great caution. We spread out in a fan and moved forward across the quarry floor. I could not tell them specifically where I sensed the creature, and so we were all on edge. The quarry was like a nursery floor with some immense child's blocks and toys scattered across it. We passed one partially carved block of stone. It had none of the finesse of the carvings we had seen in the stone garden. It was lumpish and crude, and somehow obscene. It reminded me of the fetus of a miscarried foal. It repulsed me and I slipped past it as swiftly as I could to my next vantage point.

  The others were doing likewise, moving from cover to cover, all of us endeavoring 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 heartbreaking 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 colors 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 the dragon's writhing 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 gray 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, gray of both hair and beard. His ragged garments were gray with stone-dust, and a smear of gray 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 gray 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 gapped 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 were 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 demeanor that of a man who recalls so
mething 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.

  Kettricken 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 heartrending 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 honored," 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 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 we
re 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 demeanor, 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."