by Robin Hobb
Even as a small child, I’d had vivid dreams and instinctively known they were important and should be shared. At home, I’d recorded them in my journal. Since the Servants had stolen me, my dreams had grown darker and more ominous. I had neither spoken of them nor written them down. The unuttered dreams were lodged inside me, like a bone in my throat. With every additional dream, the driving compulsion to speak them aloud or write them down became stronger. The dream-images were confusing. I held a torch and stood at a crossroads under a wasp nest. A scarred little girl held a baby and Nettle smiled at her although both Nettle and the girl were weeping. A man burned the porridge he was cooking, and wolves howled in anguish. An acorn was planted in gravel, and a tree of flames grew from it. The earth shook and the black rain fell and fell and fell, making dragons choke and fall to the earth with torn wings. They were stupid dreams that made no sense but the urgency I felt to share them was like the need to vomit. I put my finger on the cold stone and pretended to write and draw. The pressure eased. I tilted my head up and looked at distant stars. No clouds. It was going to be very cold tonight. I struggled to wrap my shawl more warmly around me, to no avail.
A third day passed, and a fourth. Dwalia paced and muttered and studied her documents. My bruises began to fade but I still ached all over. The swelling over my eye had gone down but one of my back teeth still felt loose. The split flesh on my cheekbone was mostly closed over now. None of them cared.
‘Take me back through the stone,’ Reppin demanded on the fourth evening. ‘Perhaps they could save me, if we returned to the Six Duchies. At least I could die in a bed instead of in the dirt.’
‘Failures die in the dirt,’ Dwalia said without emotion.
Reppin made a stricken sound and lay down on her side. She drew her legs up, treasuring her infected arm close. My disgust with Dwalia equalled my hatred in that moment.
Alaria spoke quietly into the gathering dimness. ‘We can’t stay here. Where will we go? Why can’t we follow this old road? It must lead somewhere. Perhaps it goes to a town, with warm shelter and food.’
Dwalia had been sitting by the fire, holding her hands out to the warmth. She suddenly folded her arms across her chest and glared at Alaria. ‘Are you asking questions?’
Alaria looked down. ‘I was just wondering.’ She dared to lift her head. ‘Were not we luriks meant to advise you? Were not we sent to help you find the true Path and make correct decisions?’ Her voice rose in pitch. ‘Coultrie and Capra did not wish you to go. They only allowed this because Beloved had escaped! We were to hunt him down and kill him! And then, perhaps, capture the Unexpected Son, if Beloved had led you to him. But you let the Farseer take Beloved away, so we could ransack his home. All that killing! Now we are lost in a forest, with the useless girl you stole. Does she dream? No! What good is she? I wonder why you have brought us all here, to die! I wonder if the rumour was true, that Beloved did not “escape” but was released by you and Symphe?’
Dwalia shot to her feet and stood over Alaria. ‘I am a lingstra! You are a young and stupid lurik. If you want to wonder anything, wonder why the fire is dying. Go get more wood.’
Alaria hesitated as if she would argue. Then she rose stiffly and walked reluctantly into the gathering gloom under the great trees. Over the last few days, we had gathered all the close dry wood. She would have to range deeper into the forest to find more. I wondered if she would come back. Twice Wolf Father had noted a faint but foul smell on the air. Bear, he had cautioned me. I had been frightened.
He does not want to approach so many humans near a fire. But if he changes his mind, let the others shriek and run. You cannot run fast or far. So lie very still and do not make a sound. It may be he will chase after the others.
But if he does not?
Lie still and don’t make a sound.
I had not been reassured, and I hoped that Alaria would return and bring an armful of firewood with her.
‘You,’ Dwalia said suddenly. ‘Go with her.’
‘You already tied my feet for the night,’ I pointed out to her. ‘And my hands.’ I tried to sound sullen. If she cut me free to go for wood, I was almost certain I could slip away in the gloom.
‘Not you. I’m not having you run off in the dark, to die in the forest. Reppin. Fetch wood.’
Reppin looked incredulous. ‘I can barely move this arm. I can’t fetch wood.’
Dwalia stared at her. I thought she might order her to her feet. Instead, she just pursed her mouth. ‘Useless,’ she said coldly, and then added, ‘Vindeliar, fetch wood.’
Vindeliar rose slowly. He kept his eyes cast down, but I could read his resentment in the set of his shoulders as he wandered off in the same direction that Alaria had gone.
Dwalia went back to doing what she did every evening: studying the little scroll and the tattered paper. Earlier, she had spent hours circling the pillars at the edge of the plaza, her eyes going from the parchment she’d found to the runes and back again. Some of those markings I had seen in my father’s papers in his study. Would she attempt another passage through the Skill-pillars? She had also made brief forays on the road in both directions, and had returned shaking her head and irritable. I could not decide which I feared more, that she would drag us into the Skill-pillar or starve us here.
Across the plaza, Kerf was engaged in a boot-stamping dance. If I allowed myself, I could hear the music and see the Elderlings who danced all about him. Alaria returned with some frozen branches broken green from trees. They might burn but would give little warmth. Vindeliar came behind her, carrying a broken piece of rotted log, more moss than wood. As they approached the fire, Kerf danced a foot-stamping jig around them. ‘Go away!’ Alaria shouted at him, but he only grinned as he spun away to rejoin the festivities of the spectral Elderlings.
I did not like camping in the open ground of the plaza, but Dwalia thought the forest floor was ‘dirty’. But dirt was much better than the smooth black stone of the plaza that gibbered and whispered to me constantly. Awake, I could keep my walls tight, though I was weary of the effort that took. But at night, when exhaustion finally claimed me, I was vulnerable to the voices stored in the stone. Their marketplace came alive with smoking meat over fragrant fires, and jugglers flipping sparkling gems and one pale songster who seemed to see me. ‘Be strong, be strong, go where you belong!’ she sang to me. But her words more frightened than comforted me. In her eyes, I saw her belief that I would do a terrible and wonderful thing. A thing only I could do? The Chalcedean abruptly dropped into place beside me. I jumped. My walls were so tight I had not been aware of his approach. Danger! Wolf Father cautioned me. Kerf folded his legs and gave me a jaunty grin. ‘A fine night for the festival!’ he said to me. ‘Have you tried the smoked goat? Excellent!’ He pointed across the plaza at the darkening forest. ‘From the vendor with the purple awning.’
Madness made him such a congenial fellow. His mention of food made my stomach clench. ‘Excellent,’ I said quietly, and looked aside, thinking that agreeing might be the swiftest way to end the conversation.
He nodded gravely and walked his haunches a bit closer to the fire, holding his grimy hands toward the warmth. Even mad, he’d had more sense than Reppin. A rag torn from his shirt bandaged the finger I’d bitten. He opened the sturdy leather pouch at his belt and rummaged in it. ‘Here,’ he said and thrust a stick at me. I lifted my bound hands to fend it off and he pushed it into my fingers. I suddenly smelled meat. Jerky. The rush of hunger and the flood of saliva in my mouth shocked me. My hands shook as I lifted it to my mouth. It was dry and so hard I could not bite off a piece. I chewed and sucked on it, and found myself breathing hard as I tried to gnaw off a piece I could swallow.
‘I know what you did.’
I clutched the stick of jerky harder, fearful he would take it from me. I said nothing. Dwalia had lifted her gaze from her papers and was scowling at us. I knew she would not try to take the jerky from me, for fear of my teeth.
He pa
tted my shoulder. ‘You tried to save me. If I had let go when you bit me, I would have stayed there with beautiful Shun. I understand that now. You wanted me to stay behind, to protect her and win her.’
I kept chewing the jerky. To get as much of it as I could into my belly before anyone could take it from me. Belatedly I nodded at him. Let him believe whatever he wished if it meant he would give me food.
He sighed as he gazed at the night. ‘I think we are in the realm of death. It is very different to what I expected. I feel cold and pain but I hear music and see beauty. I do not know if I am punished or rewarded. I do not know why I am still with these people instead of judged by my ancestors.’ He gave Dwalia a gloomy look. ‘These folks are darker than death. Perhaps that is why we are lodged here, halfway down death’s throat.’
I nodded again. I’d managed to tear a bit of the meat free and was chewing it to shreds. I had never so greatly anticipated swallowing anything.
He twisted away from me and fumbled at his belt. When he turned back, a large gleaming knife was in his hand. I tried to scrabble back from him, but he caught my tied feet and pulled them to him. The knife was sharp. It slid through the twisted fabric and suddenly my ankles were free. I kicked free of his grip. He reached toward me. ‘Now your wrists,’ he said.
Trust or not? That knife could take off a finger just as easily as cut my bonds. I stuffed the stick of meat into my mouth and gripped it with my teeth. I held out my wrists to him.
‘This is tight! It hurts?’
Don’t answer.
I met his gaze silently.
‘Your wrists have swelled up around it.’ He slid the blade carefully between my hands. It was cold.
‘Stop that! What are you doing?’ Dwalia finally voiced her outrage.
The Chalcedean barely spared her a glance. He took one of my hands to steady his task and began sawing through the rag that bound them
Dwalia surprised me. She had been in the act of adding a hefty stick of wood to the fire. Instead she took two steps and clouted the Chalcedean on the back of his head. He went down, the knife still clutched in his hand. I tore my hands free of the last shred of rag and shot to my feet. I ran two steps on my buzzing feet before she seized me by the back of my collar, choking me. Her first two clouts with the stick were on my right shoulder and right ribs.
I twisted in her grasp, ignoring how it tightened the chokehold she had on me and kicked her as hard as I could, hitting her shin and then her knee. She shrieked with pain but did not let me go. Instead she struck the side of my head with her stick of firewood. My crushed ear rang and I tasted blood but the pain did not matter so much as the way my vision was shrinking. I spun away from her, but that allowed her to hit me on the other side of my head. Dimly, I knew she was shouting at the others to seize me. No one leapt to help her. Vindeliar was moaning, ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t,’ his voice going higher each time he said the word. It angered me that he would moan but do nothing. I pushed my pain at him.
She hit me on the side of my head again, smashing my ear. My knees folded and suddenly I was hanging by my collar. She was not strong enough to support my weight. She collapsed on top of me and my shoulder exploded with pain.
I felt a wave of emotion. It was like when Nettle and my father merged their minds, or when my father’s mind was boiling with thoughts and he had forgotten to hold them in. Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt her!
Dwalia let go of my collar and made a strange sound as she rolled off me. I didn’t try to move. I just breathed, pulling air back into my body. I’d lost the jerky. My mouth was full of blood. I turned my head and opened my lips to let it run out.
Don’t die. Please don’t die and leave me alone. Vindeliar’s thought whispered to me. Oh. That was it. When I’d pushed my pain at him, I’d opened a way for his thoughts to come in. Dangerous. With every bit of will power I could muster, I blocked him from my mind. Tears stung my eyes. Tears of fury. Dwalia’s calf was within reach of my teeth. I wondered if I could bite a piece of meat off her leg.
Don’t, cub. She still has the stick. Crawl away. Quietly. This is one you don’t attack until you are sure you can kill her.
I tried to wriggle away. But my arm wouldn’t obey me. It flopped uselessly. I was broken. I blinked at the pain and little black spots danced in front of my eyes. Dwalia got to her hands and knees and then stood up with a grunt and walked away without looking at me. When she reached the other side of the fire, she sat down on the pack again and resumed looking at her much-folded paper, and the little scroll she had taken from the bone. Slowly, she rotated the pieces of paper, then suddenly leaned closer to them. She set them side by side on her knees and looked from one to the other.
The Chalcedean sat up slowly. He reached around to the back of his head, brought his hand before his eyes and rubbed his wet fingertips together. He watched me sit up and shook his head at my flopping useless arm. ‘It’s broken,’ I whispered. I desperately wanted someone to care that I was hurt so badly.
‘Darker than death,’ he said quietly. He reached over and put his fingers on the point of my shoulder and prodded it. I yelped and flinched away. ‘Not broken,’ he observed. ‘But I don’t know your word for it.’ He made a fist and clasped it in his other hand. Then he pulled his fist out. ‘Popped out,’ he told me. He reached toward me again and I cowered away but he only waved at my shoulder. ‘Popped out.’
‘My arm won’t move.’ Panic was rising in me. I couldn’t get a breath.
‘Lie down. Be still. Be loose. Sometimes, it goes back in.’ He looked over at Dwalia. ‘She’s a wasp,’ he observed. I stared at him. He smiled sickly. ‘A Chalcedean saying. If the bee stings, it dies. It pays a price to hurt you. A wasp can bite and bite and bite again. It pays nothing for the pain it brings.’ He shrugged. ‘So they bite. They know nothing else.’
Dwalia suddenly shot to her feet. ‘I know where we are now!’ She looked back at the small scroll in her hands. ‘The runes match. It makes no sense, but it must be so!’ She stared into the distance; then her eyes narrowed and her features changed as she realized something. ‘He lied to us. He lied to ME!’ Dwalia roared. I had thought she was frightening when she was angry, but, outraged was far worse. ‘He lied to me! A market square, Prilkop claimed, on a well-travelled road. He thought he was so clever. He tricked me into bringing us here. He tricked me!’ This last she screamed, her face contorted into a stark mask. ‘Prilkop!’ Spit flew out of her mouth. ‘Always so condescending. So calmly superior. And Beloved, so silent, and then babbling, babbling. Babbling lies! Well, I made him scream. I tore the truth out of them both, didn’t I?’
‘Apparently not.’ Alaria breathed the words, looking at the space between her feet and the fire. I doubt anyone heard her besides me.
But Reppin’s head twitched as if she had and she tried to sit up straight. ‘You thought you did. You thought you ripped the truth out of his flesh. But he was stronger than you, wasn’t he? Cleverer. Prilkop tricked you into bringing us here, and here we are, in the middle of the wilderness. Starving. Dying!’ Her voice cracked.
Dwalia stared at Reppin, her eyes flat. Then she crushed the yellow map between her hands, stood up and thrust it into the pack she’d been sitting on. The little scroll she had found, she rolled and slid back into the tube. She flourished it at Reppin. ‘Not all of us, Reppin. Not all of us will die here.’ Her smile widened with pride. ‘I’ve deciphered it. Prilkop lied to me, but the true Path is not to be defied!’ She dug deeper into the pack and pulled out a small pouch, unwound the ties that secured it and withdrew a delicate glove. Wolf Father growled within me. I stared, feeling ill and not knowing why. Dwalia worked the glove slowly and carefully onto her hand, settling each fingertip into place. She had used it before, when she had dragged us through the Skill-pillar. She stood up. ‘Bring the packs and the captive. Follow me.’
The captive. My new title flowed over me like greasy water. Dwalia did not look back to see if they were obeying. She car
ried only her superiority as she strode to one of the pillars and studied the markings on it. ‘Where does it go?’ Alaria asked timidly.
‘That’s not for you to worry about.’
The Chalcedean had followed Dwalia. He was the only one who did. I shifted away from the fire. My hands were free, my feet untied. They tingled with dwindling numbness in contrast to the roaring pain in my shoulder. Could I stand and run? I pushed with my good hand braced on the ground and moved my aching body a bit closer to the darkness. If I could slowly edge into the darkness, I might be able to crawl away.
Reppin had staggered to her feet and was trying one-handed to pick up my coat from the ground. ‘I don’t know if I can carry a pack,’ she apologized. No one responded.
Ignoring Dwalia’s scowl, the Chalcedean stepped up beside her to regard the pillar. He reached out and traced the carved runes. ‘I know this one,’ he said, and smiled oddly. ‘I knelt almost upon it and had nothing else to stare at. I was six. We kept a vigil for my grandfather’s body in the Chamber of Toppled Doors in the Duke of Chalced’s stronghold. It was an honour for my grandfather’s body to be exposed in such a place. The next day, they burned his body on a pyre near the harbour.’
Dwalia snapped her stare back to him and smiled. ‘This was in Chalced, wasn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘It was half a day’s ride from my family’s holding there. The duke’s stronghold is said to be built on the site of an ancient battle. There were four pillars such as this one, all dragged down to the earth, sunken to be flush with the floor of the chamber. It is said to be good luck if you can break a chip from one to carry as a token. I tried, but the stone was as hard as iron.’
Her smile broadened. ‘As I thought! We are still on the true Path, my luriks. I am certain of it, when such good fortune smiles upon us.’ She tapped the little scroll-tube against her palm. ‘Fate has delivered a map into my hands. It’s oddly drawn and the writing is foreign, but I have puzzled it out. I know where we are on this map, and now I know that this pillar can transport us to Chalced. Kerf will take us to his family’s holding and introduce us as his friends. His family will give us supplies for our journey home.’ She swung her stare to Vindeliar. ‘Won’t he, Vindeliar?’