by Robin Hobb
Six Duchies lore
‘Fitz? Fitz? Bee? BEE!’ A pause. ‘FITZ! She’s hurt! Fitz! Damn you, where are you?’
I didn’t recall lying down. Had he been calling my name, over and over? I was woozy and tired. The Fool’s voice came from far away. ‘I’m here,’ I replied slowly. Ringing silence answered me. Absolute darkness all around me. ‘Fool? Is that you?’
‘Yes. Don’t move. I’m coming to you. Keep talking.’
‘I’m here. I’m … I can’t get up. There’s something on top of me.’ I reached for my last memory. Clerres. A tunnel. Bee! ‘What happened? Where are Bee and the others?’
‘I have Bee!’ The Fool’s voice was a drawn-out wail. ‘She’s alive but not aware!’
‘Be careful! Don’t move—’
Too late. I heard him scrabble over loose rubble and then felt his groping touch. Wheezing with pain, he sat down heavily near me. I reached for him and found Bee’s small, slack body in his arms. ‘Eda and El, no! Not this way, not when we are so close! Fool. Is she breathing?’
‘I think so. I can feel fresh blood but I’m not sure where it comes from. Fitz, Fitz, what are we to do?’
‘First, be calm.’ I tried to move closer to him. I could not. My legs were pinned to the earth. I was on my back. Slowly awareness crept back to me through my panic. My head was lower than my feet. The steps. I had fallen on the steps. And something was on top of my legs just above my knees. I groped toward it but could barely reach it with my fingertips. I tightened my belly muscles and tried to sit up toward it. My back screamed and I gave it up. ‘Fool, there’s something on top of my legs. I can’t get up. Set Bee down carefully. Let me touch her.’
I could hear his uneven breathing as he lowered my child to a rubble-strewn step beside me. ‘Are you hurt?’ I thought to ask him.
‘Far less than I deserve to be. It’s my foot, the one they smashed. It’s dragging. Oh, Fitz, she is still so small! After all she has been through, must we lose her now?’
‘Be steady, Fool.’ I had not heard him so emotional since Shrewd died. I forced a calm I didn’t feel into my own voice. I could not allow him to panic. ‘You must be her strength now. Here is my hand. Set it on her head.’
The darkness was complete. I touched her hair, her ears, nose and mouth. Scars, yes, but no fresh blood from her ears and nose. I next checked her chest and belly. Then I cautiously patted each of her limbs. I ventured along the Skill-thread we shared. I found her awareness, curled small but whole. ‘Fool, she is just stunned. Her shoulder is damp, but it’s not very warm. It may be only water. Unless … is it your blood?’
‘Oh. Perhaps. My scalp is bleeding. And I think my shoulder.’
Worse and worse. I had to focus. Order my thoughts. ‘Fool, I know what happened. Spark’s pack was left behind in the dungeon. She had some of Chade’s firepots in it. At least one exploded when the ceiling fell on them. There may be more back there. We must get Bee out of here. Immediately. Help me get free.’
‘What of Bee? Can you wake her?’
‘Why? So she can be frightened with us? Fool, she will wake on her own soon enough. Let us be ready before she does. Help me get free.’
His hands moved down my belly and then over my thighs. ‘A beam came down,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s across your legs. With rubble on top of it.’ His hands touched my leg and tried to push under it. I clenched my teeth against the pain that woke. He moved his hand under my leg and tried to force it between my flesh and the edge of the stair. ‘You are pinned against the stone steps. I can’t dig anything away from underneath you.’
Our mutual silence was a second darkness. I had my hand on Bee’s chest. I could feel it rise and fall. She lived. I heard the Fool swallow. I spoke past the ringing in my ears.
‘Bee is what matters now, Fool. Remember? We agreed on this. If it came to a choice and you had to make it? The dividing place is now, and there is no choice. You cannot save me. Pick her up and carry her out of here, while you still can. Because if the fire reaches another firepot the rest of the ceiling may come down. And we know the water is rising in the tunnel. No time to wait. Go now.’
I heard him trying to catch his breath in the silence. ‘Fitz, I can’t.’
‘You must. There’s no time to argue. I’ll say it for you. You don’t want to leave me here to die. I don’t want you to leave me here to die. But you must and you will. I’m done for. Save my child. Save our child.’
‘But … I can’t …’ He sobbed in a breath. ‘My foot is broken again. And my shoulder is bleeding a lot, Fitz. A lot.’
‘Come here. Let me feel it.’ I tried to speak calmly. I did not feel calm at all.
‘I’m right here,’ he said.
I had a moment of absolute clarity and inspiration. I felt his hands touch my face, one gloved, one with bare fingertips. Perfect. I reached up and caught his gloved wrist and held it tight. ‘You can,’ I said, as I peeled the glove from his hand. ‘And you will. Take what’s left of me, Fool, and save Bee.’
‘What?’ he demanded. And then, as he realized my intent, he struggled, but with his shoulder torn he had no real strength. I pressed his silvered fingers to the side of my throat. I felt it then, an ecstasy that burned but filled me with joy. Then the connection came, just as it had that time in Verity’s tower room. ‘Too much’, I had said then, and fled from it. Now I wrapped it with my awareness. I felt the Fool and saw his sparkling tumble of life and secrets like the stars in a night sky. No, not taking from him. His secrets were always his to keep. How to do this? He was trying to pull his hand clear of my grip, but I was doing the last thing I expected to do with my life, so I had to do it thoroughly. There could be no mercy for either of us. I threw my other arm around him, pulled him into a hard embrace and held him tight despite his struggles. The boundaries between us gave way. We were merging in a way that felt like a healing. I sensed the torn meat of his shoulder, knew a striating crack in the bone there and the stabbing pain of the little broken bones in his foot. I spoke into his panting mouth. ‘Be still. Don’t fight me. This must happen.’
I drew a breath and held it. Gripping his wrist hard, I embraced him with more than my arms. As I breathed out hard, I pushed my strength, my healing, my all through the connection I had forced. I recalled how I had taken strength from Riddle. Let it flow the other way, I thought, and poured it into him. I needed nothing of what was left. I touched the damage inside him. He shuddered at the pain, and went still.
You leave little for us, my brother.
All the more to save Bee.
The Fool lay stunned in my arms, sprawled on my chest. His resistance was gone. I let my fingers walk over his shoulder. Shirt and skin were torn. The hanging flap of flesh dizzied me. I lifted it into place, held it firmly there, sealed it. Bone be whole and flesh be knit. I healed him fiercely, as swiftly as I could force it, sparing neither of us.
You should go with him, Nighteyes. You should go with Bee.
If we end here, then I meet the end with you. As you ended with me.
How is the hunting where you are?
It will be better with you.
I’m coming to you, my brother.
I willed my Skill into the Fool’s body. All of it. I forced his ankle to straighten, pushed the tendon to where Chade’s old books had showed me it was supposed to be. Be made right, I commanded it, and with my Skill went my strength. I felt myself dwindle. The Fool stirred, then shuddered at the pain; he fainted again. Good. He could not fight me.
But I had a last struggle—with myself. I felt myself soaking into him. If I let go, we would be what I had glimpsed when I had called him back from death. I’d be home, with him. A whole thing. But no.
That was not a decision for you to make. I would not go with you.
I know. I know.
The Fool had to live on as himself. He had to save Bee, not me. We had promised one another.
My arm fell away from him. I peeled my awareness away from him. Wit
h the last of my strength, I found Bee’s curly little head and set my hand on it. Eda protect you, I prayed to a god I’d never known. I found the Skill-thread to her, snapped it. Then, with certainty, I whispered, ‘The Fool will save you.’
He was already stirring. Time to leave. Time to make this choice mine, not his. I sighed out a final breath and found Nighteyes waiting for me.
Are you ready, my brother?
Yes. I sank into the nothing.
THIRTY-EIGHT
* * *
Ship of Dragons
The white prophet Gerda was barely twenty when she set out into the world to find her Catalyst. She had dreamed of her often since she was an infant. She travelled far from the peaceful green lands of her birth, going both by sea and by land, to a village far in the mountains where a peak smoked in the distance and glowed red at night.
She came to Cullena’s home. Cullena was a grandmother who lived with her son and his wife. During the day while her children hunted and fished, she had the care of their seven youngsters. This Cullena did without complaint, though her bones ached and her eyes were dimming. Gerda came to her home and sat down on the doorstep and would not go. Cullena did not know why she had come, or why she would not leave. ‘Here is food for you, and now you must depart,’ she told Gerda.
But at nightfall, the White Prophet was still there.
‘You may sleep by the fire, for the nights are cold, but in the morning you must go,’ she said to Gerda.
But in the morning, Gerda sat once more on the doorstep.
Finally Cullena said to her, ‘If you must be here, be of some use. Sit and churn the milk to make the butter, or rock the cradle for the squalling baby or stitch the furs into winter cloaks, for we are not far from a time of snow.’
And all of these things Gerda did, without complaint or recompense other than food to eat and a place by the fire. She served a folk not her own just as Cullena had. And so Cullena’s family came to love her. Gerda taught the children, too, to read and to write and to understand numbers and amounts and distances. She kept Cullena alive for many a year, and in turn Cullena let her stay, and as years passed Gerda taught the children of the children as well, to the number of forty children.
And then, their children.
Thus did she change the world, for from among those she taught a woman arose who brought her people together, and they raised sturdy homes and clever children. They lived with the forest instead of upon it, caring for their territory and their people. They served one another well. A descendant of that woman became a man who was a servant to all of the folk who lived in those mountains, and in that way he led them.
As did those who came after him, each one taking up the mantle of one who leads by serving.
And thus did the White Prophet Gerda change the world.
Accounts of the Prophets of Old
I remembered when I was cold and Revel was carrying me into the house. We were going down steps. But I was wet-cold, not snow-cold. My feet were dragging in water. Or was it snow? I lifted my head from his shoulder. ‘Revel?’ I whispered into the scintillating light.
‘Bee? You’re awake?’ The light was talking to me. It was a nexus, shimmering with possible futures. It was not Revel. This light was a jabbing, glittering thing, stabbing and prickling me. I tightened my muscles to fling myself away but it spoke again, ‘Don’t do that. It’s dark here and water is coming into the tunnel. You took a bad fall. You’ve been unconscious.’
‘Put me down! It’s too much!’
‘Too much?’ he whispered. He sounded confused.
I put up my walls but it did not dim. The light did not illuminate, it blinded. So many possibilities striating out from this moment. ‘Let me go!’ I begged him.
Still he hesitated. ‘Are you sure? The water will be deep for you. Perhaps chest-deep. And it’s cold.’
‘Too many paths!’ I shouted at him. ‘Let me go, put me down, let me go!’
‘Oh, Bee,’ he said, and I knew him. The blind beggar from the marketplace. The one my father called Fool. Beloved, come to save me. I did not like how slowly he lowered me into the water, but he was right. It came to the bottom of my ribs and was cold enough to make me catch my breath.
I stepped back from him and nearly fell. He caught at the ragged shoulder of my shirt. I let him hold onto it. Blessed darkness wrapped me. ‘Where is Per?’ He was the first safe person who came to mind. Then, ‘Where is my father?’
‘You left Per at the mouth of the tunnel. We will reach there soon. I hope. It’s slow going. Wading against the water is work.’ Carefully he asked me, ‘Do you remember where we are and what happened?’
‘Some of it.’ I wished he would speak louder. My ears were full of a ringing. My father had probably gone ahead with the others. To catch the fleeing Whites. I wished he had not left me. I took a step, stumbled, splashed and stood upright.
‘I can still carry you if you wish.’
‘No. I’d rather walk. Don’t you understand? When you touch me, you make me see all the paths. All of them, at once!’
He was silent. Or was he? ‘Talk louder!’ I begged him.
‘I saw nothing when I carried you. No paths. Only the dark that we move through, Bee. Take my hand. Let me lead you.’ I felt his fingers brush my bare arm. I twitched away from him.
‘I can follow your voice.’
‘This way, Bee,’ he said with a sigh and began to walk away from me. Beneath the cold water the floor was flat but gritty under my feet. I held my arms above the water. It was hard to take a deep breath that way. I followed him for a few steps and then asked again, ‘Where is my father?’
‘Back there, Bee. You know there was a fire, and you know about the firepots we carried. There was an explosion, and the ceiling collapsed. Your father … it came down on him.’
I stopped walking. With chill water to my waist, with dark all round me, a different, colder sort of darkness was rising inside me. I found there was something beyond pain and fear. That something was filling me.
‘I know,’ he said hoarsely. But I knew he could not possibly know what I was feeling. He spoke on. ‘We must hurry. I carried you down a slope and the water got deeper. Now we are on the level, but the water is still rising. It’s the tide coming in. This tunnel may fill completely. We cannot tarry.’
‘My father is dead? How? How can he be dead and you be alive?’
‘Walk,’ he commanded me. He began to slosh forward again and I followed him. I heard him take a breath and then after something that sounded like a sob, he said thickly, ‘Fitz is dead.’ He tried to continue speaking but could not. Eventually, he said, ‘He and I both knew it might come down to a choice. You heard him say as much. I promised that I would choose you. It was his wish.’ In a choked voice he asked me, ‘Do you recall your dream of the scales?’
‘I have to go back to him!’
He was fast. Even in the dark, he caught my wrist and gripped it tight. I staggered from the light, and then he had me by the back of my shirt. ‘I can’t allow that. There is no time and there is no point. He was dead when we left him, Bee. I heard no breath from him; I felt no beat of his heart. Did you think I would leave him alive and trapped?’ His voice had started out tight and level, but it ended wild. His breathing was hoarse and echoed. ‘The last thing I can do for him is take you out of here. Now we go.’ He walked on, half-dragging me through the water. I kicked but could not fight him. I tried to twist out of his grip. ‘Don’t,’ he said, and it was a plea. ‘Bee, don’t make me force you. I don’t want to.’ His voice broke on the words. ‘It is as much as I can do to force myself to go on. I wish I could go back and be dead beside him. But I have to take you out of here! Why did Lant let you come back alone?’ He sounded grieved about that. As if I were a helpless little girl. Or it could be someone else’s fault.
‘He didn’t,’ I pointed out. ‘I told Per to stay and guard the door while I came back to warn you.’
‘What of Prilkop?
’ he demanded suddenly.
‘I passed him on my way to warn you.’
‘How much farther to the door?’
‘We’re on the flat part. Then we come to a place where the floor slopes up. Then the long stairs. Then a small flat place and more stairs to the door. Did it … crush him?’
‘Bee,’ he said very softly.
‘He said he wouldn’t leave me again!’
He said nothing.
‘He can’t be dead!’ I wailed.
‘Bee. You know that he is.’
Did I? I felt for him, inside my mind. I lowered my walls and groped to where he had been. No Wolf Father. And the connection he had shared with me since he had touched my head … gone. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Yes.’
That was the most terrible word I had ever heard. I reached out and caught the sleeve of his shirt. I held to it and together we walked faster, as if we could run away from his death.
The floor had remained level but the water was getting deeper. We walked on through the blackness. Water sloshed around my chest. The floor began to slant upwards, but the water still became deeper.
‘Faster,’ he said, and I tried.
‘What’s going to become of me?’ I asked suddenly. It was a terrible, selfish question. My father was dead and I wanted to know what would happen to me?
‘I’ll take care of you. And the first thing I will do is get you out of here to the ship that will take us somewhere safe. And then I’ll get you home.’
‘Home,’ I said, but the word was hollow. What was home? ‘I want Per!’
‘We’re going to Per. Hurry.’ He halted, pulled his sleeve down over his hand, and then seized mine. He dragged me through the rising water, moving so quickly that my feet barely touched the floor. He stumbled when we came to the first shallow step, and we both fell in the water. But in a moment he was on his feet and we were climbing the steps, fleeing the water that seemed to be chasing us. The steps were unevenly spaced. I banged my ankles and tripped and hit my shins. He didn’t let go of my hand but dragged me relentlessly on. For a long time, we climbed steps, but the water got shallower very slowly.