by Robin Hobb
‘A dragon changed him. A dragon loves him very much. So Heeby, the red dragon, added something of herself to Rapskal, and he changed. And Rapskal’s dragon, Heeby, has taken on much of his thoughts and ways.’
I was listening intently.
‘For many years, I lived alongside your father. I think we both … changed each other.’ I saw his thoughts wander into a different trail. ‘He said once that he had become the Prophet and I the Catalyst. I thought long about his words. I decided that I wanted it to be so. For once, I wanted to make the change. So I came to Clerres Castle and tried to be the Changer.’
‘You were not very good at it.’
‘No. But when I first met your father, I would never even have thought of trying.’ He gave a great sigh. ‘I expect you to be angry at me, Bee. I will tell you this. I did what your father wanted me to do. I got you out safely. When I intrude on your life and privacy, it is because he charged me with taking care of you. My word to him comes first. I had hoped to win your respect, if not forge a closer bond. I understand that you resent that I am alive and Fitz is not. But why unleash this tonight?’
I steeled myself and looked into his pale eyes. ‘Tonight, you tried to act like my father. You said things he might have said. But you are not my father. I don’t want you to behave as if you are. You can teach me, yes; there are things I need to learn. But you are not my father. Don’t pretend you are.’
‘Actually,’ he began. Then he stopped.
He concealed something. He’d read my dreams and my journal, my most private thoughts, and still try to keep secrets from me? Insult most deep. I struck back. An omission was as good as a lie. ‘He wrote you a last letter. One he did not burn, for I think he wrote it mostly for himself. He told you that he understood why you had left. That your “friendship” had never been anything but how you could use him. He wrote that he was better off without you, for my mother loved him for who he was rather than how he could be used. In that letter, he said he hoped never to see you again, for you had twisted his life and robbed him of joy. That he was pleased to take control of his life and determine his own direction now.
‘But he saw you again and it happened again. You only came back to him to use him again. You destroyed our home, and he lies dead because of you. All you.’
I rolled away from him, not an easy task in a hammock. I stared up at the timbers and the shifting lantern shadows. My father would not have been pleased with me. I knew I should apologize and admit my falsehood. Even if I didn’t mean it? Perhaps.
I looked back at him, but he had fled.
FORTY-TWO
* * *
Furnich
And among the remnants of what was burned (And there was not much; your protégé was very thorough!) I found a scorched scrap. I have transcribed it here.
‘As soon as they are unable to fight, go forward boldly and bleed them. It is essential to do this swiftly, while most of the poison is in their bellies and has not tainted meat, bone, brain or tongue. Harvest the blood, then the organs and last the meat. Label each tub, for each must be tested separately to see if the poison has been too strong and rendered it lethal. Administer some to at least two slaves. If even one dies, dispose of it. Unfortunately, we cannot control how much each dragon will eat of the bait, and therefore we cannot control how much poison each beast will consume.
The eyes must be preserved in vinegar; they are the most perishable. Slice the meat thinly, salt it and dry it.
Of the entire creature, only the stomach may be summarily discarded. Every other bit must be harvested and preserved, for once we have eliminated dragons, these are the last that we …’
And here it ends in scorching. Old friend, you were right. Our Servants deliberately slaughtered what remained of the dragons and serpents following the disaster to the north. Other bits of documents with only dates and the number of casks and barrels would hint to me that the slaughter was carried out in various locations.
Hence the dragons’ vengeance. Hence also the longevity of the Four.
Following the murder of Capra, I assumed the care of the few remaining Whites. We have left Clerres for a small farm inland. I am trying to teach the youngsters to grow and harvest food. Many have ceased dreaming.
I fear this letter will take many months to reach you. When last I parted with FitzChivalry Farseer, we exchanged some hard words. Please extend my respect to him. I do not doubt that he will return to you, just as you made your way back to him.
Letter from Prilkop to Beloved
The Fool had told me of how he had returned to Clerres the first time. All I had to do was to make that same journey, in reverse. I had to get to the other side of the island of Clerres, to one of the deep-water ports, Sisal or Crupton. From there, I would find a boat to give me passage to Furnich. There, on the hills around the port of Furnich, I would find the Elderling ruins and a heavily-canted Skill-pillar.
It seems so simple, if one says it quickly. Most things do.
I took shelter in the mouth of the tunnel for the night. It was, as Lant had told Bee, a defensible point. At dawn, I climbed to what seemed the highest hill and looked for a road. I cut across a pasture where two cows regarded me with suspicion, down the hill, past the recent ruins of a farmhouse, and struck the road. There was little traffic but I knew that would change as the news of the fall of Clerres spread. This way would come the plunderers and salvagers and the sort of folk who would be quick to take advantage of the battered population. Rumours of dragons would not deter them for long. I hoped that Prilkop would swiftly seize the leadership position I had left vacant for him. The surviving Whites and whatever Servants followed them might, under his tutelage, go back to the old ways. In any case, I was done with them.
My leg was still healing and ached. I was constantly hungry. Mosquitoes feasted on me and something like a tick had bitten the back of my neck. I could find no little body, but it itched abominably. I missed my shoes badly. That afternoon, a small shadow overflew me. On the next pass, Motley dropped onto my shoulder. ‘Take me home,’ she directed me.
‘Did you miss the boat?’ I asked. I wouldn’t admit that I welcomed her companionship.
‘Yes,’ she conceded after a time.
‘Crow. Motley. How did you know I was alive? How did you know where to find me?’
‘Silver man, but still stupid,’ the crow observed. She lifted from my shoulder but called back to me, ‘Fruit tree! Fruit tree!’
She flew ahead of me down the road. Within me, the wolf was both amused and annoyed. In my absence, you bond with a crow? Well, at least she is not prey. And she is clever.
We are not bonded!
No? Well, you are not bonded as you and I were, that is true. But there are many levels of Wit-bond. She senses you, even if she does not care to let you borrow her senses.
Suddenly, many things became clear to me. I felt offended. Why does she keep me at a distance? I wondered.
She knows you will never cede to her the sort of bond we shared. And so she protects herself.
When I made no reply, he added, l like her. Were I still trotting at your side, I might welcome her.
I smelled the ripe fruit before I saw the tree. A small orchard. A narrow road led to another collapsed dwelling. The dragons had been thorough. Unharvested apricots had fallen and were fermenting on the ant-covered ground. The heady smell and the buzzing of bees and wasps filled the air. Ample fruit still hung on the tree, and I was not slow to fill my hands and then my belly. The juice inside them eased my thirst as well as my hunger.
When I could eat no more, I picked a generous amount and fashioned what remained of my shirt into a sack. I returned to the road and hiked on, hoping that I would hear a wagon’s creaking or a horse’s hoofbeats in time to conceal myself. My stomach was cramping from all the fresh fruit, but it was less painful than hunger. From time to time Motley flew a lazy circle over my head. Very cautiously, I extended my Wit toward her. Yes. If I focused, I could sense
her. But I also felt a small, indignant push of repel. I let her be.
The Fool had never told me how many days the journey had taken. I did recall that he had spoken of travelling at least part of the way in a cart. I had only my feet. I slept in the open each night and hiked on each day. Food was what I could find, and many of the plants here were foreign to me. The few greens I recognized as edible were not filling. The days were too hot, and the nights full of stinging insects.
That evening I tried to find a comfortable spot to sleep where the gnats would not devour me. That wasn’t possible. I sat with my back against a tree, slapping mosquitoes, and reached out to Dutiful. I could let him know I was alive and making my way home. I wanted Bee and the Fool to know that as soon as was possible. Perhaps Dutiful could arrange funds for me. The Skill-pillar could take me as far as Kelsingra, and I hoped I’d be welcomed there. But coin in pocket is always useful. Disaster had stripped me down to the Silver-holed clothes on my back, the knife in my belt, and the few small assassin’s tools left in my little pockets. I centred myself and pushed away my awareness of gnats and a rock poking me and reached for Dutiful. Only to fail as I had not failed with the Skill in many a year.
I swatted the little bloodsuckers from the back of my neck, pulled my shirt up over my head and tried to think. I tried again. And again. It was like trying to scoop a tiny fly from bubbling soup, always to miss. I stopped and pushed my frustration aside. Calm. What was wrong with me? I hadn’t had so much difficulty in years … not since I’d been trying to Skill to Verity. Trying to reach him when he was in the Mountains. Verity, who had also soaked his hands in Silver.
Perhaps the difficulty had not been entirely mine? Perhaps there had been more at work than my elfbark habit.
I touched my silvered fingers to my thumb and focused on the peculiar power coursing through me. Pain. No, pleasure. No, it was too intense to classify. I focused on Buckkeep, on Dutiful, and for a moment I was in the Skill-current.
I plunged into a depth that I’d never known existed. I was buffeted and shoved by the mobbed and streaming awarenesses. ‘Forgot to feed …’ ‘He’s so lovely …’ ‘My boy…!’ ‘Not enough coin …’ It was like being in the Great Hall at Buckkeep if all the musicians were playing and all the people were talking at once in equally loud voices. I could not sort one from another. Then, an immense presence, powerful and disciplined, would cut through the prattle like a commander’s order being barked above the discord of a battle, or a great fish swimming through a dense school of minnows. All would part and then close up behind it.
Once, long ago, I’d encountered one of those great beings in the Skill-current. I’d nearly lost myself in her. In this strata there were many of them, and as they passed I felt other entities attach to them, combining to grow that awareness. I wanted … I wanted to … I dragged myself clear of it and came to biting my lower lip so hard I tasted blood.
I tried to puzzle out what might be happening to me. The Silver had increased the power of my Skill, taking me to a level that I could not master. I put up my walls and pondered that. Caution, I decided. If need be I could wait until I reached Kelsingra and then contact Dutiful by messenger bird. There was no sense in taking risks.
As I came to each crossroads or by-way, I chose the more-travelled path. I had to veer widely to avoid villages. I found I was glad that the dragons had not completely slaughtered the inhabitants of the island. Nonetheless, I had no desire to encounter anyone in my silvered condition. Sometimes the crow helped me find a way and other times she was absent and I had to blunder through woods and down trails and hope for the best. I stole shamelessly from outlying farms, raiding vegetable gardens and hen-coops and smokehouses. I took a sheet from a laundry line. There were a few coins left in the corner of my pocket, and I tied them in a shirtsleeve on the line. Even assassins have a bit of honour. Hens would lay more eggs and vegetables replenish, but taking a sheet was a true theft. I knotted the sheet into a makeshift cloak and gained some shelter from both the baking sun and the biting insects. And I walked on.
The weather continued fine and the journey was miserable. I wondered and worried about Bee and the Fool and my other companions. I mourned Lant. I wished vainly that I had seen Paragon transform into dragons. I wondered how long it would take them to get home. I worried what would happen when they delivered the news of the prince’s demise to Queen Etta. She had charged us to keep the lad safe and we hadn’t done so. Would there be grief, or would there be anger, or both?
Hunger was a given. Thirst came and went depending on streams.
And I ached. My weariness was constant.
My body continued to heal and stole my strength to do so. My diet was uneven. I had no shoes. I was hiking and sleeping outdoors as I had not done in years. But even so, my level of lethargy was extreme. I awoke one morning with no ambition to move. I wanted to go home, but more I wanted to be still. I lay on the bare earth in the shade of a tree with drooping leaves. Ants began crawling over my hand. I sat up, slapping them away, and then scratched the back of my neck. The tick bite was slow to heal. I picked the scab away from it and felt some relief. ‘Home!’ Motley squawked at me from a branch overhead. ‘Home, home, HOME!’
‘Yes,’ I conceded and gathered my legs under me. They ached and my belly hurt.
My brother, you have worms.
I considered that thought. I’d had worms before. What man who has lived by his wits has not? I knew several cures, none of which were available to me right now.
You made me swallow a copper coin when I was a cub.
A copper bit kills the worms but not the pup. I learned it from Burrich.
Heart of the Pack knew many things.
I haven’t a copper left to my name. It must wait until we are home. To where I have access to herbs I know.
Then you’d best get up and get moving toward home.
Nighteyes was right. I needed to get home. I imagined embracing Bee. With my silver hands and gleaming face … Ah, no.
I pushed that last thought aside. I was becoming adept at doing so. When I was home, it would all come right. I’d see Nettle and my new grandchild. There would be a way to deal with the Silver. Chade would know something, some way … No, Chade was dead and so was his son. What sort of a welcome would Shun give me for that news? Had the Elderling woman been right? Was the Silver killing me? It would sink down to my bones, she had said.
Get up. You are lying there while the sun moves. Unless you have decided to sleep through the day and travel by night?
The moon would be full tonight. I’d be able to see. Yes. I will travel tonight. I was lying to myself.
At nightfall, I forced myself to rise. The crow had perched above me. I looked up into the darkened branches and to my surprise I could see her. I saw the shape of her body by its warmth. The Fool had spoken of this, when he drank the dragon’s blood.
‘I am going to travel. Do you wish me to carry you?’ Crows did not fly in the dark.
She gave a dismissive caw. She could find me when it suited her. She had shown me that.
The road had become well travelled over the last few days, but there were fewer carts and horses on it by night, and my sheet cloaked most of me. I made good time. Stones heated all day by the sun’s warmth gave off a different sort of light than the small mammals that foraged along the edge of the road. Another climb up another hill. The road cut through tilled lands and pastures. Where would I hide this day? Worry about it when dawn came.
I topped the hill and looked down onto a bustling seaport. Lanterns burned bright on the ships anchored in the harbour; lamps gleamed randomly throughout the sprawling town. It was as least as big as Buckkeep Town, but spread out as flat as batter in a pan. How was I to make my way through that, get to the docks, and persuade a boat to take me to Furnich? And all without a copper to my name? Steal a small boat. And go where? I had no charts. I needed a boat and a crew that would obey my will.
Why was nothing ever simple? Why
was I so weary?
That night, I raided a chicken-coop and took a hen as well as three eggs. I helped myself to grain from the cattle’s shelter, and stared down a watchdog who came to snarl at me. I told him he faced a wolf, and felt the Silver stitch together with my Wit to send him yelping back to his doorstep. It felt peculiar.
I fled with my loot. Man’s teeth do not do well on raw meat, but I persevered and stripped the hen down to her bones. I followed with raw eggs gulped down and grain ground between my cow’s teeth, and all washed down with stream water. On a rocky berm between two grainfields, I settled for the day.
I waited for night. Before the moon rose full and white, I skulked toward the busy port. Thick had used the Skill to hide himself, but he had always been far stronger in it than I was. I arranged my sheet to cover most of my face and I kept to the shadows even as I sent out ‘Don’t see me, don’t see me’ to any I passed in the quiet streets. There were few folk on the street at night. Only two gave me even a glance. The strength of influence I was now able to exert with my mingled magics was unsettling and reassuring. How much dared I trust it? Could I walk the busy streets in daylight and be unnoticed? To test that and fail might be deadly.
I knew my destination and I did not pause. I headed down to the docks.
A harbour never sleeps. Ships unload or take on cargo by night to catch the morning’s tide. I chose a dock where an ant-stream of longshoremen pushed carts and barrows to docked ships. I stayed to the shadowed areas as I studied the moving cargo. I was hungry again, aching and weary. I could not allow that to deter me.
I found a ship offloading hides. The Fool had spoken of Furnich being a tannery town. I stepped in front of one of the sailors. ‘I need passage to Furnich.’ I enveloped him in my friendliness. ‘You really want to please me,’ I whispered. He halted, glaring at me as I peered from under my sheet. His face went slack. Then he suddenly smiled as if I were an old friend.
‘We have just come from there,’ he told me. He shook his head. ‘It is not a pleasant place. If you must go there, I pity you.’