FF3 Assassin’s Fate

by Robin Hobb

  ‘And yet I must go there. Of the ships in port, are any bound there?’

  ‘The Dancer. The second one, there. Her captain is Rasri, good for most things but a terrible cheat at games of chance.’

  ‘I will keep that in mind. Good evening to you.’

  As we parted, he gave me a loose-lipped smile as if I were his lover.

  I felt queasy for what I had done to him as I hastened down the dock to the Dancer. She was a tidy little vessel with a deep hull and small house, one that could be sailed with a very small crew. A young woman was standing on the deck. I sharpened my will then reached toward her with a wave of good fellowship and trustworthiness as I asked for Captain Rasri. Her eyes widened and she smiled at me despite my drapery. ‘I’m Captain Rasri. What business have you with me?’ She saw my silvered face and took a step back.

  I smiled at her and offered that it was a peculiar scar, no more than that. She politely looked away from it. ‘I need passage to Furnich.’

  ‘We take no passengers, good man.’

  ‘But for me, you could make an exception.’

  She stared at me and I felt her struggle. I pressed harder on her boundaries. ‘I could,’ she admitted, even as she shook her head ‘no’.

  ‘I can be a handy person to have aboard. I know my way around a deck.’

  ‘You could be a help,’ she agreed, as her brow furrowed.

  ‘How many days is it to Furnich?’

  ‘No more than a dozen, if the weather holds fine. We’ve two ports to visit on our way.’

  I wanted to tell her that we would go straight to Furnich, but could not bring myself to do so. Already I regretted what I was doing to her. ‘When do we leave?’

  ‘On the early tide. Soon.’

  I was no sooner on board than Motley swooped down and perched on my shoulder. The puzzlement on the captain’s face gave way to delight. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ Motley told her, and did the same when the crew approached. I introduced myself as Tom Badgerlock while the crew was charmed and distracted by Motley, and I settled acceptance over them like a blanket. By morning I was on my way.

  It was the most miserable voyage of my life. The ship was called Dancer for a reason. She bowed and bobbed, rocked and wallowed. I was seasick as I had never been before in my life.

  Yet despite how wretched I felt, I did my best to be as useful as I had presented myself. I found that I could remove corrosion from brass by smoothing it with my fingers, and made every fitting on Dancer gleam. I smoothed fraying lines so that they ran easily through the blocks and tackles. I ran my hands over stretched and weary canvas to tighten it. I ate no more than one man’s share at the table, despite my constant hunger.

  The journey seemed interminable. Imposing my will on the crew took strength and focus when my supply of both was dwindling. I dreaded each port stop, for it meant days tied up as they took on and offloaded freight. Each time we made port, I would slip away at night to Skill a plentiful meal at an inn. Sated, I would return to Dancer and sleep heavily. When I awoke, I would feel stronger for a day. But then the lassitude would return.

  In the long, heaving nights, I thought of Verity and how he had used his Skill to defend the Six Duchies. Even at a distance, he had been able to find the OutIslander ships and influence their captains and navigators. How many had he sent into the teeth of a storm, or onto the rocks? How had he felt to use the power of his magic to kill so many? Had it bothered him? Was that why he had seized on the wisp of an old legend and gone off into the Mountains in search of Elderling allies?

  The night we reached Furnich, I conveyed to the captain and crew that they had done a great kindness, something to be proud of. I left them looking puzzled but rather pleased with themselves. Motley settled on my shoulder. ‘Home,’ she reminded me, and I took strength from that word.

  Furnich was a dreary town of bad smells and sour folk. Turning cattle into meat and leather is a messy business but it did not need to be as squalid as Furnich made it. The town was dirty and the air tasted of hopelessness. It crouched in low, ill-kept buildings all around the bay. On the hill above it, I could see the tumbled ruins of what had been an Elderling city. It had obviously been deliberately destroyed. I hoped that no more destruction had been done to the Skill-pillar than the last time Prilkop and the Fool had used it. The Fool had described it as nearly toppled. But if there was any room to wriggle under it, I would take my opportunity and hope that it would take me back to Kelsingra.

  There is a danger in using the stones.

  Wolf, there is a danger in delaying my return, and I fear that is greater.

  I felt his doubt and tried not to be prey to it. As I plodded through the town, I was hungry but saw no tavern where I wanted to eat. They seemed deceitful and untrustworthy places. I would go straight to the Elderling city, find the Skill-stone, and leave this disgusting place. The aura of ugliness was like a stench in the air. In Kelsingra, they would know me. There would be food and kindness there. This place had never known kindness.

  I stopped to breathe and leaned against the wall of a stable. My feeling of despair was like a wind that swept through me. The intensity of it was oddly familiar, as was the buzzing in my ears.

  Here they betrayed us. For years, they deceived us and pretended to be our friends, and then, when need was upon us and we fled here, they slaughtered us. They ended us as they ended the dragons and even the serpents in the sea.

  For a moment, I saw them. The Elderlings ran through the streets, seeking a safety that did not exist. They had fled the collapse of their cities and come here, to an outlying settlement where the air was not poisonous and laden with ash. But as they emerged from the portal stones, hired soldiers were waiting to kill them. For the Servants had known that their cities would shake and fall, had known that both dragons and Elderlings would flee here. To end the dragons, they must end the Elderlings as well.

  And they had.

  The memories of that bloody betrayal had sunk into the memory-stone of their city. When later generations had salvaged the stone of the Elderling city to build Furnich they had salvaged the horror and betrayal as well. Small wonder that the folk of Furnich regarded the black stone ruins with hatred. The closer I came to the ruined villas on the hillside, the deeper and darker the memories flowed. Skill and Silver writhed in me and I staggered through a flow of ghosts. Men and women shouted and screamed, children lay dead or bleeding in the streets. I threw up my walls to deaden the horror.

  Kelsingra was a fountain of Elderling memories of festivals and markets and joyous times. Here the stones had drunk up the blood and the deaths of the Elderlings who had raised them. That terrible legacy of fear and despair had been passed down for generations. Any merry or peaceful memories had been quenched in blood.

  I did not know the name of this Elderling town. Grass was trying to grow between the broken paving stones, but too much memory-stone had been used. The streets recalled that they had been streets and did not allow the grass to flourish. Everywhere I saw the signs of hammers and chisels, toppled statues deliberately broken to pieces, fountains destroyed, building walls pulled down.

  Where would the standing pillars have been? In the centre of the town, as they were in Kelsingra? Atop a tower? Within a market square?

  I wandered the empty streets of the hilly town, wending my way through a tide of screaming ghosts. Motley would lift from my shoulder, circle, and then return to me. Once this had been a beautiful place of opulent manors and walled gardens. Now it was like a fallen buck infested with maggots, all its majesty and graciousness tainted with memories of death and hate and betrayal. Only my Wit assured me that they were not real.

  My Wit made me aware that there were real people too, not far from me and following me. In my efforts to keep my walls tight and my mind my own, I had neglected my camouflage of Skill. Perhaps they were just curious adolescents following a peculiar stranger wearing a sheet. Had they seen my Silver-spattered face? Motley cawed overhead. I watched
her circle and she suddenly dipped down to light on my shoulder. ‘Careful,’ she croaked in a hoarse whisper. ‘Careful, Fitz.’

  They were closing in on me.

  I stood still, breathing quietly. I flung my Wit wide, trying to sense how many and where they were. What did they imagine I had that they would want? Were they simply the sort of ruffians that enjoyed giving a stranger a beating? I had no strength left to run, let alone fight. Leave me alone! I flung the plea out into the night, but the Skill-infused stones diluted and muted me. I needed to see them, to look into their faces to target their minds. They kept their distance. Doubtless they knew the ruins well. Perhaps they had braved this miasma of fear and hate since they were children. They kept to cover. I would catch a glimpse in the growing dusk of someone flitting from one concealment to another. How many?

  Four. No, five. Two were standing close together. I flared my nostrils and took in scent, an almost useless gesture with my feeble human nose.

  They are near. Choose your place.

  That was my last advantage. I drew my knife as I found a bit of standing wall to put my back against. I discarded my sheet cloak. Perhaps my appearance would give them second thoughts, but in the gathering darkness, would they even see how peculiar I had become? With a sinking heart, I forced myself to question what sort of people would willingly drench themselves in this atmosphere of hatred and blood. It was not a good sort. I heard a low laugh, and someone shushing someone else. It had been a woman’s laugh. So. This was sport rather than robbery. I was probably not their first prey.

  A rock hit the wall beside me. I flinched and the crow lifted from my shoulder. I didn’t blame her. A single strike would kill her. Another rock struck near my head. I stood still, listening. The next rock struck my thigh, and this time their laughter was not hushed. They remained in hiding, unseen. I heard the soft whistle of a sling and that rock struck hard on my chest. I lifted an arm to cover my face but a rock struck me in the mouth with a sharp crack! I tasted blood and my ears rang.

  Cowards! Nighteyes snarled inside me. Kill them all!

  When Nighteyes had been alive, our Wit-bond had been so close that I often felt I was as much wolf as human. His body had died but something of him had lived on inside me, all those years. Part of me and not part of me.

  And from my earliest time of trying to master the Skill-magic, my beast-magic—my Wit—had been tangled with it. Galen had sought to beat it out of me, and others who had tried to instruct me in the Wit or the Skill had decried that I could not seem to separate the two. When Nighteyes, infuriated by my pain, struck out with the Wit, my Silver Skill rode with it.

  I had a glimpse of the woman, moving from a broken wall to a thicket of brambles. I fixed my attention on her. ‘Die,’ I said quietly, and she was the first to fall. She dropped suddenly and limply as if stunned, but my Wit told me she was gone. Heart stilled, breath stopped.

  Foolishly or loyally, perhaps both, two of her male companions ran to her. After all, why not break cover? A cowering, cornered man was no threat. I lifted a shaking Silver hand. I pointed at one. ‘Die,’ I told him, and as his fellow stood in consternation, ‘Die,’ I suggested, and he did.

  So easy. Too easy.

  ‘He did it!’ someone shouted. ‘I don’t know how, but he’s dropping them! Saha, Bar, get up! Are you hurt?’ One of them ventured from cover, a scrawny youth with dark, ragged hair. His eyes were on me as he sidled toward the bodies.

  ‘They’re dead,’ I said.

  I hoped he would run. I hoped even more he would fight.

  A woman, cautious as a doe, rose and stepped from the tall grass. She was lovely, her loose dark hair curling to her shoulders. ‘Saha?’ she said, and all laughter had fled from her uncertain voice.

  ‘He killed them!’ her companion cried, his voice rising to a shriek. He charged at me, and she screamed as she copied him. I moved my silvered hand across their path.

  They dropped just as surely as if my axe had lopped off their heads. They fell, and my Wit immediately told me they were gone. Never had I used my magic in such a way; never had it been strong enough. This was like when I had first tried to learn to Skill and my ability had been wildly erratic. In fear and anger I’d thrown death at people I had not even clearly seen.

  I did not know we could do that. Within me, Nighteyes seemed cowed by what had happened.

  Nor did I. Had I felt shamed by bending the minds of the Dancer’s crew? Now I felt numbed with shock—the same calmness I’d seen in a man with a leg lopped off. I spat the blood from my mouth and touched my teeth. Two were loosened. My enemies were dead and I was alive. I pushed remorse away.

  I looted the bodies. One of the youths had sandals that would fit me. The pretty woman had a cloak. I took their coins. A wineskin, a knife. One woman had a little paper pouch full of gummy, mint-flavoured sweets. I gobbled those down and followed them with the cheap wine. I looked aside as Motley took bits of flesh from them. How was it different from my looting? They were dead and she took what was useful to her.

  Night thickened and the moon rose. The memory of mayhem in the now-ruined streets rose in volume. Motley huddled on my shoulder. Were the folk who had slaughtered the Elderlings the ancestors of those who now lived in the pathetic town below? Was this lingering horror and hatred a terrible unplanned punishment that fell on children who had no knowledge of what their forebears had done? Did the dark humours of this place taint the younger generations of those killers?

  I found the Skill-pillars by following the phantom carnage backwards. I waded through ephemeral corpses and shrieking spectres until I came to a place where the ghostly Elderlings milled like sheep surrounded by wolves. They had emerged from the Skill-pillar, seen the slaughter and tried to flee back to dubious safety. At the vortex of that maddened flight, I found the pillar.

  It was as the Fool had said. Someone had put a great deal of effort into trying to pull it down. It leaned low, and the full moon above glinted on its scratched upper side. The outer faces of the pillar had been scored with scratches, and there was a strong stench of urine and faeces. After all the years, there was still a hatred so strong that it was expressed in this puerile way?

  Humans piss when they are scared.

  Tall grass surrounded the fallen monument. Ghostly Elderlings were emerging from it, clutching children or carrying an armful of belongings. I dropped to my knees and pushed my way through coarse grass and tangling bindweed. I wished I’d had the map Chade had given me, of all the known pillars and their destinations. No matter. Gone was gone, and I hope the bear had enjoyed eating it. The Fool had said they had emerged from the downward-facing plane of the Skill-pillar. All I had to do was go back the way he had come. I peered through vegetation into the black space under the leaning stone. Motley clung to my cloak and shirt collar, leaving scratches on my neck.

  Are you ready?

  I am never ready for this. Just do it.

  ‘Home. Home now.’

  Very well. I pushed brambles aside, wincing as the thorns tore my palm. I’d have to crawl to get under the pillar. A moment of the stupidity that weariness brings was all it took. I braced my hand, my Silver hand, on the face of the pillar nearest me, preparatory to crawling under it. It seized me and I had a glimpse of a spoiled rune I did not recognize. Motley gave a terrified caw, and we were pulled into the stone.

  FORTY-THREE

  * * *

  Bingtown

  To Skillmistress Nettle from Apprentice Carryl:

  As you demanded, I confess my fault on this paper, and offer also my explanation. It is not an excuse, but it is a reason why I disobeyed the Journeyman Shers who was supervising me on our visit to Aslevjal. I was aware of our assignment. We were to gather Skill-cubes, note where they had been found, and bring them back to Buckkeep Castle for reading, classification and storage. Shers was most clear in telling me I must stay with the others and touch nothing that did not pertain to our task.

  Yet I had heard tales of th
e map-room of Aslevjal. My desire to see it outweighed my sense of duty to obey. While unobserved, I left my coterie and sought the map-room and discovered it was as wondrous as the accounts had said. I lingered longer than I intended, and instead of returning to where we had been gathering the cubes, I went directly to the pillar that had transported us there.

  This is the most important part of my tale, even if it does not excuse my disobedience at all. The others were not yet at the pillar. I was weary, for my bag of gathered cubes was heavy. I sat down with my back to the wall. I do not know if I dozed or was simply taken by the memories in the room. I began to see Elderlings coming and going from the pillar. Some were grandly dressed, and some walked through as simply as if strolling through a garden. But after a time, it struck me that Elderlings either emerged from or entered a facet of the pillar. There was no face where Elderlings both entered and exited.

  I believe that we should carefully study the runes on each pillar face, for I believe that some of the issues of time lost or great weakness may be the result of us using the Skill-pillars to travel backwards, counter to their intended use. When it came time to return to the Witness Stones, I felt great trepidation. I attribute our day’s delay to entering a facet of the pillar that I saw Elderling shadows only emerge from.

  For my behaviour in leaving my coterie, I apologize. It was thoughtless and reckless. I submit myself for judgment and punishment as you see fit.

  With great sincerity, Apprentice Carryl

  We sailed on. Slowly, I woke to life.

  Dwalia had left her mark on me. If the weather was cold and wet, my left cheekbone ached and sometimes yellow tears ran from my left eye. My left ear was a shapeless lump; I could not sleep with it touching the pillow. The bruises and abrasions from the neck shackle had left sores that were slow to heal.

  But that was my body. The rest of me simply didn’t want to do anything. I wanted to stay in my hammock in the dimness. I wanted Beloved and Amber and the Fool to all stop pestering me. Every time I wrote in my dream book or journal, I reminded him of that. Despite the reminders, several times a day he would seek me out. If I were in my hammock, Amber would sit nearby, and busy herself with a bit of needlework. Sometimes she left clever little carvings of animals, and these I guessed were the Fool’s work, for my father had written of such things. I longed to possess them, but I always left them where Amber had placed them. Mostly I avoided looking at her, but whenever our eyes met, his peculiar ones were full of remorse and pleading. He was never less than patient with me.