The appearance of the Pocked Man is always a harbinger of disaster to come. He was seen not only in Buckkeep Town, but in Grimsbyford and Sandsedge in the weeks before the Blood Plague reached the Six Duchies and devastated our folk. He was seen standing on the balcony of the doomed Fins Tower two days before the earthquake that brought it down on the town. Some have claimed to have seen him immediately before the first Forging at Forge. On the night that King Shrewd was assassinated, the Pocked Man was seen in the washing court and by the castle well in Buckkeep Castle. He always appears as a cadaverous man, pale of countenance, his face marked with red pox.
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. With 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.