Taking an unSkilled person through a portal can be accomplished, if it is absolutely necessary. But the dangers to both the Skilled escort and those being transported cannot be exaggerated. The focus of the Skilled one must be divided between the destination and those he escorts. Close physical contact can make the transition easier. Simply holding hands may be sufficient for two who know one another well, and is the recommended method.
On very rare occasions, it may be necessary for an escort to take more than one unSkilled person through one of the corridors. The hazard to both Skilled one and those who accompany him will increase with each additional person or creature. An apprentice should never attempt this. A journeyman, no more than two beings, and only in dire circumstance. The limit for a master is not set, but no more than five living beings are advised.
The dangers are several: that the journey will not be completed, and all will be lost within the passage. That the Skilled one will emerge exhausted, even to the point of dying shortly afterward (recall the account, by Skill-journeyman Bells, of the death of Skillmaster Elmund.) That those accompanying the Skilled one will emerge deranged in mind. Or not emerge at all.
There are several ways to make a successful transition more likely. It is best if the Skilled one has used that particular portal and passage before and is familiar with it. It often seems that if the Skilled ones and those with him are well known to one another, the passage is safer.
On no account should a pregnant woman make any passage. She will emerge with her womb empty. Transporting an unconscious person is to be avoided, and very small children are little better. Curiously, animals seem to fare better in passages than humans do.
Skill-pillars and passages, Skillmaster Arc
The best way I know to stop thinking is to pick up an axe and attempt to kill someone with it. I had no potential targets in the vicinity, but I’ve always had a vivid imagination. I took myself down to the practice yards and looked for Foxglove.
The day was clear and cold. She was well bundled, but had her charges already steaming as they went through drill after drill. She carried a wooden practice sword and employed it without restraint as she wandered down the rows of her combatants. ‘This arm is unguarded, flopping about and begging to be cut off,’ she told one as I arrived and gave him a sound thwack to remind him of it. I stood at the edge of her territory and waited for her to notice me.
I think she was aware of me for some time but let me watch what she was doing before she approached me. It seemed to me that she had already added five new recruits to my bastard’s badge. She gave all of them permission to breathe and crossed the practice yard to me. ‘Well. I can’t exactly be proud of my work yet, but they’re coming along. I immediately put out the word that we’d be willing to take on some experienced guardsmen. We’ve attracted some who were put out of their units as being a bit too old or too damaged by old wounds. I’ll give them a chance and we’ll see who we will keep.’
‘Any axemen?’ I asked her.
She lifted one brow. ‘Lily, there, told me she used an axe. I’ve not seen her with one yet, so I can’t say. Vital looks as if he might be one. Some day. Why? Do you feel as if we’ll have need for that sort of guardsman in your company?’
‘I thought I might find a practice partner.’
She stared at me for a moment. Then she took in a breath through her nose, stepped forward and with no hesitation felt my upper right arm and then my forearm. Her backhand to my belly took me by surprise but I didn’t lose my wind. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? It’s not very princely.’ I looked at her and after a moment, she nodded. ‘Very well. Lily!’
The woman she summoned was my height and well-muscled. Foxglove sent her off for practice axes with weighted wooden bits. Then she asked me, ‘In those garments?’
I didn’t want to go back up to my chambers and change. Too much time, too many thoughts were nagging to explode in my brain. ‘It will be fine,’ I said.
‘No. It won’t. I think there are some leather jerkins in the equipment storage. Go now so you don’t keep Lily waiting.’ As I turned to go, she added, ‘Here’s something to think about. Your mind will remember how to do something and you will think you can still do it. Your body will try. And fail. Don’t hurt yourself today. It will come back to you. Not quickly, and not all of it, but enough.’
I didn’t believe her. But long before the end of her practice drills with her recruits, I did. Lily thrashed me. Even when I imagined her as one of the Chalcedean mercenaries who had taken my little girl, I could not defeat her. The wooden practice axe, weighted with lead to give it heft, weighed as much as a horse. I was not sure if it was mercy or pity that made Foxglove summon Lily to work with Vital. As soon as Lily left, she suggested I go to the steams and then rest. I tried not to slink as I left the scene of my defeat. The work had done its task of keeping me unaware of whatever Skill-cure they were working on Chade, but left me in a pit of bleakness that made my elfbark darkness look like a merry sleigh ride. I’d just proved to myself that even if I had the opportunity this moment to reclaim my daughter, she’d probably watch me die in the attempt. I think my morose expression kept anyone from speaking to me in the steams. I might appear to be in the midst of my fourth decade of life to others, but it had been more than thirty years since I’d been the muscled oarsman and warrior I’d been in my twenties. My body reflected the life I’d lived for the past twenty years as a gentleman farmer.
When I stumped up to the door of my chamber, I found Steady leaning against the door. I unlocked it and without a word he followed me inside. When I closed the door behind us, he spoke. ‘That’s going to be an amazing black eye by tomorrow.’
‘Probably.’ I looked at Burrich and Molly’s son. The bottom of my despair opened and I fell through it. Burrich’s eyes, Molly’s mouth … ‘I don’t know how to save your little sister. Today, for one moment, we had that chance with Chade. And it’s gone now. I don’t know where Bee is and even if I did, I doubt I can win her back. My Skill is tattering, I can’t wield a blade like I used to. Just when she needs me most, I can’t help her.’ The useless, stupid words tumbled from my mouth. His face went almost blank. Then he took two short steps toward me, seized me by my upper arms and put his face close to mine. ‘Stop it,’ he snarled. ‘You’re drowning us all in hopelessness when we need to be strong. Fitz, after my father died, you came to us. And you were the one who taught me to be a man. In El’s name, live up to that! Get your walls up! And hold them.’
I felt like a man who suddenly realizes his purse has been cut. That sudden surprise and moment of checking to see if I could be mistaken. No. My walls were down and indeed I’d been letting my emotions overflow like a river in flood. I slammed them up and then realized that I’d drawn on Steady’s strength to do so. True to his name, he stood before me like a rock, clutching my arms. ‘Have you got them?’ he asked me gruffly, and I nodded. ‘Hold them, then,’ he ordered, and released me, stepping back. I thought he staggered a little, but at my concerned look, he smiled. ‘I caught my heel on your rug. That’s all.’
I sat down on the edge of my bed and checked my walls again. ‘Are they tight enough?’ I asked him and he nodded slowly. ‘I’m not myself,’ I said, and hated the feeble excuse.
‘No. You’re not, Tom … Fitz. We all hate that we have to wait and hope for word, but it’s all we can do. No one blames you for what happened. How could anyone have foreseen it? We are up against a magic as unstoppable as when the Red Ships were Forging our towns.’ He smiled small. ‘Or so I suspect. That was before my time.’
I nodded at him, unconsoled.
He sat down beside me. ‘Do you remember anything unusual about your passage through the stones?’
‘I think Chade fainted just as he pulled me into the stone, so he was not using his Skill to help us make the passage.’ I didn’t like to remember it. ‘I was aware that we were in a passage. Aware of my identity in a way I hadn’t been before when travelling through the stones. I was trying to hold onto Chade and keep him together. But to do that, I had to let down my own walls. If you know what I mean.’
He nodded, his brow furrowed. He spoke slowly. ‘You know that I’m not talented in the Skill. I sense it. I have a lot of strength that I can lend, but I can’t do much in the way of directing it. I can help someone else, but not really initiate it.’
I nodded.
‘I’m not really sure that I’m Skilled at all. I think I’m just a person who can give strength. Like my father.’
I nodded again. ‘Burrich excelled at that.’
He swallowed. ‘I scarcely knew my little sister. Withywoods was far away, and she seemed to not really be a part of my life. I saw her a few times, but she seemed, well, too simple. As if she’d never really be a person. And so I didn’t get to know her. I regret that now. I want you to know that if you need my strength in any way, you’ve but to ask me for it.’
I knew he was sincere. And I knew there was precious little he could do for me. ‘Then look after your older sister and protect her in any way you can. I do not know what lies ahead for me. Be here for her and protect her.’
‘Of course.’ He looked at me as if I were slightly daft. ‘She’s my sister. And I’m part of the King’s Own Coterie. What else would I do?’
What else indeed? I felt a bit foolish. ‘When you left Chade, was he better?’
His face grew grave. He looked down and then lifted his eyes to meet my gaze squarely. ‘No. He’s not.’ He ran his fingers back through his hair, then took a deep breath and asked me, ‘How much do you know of his activities with the pillars and stones?’
My heart sank. ‘Next to nothing, I imagine.’
‘Well, he has always had a very keen interest in Aslevjal. He was convinced that the Elderlings had left a great amount of knowledge behind in those little blocks of memory-stone and in the carvings on the walls. And so he would go there. At first, he would let the coterie know where he was going and how long he expected to be gone. But as his visits became more frequent, Nettle endeavoured to restrict him, saying that as Skillmistress she had the right to do so. He countered that the knowledge he was gaining was well worth the risk to “one old man” as he put it. It took King Dutiful stepping in to stop his travels.
‘Or so we thought. He was no longer leaving Buckkeep and going up to the Witness Stones. No. He had discovered from his studies of the markings on the stones that there was another passage-stone, one that had apparently been incorporated into the building of Buckkeep Castle itself. Or perhaps it was originally there. We have hints that sometimes portal-stones were actually inside strongholds. There is some information that leads us to believe that there was a circle of passage-stones built into the Great Hall of the Duke of Chalced’s throne room. Long since toppled, our spies say … Oh. Sorry. Down in the dungeons of the keep, in one wall, there is a stone and on it is carved the rune for Aslevjal. He had been using it, and often. To conceal his use of it, he would leave Buckkeep late at night, and return by morning.’
My nails were sinking into my palms. It was the worst and most dangerous way to use the stones, according to Prilkop. Years ago, he had cautioned me against making such a passage twice in the space of less than two days. I had not listened, and I had been lost in the stones for weeks as a result. Chade had been taking very grave risks indeed.
‘We only discovered it when he went missing one day. For a day and a half we could not find him, and then he came staggering up out of the dungeons, half out of his mind, with a sack of memory-stones slung over his shoulder.’
I knew a jolt of anger. ‘And no one thought to tell me of this?’
He looked surprised. ‘That would not have been my decision. I know nothing of why you were not told. Perhaps he begged them not to. Nettle, Dutiful and Kettricken were extremely angry and frightened by the incident. That, I think, was when he truly stopped his experiments.’ He shook his head. ‘Except for the amount of time he was spending delving into the cubes of memory-stone he had brought back. He had them in his apartments, and we think he was using them in lieu of sleep. When Nettle confronted him about his absent-mindedness, he explained what he was doing. When she ordered them removed to the library, and limited his access to them, he was furious. But not as a man is furious: more like a child deprived of a favourite toy. That was over a year ago. We thought he had mastered his thirst for the Skill. Perhaps he had, but maybe these last two trips, too close together, woke it again.’
I thought of the times Chade had come to see me. Of how he had brought Riddle through. Nettle, I decided, had known of those visits if Riddle had gone with him. Hadn’t she?
‘Does he know what is happening to him? Is he aware he’s doing it?’
‘We can’t tell. He isn’t making a lot of sense. He talks. He laughs and speaks of things from the past. Nettle feels he is experiencing his old memories, and then releasing them to the Skill-stream.
‘I was sent to you for two reasons. The first was to help you set your walls more tightly; Nettle is afraid that Chade will cling to you and pull your awareness with him as he goes. The second reason is to ask you for delvenbark. The strong stuff from the OutIslands. The kind that completely quenched your Skill when it was fed to you.’
‘I don’t have very much left. We used most of it at Withywoods.’
He looked concerned but said, ‘Well, whatever you have is what we’ll have to use.’
It was still in my travelling bag. It had not been unpacked since they’d all but carried Chade and me to our rooms. I found it, and Bee’s dream book, in the bottom of my pack. I rummaged carefully and took out all but two packets. I looked at the herb packets then reluctantly surrendered them. It was hard to come by. Would the dose save Chade? What if it destroyed the precious ability with the Skill that he had so painstakingly built up over the years? If he could not Skill, how could he help me find Shine in the Skill-stream and use her key-word to unlock her? I clenched my jaw. It was time to trust Nettle. Time to cede respect for her hard-won knowledge. Still, I could not keep from saying to him, ‘Be careful. It’s very strong.’
He hefted the little pouches. ‘That’s what we are hoping. Nettle thinks that if we can cut him off from the Skill, he may be able to find his centre again. That perhaps we can keep whatever is left of him. Thank you.’
He left me there, staring at the door he closed behind him. Whatever was left of him … I rose, Bee’s book in my hands, and then sat down slowly. As Chade was, he certainly could not help me find Shine. The first step had to be to stabilize him and persuade him to share Shine’s word with us. And I could not help with that. Until then I had to wait.
I was sick with waiting. Waiting had scraped me raw. I could not think about Bee. It was agonizing to imagine what she might be going through. I had told myself, over and over, that it was a useless torment to dwell on thoughts of her in pain, terrified, cold or hungry. In the hands of ruthless men. Useless. Put my mind to what I might do to get her back. And how I would kill those who had put hands on her.
I was gripping her book savagely. I looked at it. My gift to her, a bound set of good paper between sturdy leather covers with images of daisies pressed into it. I sat down with it on my lap and opened the first page. Did I break confidence with her to look at her private writings? Well I knew how often she had spied upon mine!
Each page contained a brief description of a dream. Some were almost poems. Often she had illustrated them. There was the image of a woman sleeping in a flower garden, with bees buzzing around her. On the next page was a drawing of a wolf. I had to smile. It was obviously based on the carving of Nighteyes that had occupied the centre of the mantel in my study for years. Under it was a poem-story about the Wolf of the West, who would race to the aid of any of his subjects who called upon him. The next page was plainer. There was a simple border of circles and wheels and a couplet about a man’s fate: ‘All he could dream, all he could fear, given to him in the space of a year.’ A few more pages, poems about flowers and acorns. And then, on a page that was a riot of colour, her dream of the Butterfly Man. In her illustration, he was truly a Butterfly Man, pale of face, transcendently calm, with the wings of a butterfly protruding from his back.
I closed the book. That dream had come true. Just as the Fool had when he was a lad, she had written down a dream and it became a prophecy. I had buried the Fool’s wild talk that Bee was his daughter, born to be a White Prophet. Yet here was the evidence I could scarcely deny.
Then I shook my head. How many times had I accused the Fool of warping one of his prophecies to make it fit the events that followed? Surely this was more of the same. It had not been a ‘butterfly man’ but a woman, and a cloak with a pattern that suggested butterflies. I tamped my uneasiness down firmly with a mallet of disbelief. Bee was mine, my little girl, and I would bring her home and she would grow up to be a little Farseer princess. But that thought sent my stomach lurching into a different gulch. I sat for a moment, finding my breath and hugging her book as if it were my child herself. ‘I will find you, Bee. I will bring you home.’ My promise was as empty as the air I breathed it to.
I lived in a space between times. There was the time when Bee was safe. There was the time when she would be safe again. I lived in a terrible abyss of doubt and ignorance. I plummeted from hope to despair, and found no bottom to that dive. Any clatter of boots in the corridor might be a messenger with news of my child. My heart would lift and then it would be only a courier delivering someone’s new jacket, and again I’d drop to despair. Uncertainty chewed me and helplessness manacled me raw. And I could let none of it show.
The next three days were as long as any I had ever known. I paced through them like a sentry making endless rounds on the same parapet. As Prince FitzChivalry, I ate my meals with my family, but exposed to the eyes of everyone else in the Great Hall. I had never paused to think how little privacy the Farseer royals enjoyed. I received numerous invitations. Ash still tended my room and sorted the missives into piles. Bereft of Chade’s guidance, I presented the ones Ash considered important to Kettricken for her guidance. Just as I had once advised her on how to navigate the tricky currents of Buckkeep politics, so she now advised me as to which invitations I must accept, which I should politely decline, and which ones I could postpone.
And so, after an early morning axe session with my guard, I went out riding with two lesser lords from minor keeps in Buck and accepted the invitation to play a game of cards that evening. All that day, I remembered names and interests and made conversation with words that conveyed almost nothing. I smiled politely and dodged questions with generalities and did my best to be more of an asset than a liability to the Farseer throne. And all the while the thought of my little daughter boiled in the back of my mind.
So far, we had been successful in tamping down rumours and keeping word of what had happened at Withywoods to less than a whisper. I was not sure how we would contain it when the Rousters returned to Buckkeep. It was, I felt, only a matter of time before the connection between Tom Badgerlock and FitzChivalry Farseer became common knowledge. And once that happened, what then?
No one knew that a Farseer daughter had been stolen, and precious few knew that Nettle’s younger sister had been kidnapped. We had kept it within the family. To release news of Chalcedean mercenaries able to infiltrate Buck and travel our roads unseen would trigger panic and outrage that the king was not protecting his folk. Keeping my tragedy unspoken was like swallowing back acid vomit. I despised the man who put a pleasant expression on his face, who held a hand of cards or nodded to a noble lady’s discussion of the price of a blooded horse. This was Prince FitzChivalry, as I’d never hoped to be him. I recalled Kettricken, head held high and her demeanour calm in the days when her rebellious son Dutiful had vanished. I thought of Elliania and her uncle Peottre, keeping the secret of their kin held hostage as they trod the careful dance of betrothing her to Dutiful. Bitter to think that the same folk who had directed the kidnapping of Elliania’s mother and small sister were behind the raid on Withywoods. So I was not the first to have to conceal such pain and it could be done and every morning I looked into the mirror and set my face to stillness. I cut the whiskers from my face instead of my own throat and vowed I would do it well.
Daily, I visited Chade. It was rather like visiting a favourite tree. The delvenbark had quenched his Skill. He no longer dwindled but it remained to be seen how much of himself he could regain. Steady kept watch over him. I spoke banalities to him. He listened, it seemed, but spoke little in response. A servant brought food for all three of us. Chade fed himself, but would sometimes pause and seem to forget what he had been doing. When I spoke of Shine he seemed to take no more than a polite interest. When I asked directly if he could recall the words with which he had sealed her from the Skill, he looked more puzzled than troubled by the question. When I tried to press him, to insist that he at least remember his daughter, Steady intervened. ‘You have to let him come back. He has to find the pieces of himself and put them back together.’
‘How do you know such things?’ I demanded.
‘The tiny blocks of memory-stone that Chade brought back offered us all sorts of knowledge. Nettle thinks they were cut into small pieces to be safer to use. We do not let anyone experience many of them, and no one explores them alone. As each one is studied, an account is given of what is learned. I myself was entrusted with one that dealt with those who lost themselves in pursuing knowledge too deeply. I wrote my account of what I learned. And Nettle and I believe it is similar to what has befallen Lord Chade. We hope that if we give him time and rest and keep any more of him from leaking away, he will come back to himself.’
He paused. ‘Fitz, I can only guess what he is to you. When I lost my father, you did not try to step into his place. But you sheltered my mother and brothers and Nettle to the best of your ability. I do not think it was solely because of your love for my mother. I think you understood all we had lost. I’ll always feel indebted to you. And I promise you that I will do all in my power to bring Chade back to us. I know you think he holds the key to regaining Bee. We all hate that we must stand by and do nothing as we wait for word of her. Please trust that what I do now, I do because I believe it is the fastest way to see Chade regain his senses and be able to help us.’
And that comfort, thin as it was, was the best I could gain from those visits.
That night, when I could not sleep, I tried to occupy myself. I read several scrolls on the Skill, and the accounts of what had been learned from the memory-blocks. Kettricken and Elliania had put their scribes to scouring the libraries of Buckkeep for any mention of Clerres or White Prophets. Four scrolls awaited me. I skimmed them. Hearsay and legend, with a dollop of superstition. I set them aside for Ash to read to the Fool, and comforted myself by imagining that I could poison all the wells in Clerres. The required amount of toxin would depend on the flow of the water. I fell asleep to my calculations.
The next day slowly ticked by. I passed that day as I had the one before. And another day came, with a storm of wind and snow that would delay the Rousters’ return. There had been no word from any of the Witted of soldiers on the road, and nothing from the patrols that Dutiful had dispatched. It was hard to cling to that hope, and harder to let go of it. I told myself that if the storms let up, Thick would get home and we might pry Shine’s word from Chade and Skill it to her. I busied myself as best I could, but each moment seemed a day to me.
I went to see the Fool at least twice every day. The dragon’s blood continued to affect him, with changes that overtook his body so rapidly they were frightening. The scarring on his face, the deliberate tracks of the torturer across the planes of his cheeks and brow, began to fade. His fingers became straighter, and although he still limped, he did not wince with pain at every step. His appetite was the equal of a guardsman’s, and Ash saw to it that he could indulge it.
Spark was most often Ash when I saw her in what had become the Fool’s chambers, though now I caught glimpses of her as Spark about the keep. I marvelled at what I saw. It was not merely a change of clothing and a frilled cap with buttons. She was an entirely different creature. She was industrious and thoughtful as Ash, but the occasional smile that came and went on her face was all Spark. A sidelong glance from her was not flirtatious but mysterious. Several times I encountered her in Chade’s rooms doing minor tidying or bringing cool water to replenish his ewer. Her eyes slid by me at such encounters so I never betrayed that I knew her in any other guise. I wondered if anyone other than Chade, the Fool and me knew of her duality.
It was Ash I spoke with one morning when I had climbed the stairs after what had become a daily practice bout with my guardsmen. I had come to see how the Fool was doing. I found the Fool garbed in a dressing-gown of black and white, sitting at Chade’s worktable as Ash tried valiantly to tame the Fool’s growing hair. To see him garbed so woke my memories of his days as Shrewd’s jester. The new growth on his scalp stood up like the fuzz on a newly-hatched chick’s pate, while the hanks that remained of his longer hair hung lank and coarse. As I climbed the final step, I heard Ash say, ‘It’s hopeless. I’m cutting it all to the same length.’
‘I suppose that’s the best solution,’ the Fool agreed.
Ash snipped each lock and set it on the table, where the crow immediately investigated it. I had come near silently, but the Fool greeted me with, ‘What colour is my new hair?’
‘Like wheat ready for the harvest,’ Ash said before I could respond. ‘But more like dandelion fluff.’
‘So it was when we were boys, always floating in a cloud about his face. I think you will look like a dandelion gone to seed until it is long enough for you to bind.’
The Fool put his hand up to touch it, and Ash pushed it away with an annoyed grunt. ‘So many changes, so fast. Still, each time I awake I am surprised to find myself clean and warm and fed. The pain is still a constant, but the pain of healing is a bearable thing. I almost welcome the deep aches and even the sharp twinges, for each one tells me that I am getting better.’
‘And your vision?’ I dared to ask.
He fixed his whirling dragon eyes on me. ‘I see light and darkness. Little more than that. Yesterday, when Ash walked between me and the hearth-fire, I had perceived his passing shadow. It is not enough, but it is something. I am trying to be patient. How is Chade?’
I shook my head and then recalled he could not see me do that. ‘Little change that I can see. The sword cut he took is healing but slowly. The delvenbark has cut him off from his magic. I know he was using the Skill to maintain his body. I suspect he was consuming other herbs as well. And now he is not. I do not know if I am imagining that the lines in his face are deeper and the flesh fallen from his cheeks, but—’
‘You are not imagining it,’ Ash said quietly. ‘Every time I venture into his room, he seems to have aged. As if every change he did with his magic is falling away, and his true age catching up with him.’ He set his scissors down, his task finished. Motley pecked at the shining shears, and then decided to groom her feathers instead. ‘What good have they done if they save him from dying of the Skill only to let him die of his years?’
I had no answer to that. I had not considered it.
Ash followed it with another question. ‘And what will become of me if he dies? I know it is a selfish thing to wonder, but wonder I do. He has been my teacher and protector here at Buckkeep Castle. What will become of me if he dies?’
I did not want to think of such an eventuality but I answered as best I could. ‘Lady Rosemary would assume his mantle. And you would remain an apprentice to her.’
Ash shook his head. ‘I am not sure she would keep me. I think she dislikes me in direct proportion to how much Lord Chade favours me. I know that she believes he is lenient with me. I think if he were gone, she would dismiss me and take on apprentices more dutiful to her.’ In a softer voice, he added, ‘And then I would be left with the only other profession I have ever studied.’
‘No.’ The Fool forbade it before I could.
‘Would you take me on as your servant, then?’ Ash asked in the most wistful tone I had ever heard.
‘I cannot,’ the Fool said regretfully. ‘But I am sure Fitz would see you well placed before we go.’
‘Go where?’ Ash asked, echoing my own thoughts.
‘Back to where I came from. On a dire mission of our own.’ He looked blindly toward me. ‘I do not think we should wait, Fitz, for your Skill or my eyesight. A few more days, and I believe I shall be fit to travel. And we must set out as soon as we possibly can.’
‘Did Ash read you the scrolls I left? Or Spark perhaps?’ The girl grinned. But my foray did not distract the Fool.
‘They were worthless, as you well know. Fitz. You don’t need old scrolls or a map. You have me. Heal me. Restore my sight, and we can go. I can get you there, to Clerres. You took me through a stone to bring me here; we can get to Clerres the same way that Prilkop took me.’
I made myself pause and draw a deep breath. Patience. His heart was fixed on destroying Clerres. As was I, but both logic and love anchored me where I was and doomed me to the suffocation of waiting. I was not sure if rationality could move him, but I would try. ‘Fool. Do you not understand at all what has befallen Chade, and how it affects me? I dare not attempt to Skill, not to try to heal you nor to enter a stone alone. Taking you with me? No. Neither of us would ever emerge.’
He opened his mouth to speak and I raised my voice.
‘Nor will I leave Buckkeep until my hope of finding Bee within the Six Duchies is exhausted. Those of the Wit search for her now. And there is a chance that Chade will recover enough to help us reach for Shine. Shall I race off to Clerres, a journey of months by ship, leaving Bee to her captors’ whims for all those days when word of her here in Buck or in Rippon may reach us any moment? I know you are impatient to go. Standing still and waiting for word feels like being slowly burned alive. But I will endure it rather than rush off and abandon her here. And when we do go to Clerres, when we take our vengeance to them, it had best be on a ship with troops. Or do you truly believe I can journey to a distant city, beat down their walls, kill those you hate and emerge with my life and their captives intact?’
He smiled and it was frightening when he said softly, ‘Yes. Yes, I do believe we can. Moreover, I believe we must. Because I know that where an army would fail, an assassin and one who knows their ways will succeed.’
‘So let me be an assassin! Fool. I have said that you and I will take our vengeance on them. And we will. My hatred for all they are burns just as hot as yours. But mine is not a raging forest fire, but a bed of tended coals in a smithy’s shop. If you wish me to do this as an assassin, then you must allow me to do it as I was trained to do it. Effectively. Efficiently. With ice in my blood.’
‘But—’
‘No. Listen. I’ve said their blood will run. It will. But not at Bee’s expense. I will find her, I will take her home, and I will stay with her until she is recovered enough to be without me for a time. Bee comes first. So become accustomed to delay and use it wisely. Rebuild your body and your health, just as I spend my waiting days honing my old skills.’
The fire crackled. Ash stood silent as a sentry, breathing raggedly. His eyes darted from the Fool to me and back again.
‘No,’ the Fool said at last. He was adamant.
‘Have you not heard a word I’ve said?’ I demanded.
It was his turn to raise his voice. ‘I have heard them all. And some of what you say makes sense. We will wait, for a time, and though I think that wait will be fruitless, how sweet it would be for both of us if it were not. For all of us. I held her in my arms for but the briefest moments, but in that time, the connection we made. I do not know that I can describe it to you. I could see again. Not the sight of eyes, but my sight of what might be. All the possible futures and the most crucial turning points. And for the first time, I held in my arms someone who shared that with me. Someone to whom I could pass on all I had learned. Someone to come after me, a true White Prophet uncorrupted by the Servants.’
I said not a word. Guilt was choking me. I had broken that embrace, had torn Bee from his arms and punched my knifeblade into his belly, over and over.
‘But if tonight a message about her whereabouts reaches you and if you recover Bee tomorrow then we should leave the day after.’
‘I will not abandon her again!’
‘Of course not. Neither will I. She will be where she is safest. She goes with us.’
I gawked at him. ‘Are you insane?’
‘Of course I am! As well you know! Torture does that to a man!’ He laughed without humour. ‘Listen to me. If Bee is truly your daughter, if she has your fire at all, then she will WANT to go with us, to bring down that hive of cruelty.’
‘If?’ I sputtered in outrage.
A horrible smile lit his face. His voice sank. ‘And IF she is my child, as I am certain she is, then when you find her you will discover that she already knows she MUST go there and aid us. She will have seen it on her path.’
‘No. I don’t care what she has “seen” or what you advise. I would never take my child into slaughter!’
His smile only grew wider. ‘You will not have to. She will take you.’
‘You are mad! And I am past weariness.’
I walked away from him, to the far end of the room. This was as close to a real quarrel as we had come since the Fool had returned. He, of all people, should be able to understand my anguish. I did not want to be at odds with him right now. And I had so little faith left in myself or my judgment that when he questioned it, it felt like an attack.
I heard Ash’s whisper to him. ‘You know he is right. First, you must rebuild your strength and endurance. I can help with that.’
I did not hear the Fool’s muffled response. But I heard Ash say, ‘And I can help with that as well. When the time comes, all will be ready.’
I spoke when I knew I had control of my voice. No anger, no hurt rode my words. ‘Tell me of those who follow the woman. Not the mercenaries she hired, but the pale folk. They puzzle me. They are Whites or part-White. If the Servants treat the Whites so badly, why do they follow her and do her bidding? Why must we kill them? Surely they would welcome being free of her?’
He shook his head slowly. His voice was calm and informative. Did he wish to smooth things over as badly as I did? ‘Children believe what they are told. They are on “a path” Fitz. They know nothing except obeying her. If they are not useful to her, then they are useless. And the useless are discarded. Euthanized when they are small, gently if they are fortunate. They will have seen some of their fellows given a night draught of poison. The ones who were intractable or did not manifest any talent become as slaves. Those who have a little talent are kept if they are obedient. Some come to believe everything they are told. They will be ruthless in following her orders. They will obey her even to giving up their lives. Or taking any life that opposes them. They are fanatics, Fitz. Show them any mercy and they will find a way to kill you.’
I pondered silently for a time. Ash had gone very still, and was listening as if he were absorbing every word. I cleared my throat. ‘So. There will be no hope of them rising against Dwalia. No hope of converting them to our cause.’
‘If you find the ones who took her … not just the mercenaries they’ve hired. I mean the ones who made this plan. The luriks. Dwalia. They may seem kindly to you. Or young. Misguided. Or as if they were simply servants, obeying orders. Don’t trust them. Don’t believe them. Have no mercy, feel no pity. Every one of them dreams of rising to power. Every one of them has witnessed what the Servants have done to their fellows. And each has chosen to serve them rather than defy them. Every one of them is more treacherous than you can imagine.’
I fell silent. And they were the ones who held Bee captive? I could pit my new guard against them, or ask Dutiful for seasoned troops. But my fury went cold as I imagined Bee, small as she was, scuttling for shelter in the midst of such a melee. Trampling hooves, swinging blades. Would Dwalia and her luriks kill my child rather than allow us to win her back? I could not bring myself to phrase that question.
‘They will never turn against Dwalia,’ the Fool admitted reluctantly. ‘Even if you could engage them while they are within the Six Duchies, which I consider very unlikely, they will fight to the last death. They have been told so many tales of the outside world that they will fear capture much more than death.’
He fell silent for a time, pondering. Ash had put away his scissors and was sweeping up fallen hair. ‘So. Enough of badgering one another. We have agreed that we will go to Clerres. Let us set aside for now when we will go. And even how we will travel there. Let us lay what plans we may. Once we reach Clerres the school has its own fortifications we must win past. Even once we are inside, there is such a nest of evil spiders that it will take cleverness to root them all out. I think we must rely on stealth and cunning more than force of arms.’
‘I am cunning,’ Ash said quietly. ‘I think I might be of great use to you on such a mission.’
The Fool turned a speculative glance toward him but, ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘Despite all you have known in your short life, I do not take someone as young as you into a situation like that. We are not speaking of a knife in the dark, or a dose of poison in the soup. Dozens, the Fool has said. Perhaps scores. It’s no place for a youngster.’
I dropped into a chair beside him at the table. ‘Fool, this is not a light undertaking you are asking of me. Even if I can accept that every one of the Servants must die, I still must wonder if I can do it. I am as rusty at assassination as I am at axework! I will do all I can. You know that. Those who have taken Bee and Shine, yes. They ended their lives when they came to my home. They must die, but not in a way that endangers my daughter or Shine. And those who hurt you. Yes. But beyond that? You are speaking of slaughter. I think you imagine my abilities to be far greater than they are.’ My voice dropped as I had to add, ‘Especially my ability to deal death and not feel the cost. And when we reach Clerres? Do all of them truly merit death?’
I could not read the cascade of emotions that flickered over his face. Fear. Despair. Incredulity that I would doubt his judgment. But it ended with him shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘Fitz. Do you think I would ask for this were there any other way? Perhaps you think I seek this purely for my own survival. Or vengeance. But it’s not. For every one we must kill, there are ten, a dozen, twenty held there in an ignorant slavery. Those, possibly, we can free, to go about whatever lives they can build for themselves. Children bred to one another like cattle, cousin to cousin, sister to brother. The malformed children they create, the ones born with no sign of their White bloodlines are destroyed as carelessly as you might pull a weed from a summer garden.’ His voice shook and his hands trembled against the table. Ash reached toward him. I shook my head at him. I did not think the Fool wished to be touched just then.
His words halted. He clasped his hands together tightly and I watched him try to find calmness. Motley left off grooming herself and hopped closer to him. ‘Fool? Fool?’
‘I’m here, Motley,’ he said as if she were his child. He extended his hand toward the sound of her voice. She hopped to his wrist and he did not flinch. She climbed up his sleeve, beak over claw, until she reached his shoulder. She began to preen his hair. I saw his clenched jaw relax. Still, his voice was flat and dead as he spoke. ‘Fitz. Do you understand that is what they intend for Bee? For our child? She is a valuable addition to their breeding stock, a strain of White blood they have not yet been able to add. If they have not already deduced she is mine, they soon will.’
Ash’s eyes flew wide open. He started to speak. A sharp gesture from me stopped him. I moved my hand to my heart and tried to calm it. I drew a deep breath. Ask the questions. ‘So. How long will this journey to Clerres take us?’
‘In truth, I can’t say with surety. When first I travelled from the School to Buckkeep, it was by a very roundabout way. I was young. More than once I lost my way, or had to take ship to a port other than the one I desired in the hope of finding a ship there that would take me closer to Buck. Sometimes I was months in one location before I had the wherewithal to travel on. Twice I was held against my wishes. Back then, my resources were very limited, and the Six Duchies little more than a legend to me. And when I returned to Clerres with Prilkop, we travelled part of the way by the stones. It still took us quite a time to reach there.’ He paused. Was he hoping that I would offer to take him by that route again? If so, he would wait for a long time, even when my control of the Skill was restored. Chade’s current state had only increased my reluctance ever to enter them again.
‘But however we go, we had best start as soon as we are able. The dragon’s blood Ash gave me has had a remarkable effect on my health. If I continue to improve, if you can help me regain my eyesight … Oh, even if neither happens. We will wait for the messenger you hope for. But how long? Ten days?’
There was no reasoning with him. I would not give him false promises. ‘Let us wait until the Rousters return with Thick and FitzVigilant. It will not be many days. And perhaps by then your eyes will have improved as much as the rest of you. And if not, we will ask Thick and the rest of Nettle’s coterie to see if they can restore your vision.’
‘Not you?’
‘Until Nettle judges my Skill to be controlled again, no. I will be in the room but I will not be able to help.’ I repeated aloud the promise I’d made to myself. ‘It’s time for me to cede to her true authority as Skillmistress. And respect her knowledge. She has warned me not to Skill. So I will not. But the others can help you.’
‘But I … No, then. No.’ He suddenly lifted one scarred hand to cover his mouth. Both his fingers and his voice shook as he spoke. ‘I cannot. I just can’t let them … Not until you are recovered. Fitz. You know me. But those others … They could lend you their strength but you must be the one to touch me. Until then … No. I will have to wait.’ He snapped his mouth shut suddenly and abruptly crossed his arms on his chest. I could almost see hope depart from his body as his shoulders rounded in. He closed his blind eyes and I looked away from him, trying to give him space to compose himself. So quickly he had lost his dragon-blood courage. I almost wished he were quarrelling with me still. To see him suddenly shaking in fear again was like a bellows blowing on the coals of my anger. I would kill them. All of them.
Motley muttered to him. I stood and walked away from the table. I did not speak again until he could hear that I was not sitting and staring at him.
‘Ash. You have a deft hand with those scissors. Do you think you could take the stitches out of my brow? They are too tight.’
‘They look like a puckered seam in a badly-made dress,’ Ash told me. ‘Come. Sit down here near the fire where the light is better.’
Ash and I talked while he worked, mostly his small warnings that he would now tug out a stitch or asking me to blot away the blood that welled where the threads had been. We both pretended not to notice when the Fool gently set his crow down on the table and carefully groped his way to his bed. By the time Ash was finished with me, he was either truly asleep or feigning it well.
The slow days ground by. Whenever I found myself pacing, I took myself down to the practice yards. I had one chance encounter with Blade’s grandson. He barely concealed his satisfaction in the drubbing he gave me. The second time I accepted his invitation to try our skills with staves against each other, he very nearly laid me out. Afterwards, Foxglove drew me aside and asked me sarcastically if I enjoyed the beatings I was taking. I told her that of course I didn’t, I was simply trying to regain some of my old physical skills. But as I limped away to the steams, I knew I had lied. My guilt demanded pain, and pain was one of the few things that could drive Bee’s predicament from my thoughts. I knew it for an unhealthy tendency, but excused myself on the grounds that when finally I had a chance to use a blade against her kidnappers, I might have regained some of my ability.
So it was that I was in the practice yards when the shout went up that the Rousters had returned. I touched the tip of my wooden blade to the earth to signify my surrender to my partner and went to meet them. Their formation was ragged and they rode as defeated and angry men do. They had their comrades’ horses, but were bearing no bodies home. Most likely they had burned them where they fell. I wondered what they had made of finding one man hamstrung, with his throat cut. Perhaps in all the blood, no one would have noticed his specific injuries.
They ignored me as they led their horses to the stables. FitzVigilant had already dismounted and stood holding the reins of his mount and waiting for someone to take the horse. Thick, looking old and weary and cold, sat slumped on his sturdy beast. I went to his stirrup. ‘Come down, old friend. Put your hand on my shoulder.’
He lifted his face to regard me. I had not seen him look so miserable in a very long time. ‘They’re mean. They made fun of me all the way home. They bumped me from behind when I was trying to drink my tea and I spilled it all down my front. And at the inn, they sent two girls to tease me. They dared me to touch their breasts and then slapped me when I did.’ Tears came into his little eyes.
He told me his troubles so earnestly. I pushed down my wrath to speak gently to him. ‘You are home and no one will hurt you any more,’ I promised him. ‘You are back with your friends. Come down.’
‘I did my best to protect him,’ Lant said behind my shoulder. ‘But he could not seem to stay clear of his tormentors, or ignore them.’
Having had the care of Thick more than once, I understood well enough. The little man did seem to have the knack for putting himself into the most trouble he could find: despite his years, he still had difficulty telling mockery from good-natured joking. Until it was too late. And like a cat, he was inevitably most attracted to those who had the least tolerance for him. Those most likely to torment him.
But once he had been able to evade actual physical damage.
I spoke very softly. ‘Could not you Skill them, “Don’t see me, don’t see me”?’
He scowled at me. ‘They tricked me. One would say, “Oh, I like you, be my friend.” But they would be mean. Those girls, they said they would like me to touch them. That it would be fun. Then they slapped me.’
I winced for the hurt in his eyes and drooping mouth. He coughed, and it was a wet cough. Not good.
‘Every one of them deserves a good thrashing is what I think. Sir.’ I turned to find Perseverance approaching. He led three horses. The roan, Priss, and a dappled gelding from my stables. Speckle. That was his name.
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded and then took in the boy’s appearance. His right eye was blacked and that cheek well bruised. I recognized that someone had backhanded him. I knew that type of injury well. ‘And what happened to you?’ I demanded before he could answer my first question.
‘They hit Per, too,’ Thick volunteered.
Lant looked flustered. ‘He tried to intervene that night at the inn. I told him it would only make things worse and it did.’
I was confronted by incompetence, inexperience and stupidity. Then I looked at Thick’s woeful face and mentally changed stupidity to naïvety. Thick had never outgrown his innocence. I was silent as I helped him dismount. Thick coughed again and could not seem to stop. ‘Lant will take you to the kitchens and see that you get a hot, sweet drink. Per and I will take the horses. Then, Lant, I suggest you present yourself to King Dutiful to give your report. Thick will give his at the same time.’
Lant looked alarmed. ‘Not Lord Chade?’
‘He’s very ill right now.’ Thick was still coughing. He finally caught a wheezing breath. I relented a little. ‘Be sure Thick eats well and then take him through the steams. Then I will hear your report at the same time as the king does.’
‘Badgerlock, I rather think …’
‘Prince FitzChivalry,’ I corrected him. I looked him up and down. ‘And do not make that mistake again.’
‘Prince FitzChivalry,’ he accepted the correction. He opened his mouth and then shut it again.
I turned away from him, holding his horse’s reins and Thick’s. ‘That wasn’t the mistake,’ I said without looking back. ‘I meant your trying to think. But do not call me by that name again. Not here. We are not ready for it to be common knowledge that Badgerlock and FitzChivalry are one and the same.’
Per made a small choking sound. I did not look at him. ‘Bring those horses, Perseverance. You’ll have time to explain yourself to me while you settle them.’
The Rousters had gone into what I still thought of as the ‘new’ stables, the ones built since the Red-Ship Wars. I did not want to see them just now. I wanted to be calm when I dealt with them, not merely appear calm. Per followed and I led him and the horses behind the new stables to Burrich’s stables where I had grown up. They were not used as much as they once were, but I was pleased to see they were kept clean and that there were empty stalls ready for the horses we brought. The stableboys were in awe of me and scampered so swiftly to the needs of the beasts that Per found very little to do. The other stableboys seemed to recognize him as one of their own, and perhaps thought the bruises on his face were my doing, for they were very deferential to me.
‘Isn’t this Lord Derrick’s roan?’ one of them dared to ask of me.
‘Not any more,’ I told him, and was taken aback by the warm confirmation I received from the mare. My rider.
‘She likes you,’ Per told me from the next stall. He was brushing Priss. He’d let one of the other boys take Speckle but Priss he was doing himself.
I didn’t ask him how he knew. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘She’s muddy, sir. We were crossing an iced-over stream and she broke through and got her legs muddy. So I’m grooming her.’
Technically, a truthful answer. This boy. I admired him grudgingly. ‘Perseverance. Why did you come to Buckkeep?’
He straightened to look over the stall wall at me. If he was not genuinely surprised at my question, he was very good at dissembling. ‘Sir, I am sworn to you. Where else should I be? I knew you would want your horse brought to you, and I did not trust those … guardsmen to bring her. And I knew that you would need Priss. When we go after those bastards and take Bee back, she will want to ride her own horse home. Your pardon, sir. Lady Bee, I meant to say. Lady Bee.’ He caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down on it hard.
I had intended to rebuke him and send him home. But when a youngster speaks as a man it’s not right to reply to him as a child. A stable-girl had just arrived with a bucket of water. I turned to her. ‘Your name?’
‘Patience, sir.’
That jolted me for an instant. ‘Well, Patience, when Per is finished, would you show him where to get some hot food and where the steams are. Find him a bed in the …’
‘I’d rather stay near the horses, sir. If no one minds.’
I understood that, too. ‘Help him find some bedding, then. You can sleep in one of the empty stalls, if that’s what you wish.’
‘Thank you, sir. It is.’
‘Should I make him a poultice for that cheek? I know one that can draw the swelling down by morning.’ Patience looked very pleased to be put in charge of Perseverance.
‘Do you? Well, then, you should do that as well, and I’ll be pleased to see how well it works by the morning.’ I started to leave and then remembered the pride of a boy. I turned back. ‘Perseverance. You are to stay well away from any of the Rousters. Am I understood?’
He looked down. ‘Sir,’ he acknowledged me unhappily.
‘They will be dealt with. But not by you.’
‘They’re a bad lot,’ Patience said quietly.
‘Stay clear,’ I warned them both, and left the stables.