"Fool's Fate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

EIGHTEEN Ice

And so we dug in the ice.

Longwick sent Riddle and Hest down to our camp to bring up the shovels, picks and pry bars. While they were gone, Longwick asked the Prince solemnly, 'How big a hole do you wish, my lord?1 Dutiful and Chade drew it out on the snow, an area large enough for four men to work in without getting in one another's way. Riddle, Hest and 1 were the diggers. Longwick worked alongside us, to my surprise. I suppose he felt that his reduced company of guardsmen made it essential that he take a hand as well. The guardsmen worked with a will, but awkwardly. They were fighters, not farmers, and though they knew the essentials of throwing up emergency earthworks, they had never had to work on a glacier

before. Neither had I. It was an enlightening experience.

Digging ice is not like digging in soil. Soil is made of particles, and particles give way before the blade of a shovel. Ice forms alliances and holds tight to itself The top layer of loose snow was the most annoying, for it was like shovelling fine flour. There was little weight to each load, but it was difficult to control where each shovelful landed. The next layer was not so bad. It was like digging old packed snow once we broke through the icy crust. But the deeper we went, the more difficult the digging became. We could not shove a spade in and lift and throw out a shovelful of snow. Instead, we used picks to break the ice into chunks, and in the process sent shards and chunks of it flying at one another. Once the ice was loosened, we could scoop it up and toss it up and out of the hole, where the others loaded it onto one of the sleds and hauled it away from the hole's edge. If I kept on my cloak, my back ran sweat. Taking it off meant that frost collected on my shirt.

We did not work alone. A compromise had been reached, for the Prince's Witted coterie were the ones to haul the ice from the hole's edge. After a time, the two groups took turns at the picks, the shovels and the hauling. By the first nightfall, we had a hole that was shoulder-deep with no sign of a dragon in the bottom of it.

As evening fell, the winds rose, sending flurries of loose ice crystals scurrying across the surface of the glacier. As we gathered at our camp below, to eat our lukewarm food as we clustered about the tiny potted fires, I wondered uneasily how much snow the winds would sweep into our excavation.

Although our earlier division had been forgotten in the day's labour, camp that night recalled it. We all huddled in the scanty protection of the circled tents, which broke the wind somewhat and gave an illusion of shelter on the bare and windswept ice. It was not a large space, yet within it we assorted ourselves. The Hetgurd warriors were friendlier toward the Witted and the Fool than they had been, trading rations and conversation with one another. Their skinny bard, Owl, sat next to Cockle while he performed for us. Cockle sang two songs without accompaniment, for he was not willing to risk either his hands or his instruments by exposure to the chilling wind. One was about a dragon who so charmed a man

that he left his family and home and never more was seen. If there was some great truth hidden in it, I did not find it. As Web had mentioned, it spoke of the man breathing of the dragon's breath, and in that moment giving his heart to the creature. The other song had an even more obscure reference to dragons, yet all kept silent and listened to them thoughtfully as Cockle's solo voice battled with the sweeping winds. The only competing voice was Thick's. He sat near Dutiful, humming and rocking to himself. Although Chade tried several times to shush him, a few minutes later, the little man would take up his music again. It worried me, but there was nothing I could do.

I had glimpsed Peottre and the Narcheska earlier in the day, looking down on our work. Both of their faces seemed very still, caught between hope and dread. Dutiful had gone to speak to them, but I had not heard his words nor any reply from them. The Narcheska had stared at him as if he were a stranger accosting her when her mind was full of other matters. Tonight, they did not join us for the evening food and fire, but went directly to their tent. The dim light of a candle glowing within it was the only reminder of their presence.

When Cockle's song was finished and we had thanked him, I was full ready for bed. As much as I wanted private talk with Chadc, Dutiful and the Fool, I longed for sleep more. My body had not fully recovered from my elfbark excess, and the afternoon of heavy work in the cold had exhausted me.

I rose, stretching, and Chade beckoned me to his side. When I went to him, he asked me to bring Thick to the Prince's tent and help him prepare for bed. I thought at first it was an excuse to have quiet time to speak to me, but when I stood over Thick, my concern deepened. Thick rocked from side to side, humming continuously. His eyes were closed. I hesitated to touch him, just as a burned child hesitates to reach again toward the fire. Then the deadness of my Skill persuaded me that any leap of his mind to mine would actually be a relief rather than a shock. So I set my hand to his shoulder and shook him gently. Not only was there no jolt of Skill, but Thick gave no sign of rousing. 1 shook him again, more firmly, and finally had to drag him to his feet before he showed any sort of wakefulness. Then he blubbered like a suddenly wakened babe, and I felt like a beast as I steered him toward the Prince's tent. As I tugged off his snow-caked boots and outer garments, all he did was mutter semi-coherent complaints about the cold. Without prompting, he crawled into his blankets and I tucked them down around him.

I had just finished when Chade and the Prince came into the tent. 'I'm worried about him,' I said quietly, tipping my head toward Thick. From beneath the mounded blankets, a soft humming had already commenced.

'It's the dragon,' Chade said darkly.

'We think,' Dutiful amended wearily- He sat down on the edge of his pallet and bent over to drag off his boots. 'We can't be sure. We try to Skill to Thick, and it seems as if he is there, but he just ignores us.'

I delivered the news I had carried all day like a stone. 'I've had no indication that I'm recovering. My Skill is gone.'

The Prince nodded heavily, unsurprised. 'I reach for you, and it's like you are not there at all. It's a strange sensation.' He lifted his eyes to meet mine. 'It makes me realize that for most of my life, you have been a tiny presence in the corner of my mind. Did you know that?'

'1 feared that,' 1 admitted. 'Chade and I discussed it. He said that you had had strange dreams when you were small, dreams of a wolf and a man.'

For an instant, Dutiful looked startled. Then a slow smile dawned on his face. 'Was that you? And Nighteyes?' He suddenly took a deep breath and looked away from me. 'They were some of the best dreams I ever had. Sometimes at night, when I was young, I would try to have the same dreams when I was falling asleep. I never had the same dream twice, but sometimes I'd have a new one. Hmm. Even then, you were teaching me to Skill, how to reach out and find you. And Nighteyes. Oh, Eda, Fitz, how you must miss him! In those dreams, you were one creature. Did you know that?'

Sudden tears ambushed me. I turned and brushed at my face before they could fall. 'I suspected so. Nettle sees me so, still, as a wolf-man.'

'Then you went into her dreams, too?'

Was there a note of jealousy in the Prince's voice? 'Not intentionally. For either of you. I never imagined that I was teaching either of you to Skill. Nettle, I sometimes deliberately looked in on, trying to see Burrich and Molly. Because I loved them, and I missed them. And because Nettle was my daughter.'

'And me?'

For that solitary instant, I was glad my Skill was gone. I never wanted the Prince to know the role I had played in his conception. Verity might have used my body to get him, but he was still my king's son. Not mine. Not mine in any way, save the way his mind had called to mine. Aloud, I said, 'You were Verity's son. I did not consciously seek you out, and I was not aware of your sharing my dreams. Not until much later.'

I glanced at Chade and was surprised to see that he was barely following our conversation. He seemed to be looking into a distance and not seeing what was before his eyes. 'Chade?' I asked him worriedly. 'Are you all right?'

He drew a sudden breath, as if I'd wakened him. 'I think it is the dragon that is fascinating Thick. I was trying to get his attention, but his music is strong and all consuming. Neither the Prince nor I can sense the dragon with the Skill. Yet, when I reach after Thick with the Skill, I can sense something there. But it's odd . . . it's like seeing the shadow of a man, but not the man himself. I cannot tell anything about him, other than that he's there. Dutiful says that from time to time his Wit catches a whiff of Icefyre, only to have him vanish like a scent when the wind changes.'

1 stood still for a moment and sent my Wit-questing. After a time, I came back to them. 'He's there. And then he isn't. I can't tell if it's something that be is doing deliberately, some sort of Wit-camouflage, or if, as Web suggested, he's very close to death.'

I glanced at Dutiful, but his thoughts had followed a different track. I wondered if he had heard what Chade and I had said at all. 'I'm going to try to Skill to Nettle tonight,1 he announced suddenly. 'We need a real link with Buckkeep and she's our only hope of one. I also think that if any one of us can distract Thick from the dragon, if that is what is fascinating him, then

she can. Even if it isn't the dragon, she may be our best chance of reaching him.'

I was stunned. I didn't want him to try this. 1 did. 'Do you think you can reach her?'

'Perhaps. It would be a lot easier to do if I actually knew her.' The emphasis he placed on those last words made it plain it was my fault that he didn't. I think he had heard my reluctance in my question, and been stung by it. I swallowed that, and let him speak on. 'I only brushed minds with her that one time, and that was through you. Reaching her on my own is going to be difficult.'

Anxiety gnawed at me. I knew I should not ask the question of him, but I did. 'If you do, what will you tell her?'

He stared at me bleakly before replying, 'The truth. I know it's a novel idea, but I thought that at least one Farseer should try it.'

I knew he was trying to provoke me. The events of the day had been difficult for him, and my prince was behaving like a petulant fiftccn-year-old, trying to find someone to put the blame on. I tried again to let it go past me. 'The truth is a large thing. Which part of the truth do you plan to tell her?' I asked, and tried to smile as I awaited his answer.

'For now, only the parts that belong to me. That I am Prince Dutiful and I desperately need her to pass on tidings to my mother, and then convey to me her advice. I want my mother to know about Sydel and her parents. As much to be wary of them as to rescue Sydel, I'll admit. And if she will listen to that message and accept it, then I will tell her my fears for Thick: that a dragon is stealing what little mind he has. Then I'll ask her to distract him from it, if she can reach him.' He sighed suddenly. 'I suppose I shall be lucky if I get that far in a conversation with her.' He gave me another doleful look.

I think at that instant I felt most keenly the loss of my Skill I did not want Dutiful to speak to my daughter out of my hearing and awareness. I feared what he might accidentally reveal. He might influence how she thought of me before I had a chance to let her know me on her own. He answered my thought as if he had heard it.

'You'll have to trust me, won't you?'

I took a breath. 'I do trust you,' I said, and tried to make that statement not a lie.

'I'll be with the lad,1 Chade told me, and then laughed aloud at the dismay on my face. 'No, don't say you trust me. 1 don't think I could stand it.'

'But I have to trust you,' I pointed out, and Chade nodded. Then I asked, 'What did you think of what went on today? Do you think that the Hetgurd folk will turn on us and attack if the dragon is unearthed alive and we attempt to take his head/'

'Yes,' Dutiful answered me. 'Without doubt. I think that the absence of the Black Man's approval has inflamed every superstitious fear that they have.'

'I think you are right,' Chade agreed. 'I noticed that tonight, as we were retiring, they set up yet another offering to him at the outskirts of camp.'

I shook my head at Chade. 'I know what you are thinking. Even if I could do it, I don't think it would be wise. If the offering was taken now, would not they interpret it as him finally approving of them, because they had spoken out against the Prince's quest? Too late for chicanery in that area, Chade.'

'I suppose you are right,' he said without apologies. 'And if you were caught stealing the offering, it might rouse them to immediate action. No. Best to wait.' He sighed and rubbed his arms vigorously. 'I am so tired of this cold. I'm too old to be this chilled all the time.1

The Prince rolled his eyes silently.

I changed the subject. 'Please be careful, both of you, when you reach after Thick. And Dutiful, be very wary contacting Nettle. I am sure I did not imagine what happened to Thick and I that day. Someone was using the Skill to turn us against each other. Whoever it is, he is still out there. He found Thick's mind once. When you Skill to Thick, you may be betraying yourselves to him. And if he follows you, Dutiful, he may find Nettle when you reach for her tonight. Or, you may attract the dragon Tintaglia to yourself I suddenly felt a coward because I could no longer hope to protect either of them. 'Be careful,' I said again.

'1 will,' Dutiful replied irritably, and I was sure he was not giving my warning the weight it deserved. I looked at Chade.

'Have you ever known me to be anything but careful?' my old mentor asked me.

Yes, I have, I nearly said. When you went after the Skill, you went after it with abandon. I fear you will do so again and risk all 1 hold dear in the process. But I held my tongue and contented myself with a nod to his question. 'It feels strange to know you have so much to do tonight and there is no way I can help you accomplish it. I feel useless. If you have nothing for me here, then I'll be seeking my bed. I'm exhausted.' I rolled my shoulders. 'I should have been practising with a shovel those last months in Buckkeep instead of a sword.'

The Prince gave me a grudging chuckle. Chade asked gravely, 'Are you going to see the Fool tonight?'

'Yes.' I waited, on guard.

'Will you sleep there again?'

I didn't ask how he knew I'd slept in the Fool's tent before. There was no emotion in my voice as I replied, 'Possibly. 1 don't know. If we talk late or if he wants company, I may.'

'It looks odd to the others, you know. No, don't scowl at me, that's not my concern. I've known you too long to have any illusions about your preferences in bedmates. I mean only that it may appear to the others that you share his opinion on Icefyre; that we must dig down to the dragon and free it rather than fulfilling the task the Narcheska has put upon our prince.'

I stood silent for a moment, pondering that. Then I said quietly, 'I can't help what people think, Chade.'

'You won't avoid him?'

I met his eyes. 'No. He's my friend.'

Chade folded his lips for a moment. Then, very cautiously he asked, 'Is there any chance that you could persuade him to our way of thinking?'

'To your way of thinking?' I corrected him- 'I doubt it. This isn't some whim he has suddenly conceived, Chade. All his life, he has believed he is the White Prophet. Part of his mission in life is to restore dragons to the world. I don't think I can persuade him that is not a good idea.'

'You've been friends for a very long time. He cares deeply about you,' Chade observed delicately.

'Which is exactly why I wouldn't attempt to influence him that way.' I pushed my hair hack out of my face. The drying sweat from my digging was beginning to chill me. I ached, and not just in body. 'Chade. In this, you will have to trust me. I cannot be your tool, and I cannot promise that I will act in a certain way regardless of what we dig up. This one time in my life, I have to be true to myself.'

Anger twitched his face, and then in a flash so swift I almost missed it, hurt. He turned aside from me, putting his countenance in shadow as he said, 'I see. I had thought your vow to the Farseers meant more to you than that. And, foolishly, I had thought that perhaps we had been friends a long time, perhaps even longer than you and the Fool.'

'Oh, Chade.' I was suddenly so weary I could scarcely speak. 'You are far more to me than friend. You have been my mentor, and my parent and my protector when many hands were lifted against me. Never doubt that I would lay down my life for you.'

'And he is a Farseer,' Dutiful suddenly interjected, startling both of us. 'One whose vow to his family has already cost him many things. So, this time, as your prince, I command this, FitzChivalry Farseer. Keep your vow, to yourself. Be as true to your own heart as you were to Verity's, and to King Shrewd's before him. That is the command of your king.'

I looked at him, amazed, not just at the generosity of his command, a freedom that no other Farseer king had ever thought to grant me, but also at his sudden change from sulky fifteen-year-old to heir to the throne. He frowned slightly at my puzzled look, completely unaware of what he had done. I found my tongue. 'Thank you, my prince. That is the greatest boon that any Farseer king has ever granted me.'

'You're welcome. I just hope that I haven't done something truly foolish. For we must both recall that regardless of what decision you make for yourself, I must hew to my promise to the Narcheska. I am here to take the dragon's head. And much joy may she have of a frozen skull.' Abruptly, he was a morose boy again. I looked at him, and was newly reminded of how difficult all this must be for him. He had left stolen kisses behind on Mayle Island. I doubted he had

had a private word with Elliania since we'd left her mothershouse. He shook his head to my sympathetic look. 'I can only try to do right, and hope that this time I have truly guessed what "right" is.1

'That makes two of us,' Chade grumbled.

'No. Three,' I contradicted him. He was bent over by the little flrepot and had succeeded in waking the embers to a single tongue of flame. He took a small piece of coal and added it to the tiny fire.

'I'm too old to be doing this any more,' he repeated his favourite complaint.

'No. You're not. You'll only be old when you try to stop doing this. I think this trip has done you good.' I hunkered down beside him. 'Chade. Please believe this of me. This isn't about whether you or the Fool pulls my strings. It isn't a contest of will between you two to see who holds my heart.'

'Then what is it?' he demanded grudgingly.

I tried to give him an answer. 'I need to see what is true, before I decide what stance I'll support. We've all known, since before we left Buckkeep, that there is an undercurrent to the Narcheska's request. There may come a time when you are glad I hesitated and did not blindly obey her will. Her handmaid, Henja, was connected somehow to the Piebalds. I'll wager whatever you like on that. She and Peottre and their mothershouse defy the majority of the Hetgurd to put this condition on the Prince. Why? What do they gain? What value to them is a rotting dragon's head?'

'She does not seem pleased with having to ask this of me,' Dutiful observed quietly. 'She is hard as stone in her determination that I must do this thing for her. Yet she does not seem to regard it with anticipation or eagerness, but dread and reluctance. As if it is not of her will that she asks this.'

'Then whose? Peottre's?'

Chade slowly shook his head. 'No. His interests run with hers, and she is loyal to him. I think that if she asked this to please him, she would take more pleasure in it. No. So. Fitz asks our basic question. Whose will?'

I gave my best guess. 'Henja's. She has power over them somehow.

We have seen that. And she is connected to the Piebalds, who have no love for us.'

'The Piebalds.' Chadc pondered this. 'Do you discount the Fool's Pale Woman, then?' He asked the question keenly.

'I do not know. What have we seen or heard of her? Nothing save what the Fool has told us. The Outislanders speak of her as an old evil, a malevolence from the past to be avoided, but not with the dread of something that lurks now. Our Six Duchies dragons killed her and Kehal Rawbread, or so I have often heard. Yet the Outislanders still connect them with this island. They say they mined the black stone here to ballast their White Ships. And there is no denying that the aborted stone dragon back at our landing spot stinks of Red Ship Forging.' A sudden yawn ambushed me.

'Oh, go to bed,' Chade rebuked me. 'At least you can rest. Tonight the Prince and I shall reach far and see if we cannot persuade Nettle to aid us. I will admit that I long to know what is passing in the Six Duchies these days. If the Piebalds have stirred to action there, it might tell us that they play a double game.'

'Perhaps,' Dutiful agreed with a yawn, and 1 suddenly pitied him. I was going to honest sleep. He had a night's work ahead of him. Yet, as I bade them good night and left their tent, I sensed that he regarded Nettle as a challenge he anticipated as well as dreaded. I set aside worrying about that as I left the tent. It was pointless. I was out of that game for now. Perhaps for always. I felt the earth lurch under me as I considered that thought, and then forced myself to go on. Would it be so terrible to go through the rest of my life unSkilled? Could not I think of it as being free of the Skill?

I made a brief stop at the guardsmen's tent. Longwick kept a weary watch at the opening. He nodded at me silently as I slipped inside amongst the heavily sleeping men-at-arms and then out again. He did not ask what I was about. Chade's man. Chade's men, I corrected myself, looking around at the sleeping forms. Every guardsman on this island with us had been hand-picked by him, for both discretion and loyalty. How ruthlessly would they obey his commands?

I was still pondering that when I paused outside the Fool's tent. I listened for a moment to the sweep of the wind that stirred flurries of ice crystals in a storm at ankle height. Every now and then a

gust would propel a stinging onslaught into my face. But wind and rustling ice was all 1 heard. Within the Fool's tent, all was silent, but the bright figures on the outside of the thin, tight fabric glowed with the life of the tiny fire within. 'May I come in?' I asked quietly.

lA moment,' he replied as softly. I heard the rustle of fabric, almost indistinguishable from the wind, and after a brief wait, he untied the door-flap and admitted me. Clinging frost came with me. It could not be helped, yet the Fool still winced as I brushed it from my clothes. I took the bundled Elderling robe from inside my coat, 'Here. 1 brought it back.1

He was reclining on his pallet, the covers already drawn up around him. The tiny kettle crouched hopefully over the candle-fire. He lifted his brows and smiled. 'But I thought you looked so fetching in it. Are you sure you won't keep it?'

I sighed. His fey levity was too much at odds with all else I felt that evening. 'Chade and Dutiful are going to try to reach Nettle tonight. With the Skill. They fear that the dragon is stealing Thick's mind, and hope that Nettle can distract Thick from Icefyre.'

'And you choose not to help them?'

'I cannot. I cannot find a single shred of the Skill inside me. I only know that Thick is troubled because of the way he hums. Always before, he Skilled out his music. Why does he hum and mutter now? It's a change, and I don't like changes, especially changes I don't understand.'

'Life is change,' the Fool observed placidly. 'And death is an even greater change. I think we must resign ourselves to change, Fitz.'

'I'm tired of resigning myself to things. My entire life has been one long resignation.' I dropped the robe on his pallet and then sat down heavily on the end of it, forcing him to draw his feet up out of the way. I pulled my mittens off and held my hands out to his feeble fire, trying to warm myself.

'Ah, Catalyst, can it be that you do not see all the changes you have made? Some by your resignation and acceptance of circumstance, some by your wild struggles. You can say that you hate change, but you are change.'

'Oh, please.' I folded my arms upon my drawn-up knees and dropped my head onto them. 'Don't talk about that tonight. Talk

about anything else but that. Please. I can't think about choices and changes tonight.'

'Very well.' His voice was gentle. 'What do you want to talk about?'

'Anything. Something about you. How did you get here, after we left you behind at Buckkeep Town/'

'I told you. I flew.'

I lifted my head from my arms to regard him sourly. He was smiling a small challenge at me. It was the Fool's old smile, the one that promised he was telling the truth when he was obviously lying. 'No. You did not.' I spoke firmly.

'Very well. If you say so.'

'Kettricken must have helped you find passage, against Chade's advice. And you came here on a ship with a bird's name.' I was guessing wildly, knowing that there would be some small kernel of truth at the bottom of his wild tale.

'Actually, Kettricken counselled me to stay in Buckkeep, in our very brief meeting. I think it taxed her will to say no more to me than that. It was sheer good fortune for me that I encountered Burrich arriving at Buckkeep Castle as I left it- But, as I have agreed to tell this tale, let me tell it in order. Let us go back to the moment at which I last saw you. When I thought that you were hastening to my aid.'

I winced, but he went on evenly, 'The Harbourmaster summoned the City Guard, who were very efficient at removing Lord Golden and his belongings. As you probably have suspected, they detained me until after the ships had sailed. Then I was dismissed, with many apologies and assurances that it had all been a terrible error. But word of the incident spread. By the time Lord Golden returned to his lodgings with his baggage, his creditors had descended, convinced that he had intended to flee the city without paying them. As indeed, he had. They were happy to confiscate most of his baggage and gear, all save one pack, containing the absolute minimum essentials for his survival, which he'd had the forethought to leave in his Buckkeep chambers.'

The little copper kettle was puffing steam. He lifted it from the small flame and poured water into a gaily-decorated teapot.

I had to smile. I gestured about the tent. 'The bare essentials.'

He arched one golden brow. 'For civilized adventuring, yes.' He put the lid on the teapot. It was shaped like a rose. 'And why should one attempt to get by with less? Now. Where was I? Ah, yes. Lord Golden, stripped of his possessions and glamour, was no longer Lord Golden, but only a fleeing debtor. Those who thought they knew him best were astonished at the way he lithely spidered down the outside of his lodgings, to land lightly on his feet and run off into the alleys. I vanished.'

He made me wait. He rubbed one eye and smiled at me thoughtfully. I bit the inside of my cheek until he finally gave in and went on.

'I went to Kettricken, by ways and means that 1 shall leave to your imagination. I think she was quite astounded to encounter me waiting for her in her bedchamber. As I have told you, she urged me to stay at Buckkeep, within the castle, under her wing, until you had completed her mission. I had to decline, of course. And . . .' Here he hesitated for a time. 'I had words with Burrich. I think you know- that already, or suspect it. It shocked me that he recognized me immediately, much as you had. He asked me questions, not because he needed answers, but to confirm what he had already ciphered out for himself, from an earlier interview with Kettricken.'

He paused so long that I feared he would not go on. Then he said, softly, 'At one point he was so furious at what I told him, I thought he would strike me dead. Then, abruptly, he began to weep.' And again he halted. I sat there, my tongue turned to ashes in my mouth. Almost I hoped he would not go on. When he did, I knew he left much unsaid.

'Bereft of any support from the castle, I foolishly thought to return to my inn to see what rags of my fortunes my creditors might have left me to aid me in my flight. My stripped apartments looked as if a horde of locusts had despoiled them. Yet worse was to come. The landlord had seen me enter, and he had taken bribes from my creditors to contact them immediately if he heard or saw me. And he earned his greasy coins well. For a second wave of furious former friends appeared. You would have thought that they had

honestly earned the money that they had won in wagers from me, so righteously outraged were they!

'So. Once more 1 fled. This time, I fled the entire city, not so much in fear of my creditors as in fury at my "friends". You had betrayed me, Fitz. And yet, perhaps, it was your turn to betray me, given that I had so badly failed you.'

'What?'

I was astounded that he could say such a thing. But when our gazes met, I saw ancient shame in his deepening eyes, and recalled a time in the Mountains when my enemies had used him against me. 'You know I never counted that against you. It was not you, Fool. It wasn't.'

'And perhaps when you betrayed me, it was more Chade than you, but the damage was done, nonetheless. And I was furious and frightened and desolated to think that perhaps I had come so far, only to be defeated by him I most trusted. I fled Buckkeep on foot, eluding my pursuers, yet knowing I could not do so for long and wondering what I might do next. How could it be, I wondered, that the Catalyst could change events so that the White Prophet was so completely defeated? And slowly it came to me that it could not be so; that there was a deeper pattern at work than I had first glimpsed. I resolved to give myself to it, though I could not guess what it might be.'

I had turned my head on my arms so 1 could watch him as he told the story. Now I gave a sigh, and relaxed into my hunch. He reached from beneath the covers to pour a scanty share of tea into a cup and a bowl, then gestured that I should take whichever I wished. The pot had plainly been made for one person, travelling alone, and it touched me that he still offered to share. I lifted the bowl and sipped from it. It tasted like flowers, a mouthful of summer in this land where winter always reigned. The heat of it was fleeing rapidly, briefly warming my hands as it passed through the crockery. The Fool's long elegant fingers wrapped the cup as he drank his share.

'Go on,' I urged him when he had let the silence grow. I knew it was a trick of the storyteller to do so, but I did not begrudge him the drama.

'Well. My second horde of creditors had paid heed to the tales of the first. They were soon after me. I ran, and swiftly, but Lord Golden's dress was a bit ostentatious to blend in with a crowd and my pack encumbered me. You recall the hill outside Buckkeep, where the Witness Stones stand still?'

'Of course.' I was intrigued. It was the last place I would have fled to. The bare black stones stand upon the barren hillside there as they have always stood, weathered and impervious to all. The folk of the Six Duchies have long used them as an oath place-Lovers pledge to one another there. It is said that if two men duel there, the gods will see that justice is done. The righteous will win there, if nowhere else. It is an oddly solemn place, bereft of brush or clinging vines. There would be no cover there for any hunted creature to hide in. 'But why go there?'

He lifted one narrow shoulder in an eloquent shrug. 'I knew I could not get far. If I were captured and taken back to Buckkeep, doubtless my creditors would have not only taken my kit but put me to drudgery to work off my debt. I and my mission in the world would be completely undone. So, I resolved to rely on fate, and test an idea that I formulated long ago. The Witness Stones are gateway stones, Fitz, just like the Skill-pillars that you have used before when in dire need to flee. Except, of course, that long ago someone or something obliterated the runes from the sides of the Witness Stones. Perhaps they are so old that they wore away naturally; perhaps some ancient Skill-user decided to put an end to their usefulness. In any case, the runes that tell where they lead are gone, leaving only the weathered marks where they used to be. As I ran toward them, my pack heavy on my back, I thought back over what you had told me of your adventures on the Treasure Beach with Prince Dutiful. I knew that I might choose the wrong facet of the stone, and find myself plunged into deep cold water.'

I sat up straight in slow cold horror. 'Fool, it is far worse than that! What if a stone had fallen face down and you were flung from it into solid earth. Or what if you chose a destination where the stone had been shattered or -'

'All those thoughts rushed through my mind as I raced toward it. Fortunately, there was no time for me to choose, no time for me

even to wonder if there was enough of the Skill left on my fingers to work the stone. I struck the stone, fingertips first, knowing only that I must, I must, I must pass through the portal'

He paused. I was leaning intently toward him, my heart in my throat. To pass through a Skill-portal had always been difficult for me. We knew so little about them, only that some standing stones carved of memory stone and marked with runes could serve as passageways to distant places. I had used them less than a dozen times in my life, and never without dread and uneasiness. Some of RegaPs inexperienced Skill-users had lost their minds when they were forced to use the Skill-portals. Using one had jumbled Dutiful's memory of our time on the Treasure Beach and left us both exhausted.

The Fool smiled sweetly at me. 'Don't look like that. You know I survived.'

'At what cost?' I asked, knowing there must be one.

'Exhaustion. I emerged somewhere, 1 have no idea where. Nowhere I've ever been before. It was a city in ruins, and still as dead stone can be. There was a river near it. That is as much as I can tell you. 1 slept, 1 don't know how long. When I awoke, dawn was all around me. And the Skill-pillar towered over me. This one shone clean of lichen or moss, with each rune standing out as clear as if they had been chiselled yesterday. I studied them for a long time, afraid and dreading, and yet knowing they offered me my only hope. I narrowed my choices down to two of them that might possibly be the one I wished. And then I entered the pillar again.'

'No.' I groaned.

'Exactly how I felt. I emerged feeling as if I had taken a bad beating. But I had come to the right place.'

He made me ask the question, enjoying it. 'Where?'

'Do you remember the broken plaza, like an ancient market circle? The one where the forest was trying to encroach? I stood on top of a stone pillar there, and for a moment, in a dream, I wore the Rooster Crown. You saw me. You remember it.'

1 nodded slowly. 'It was on our road to the Stone Garden. Where the stone dragons slept, before we roused them and sent them to

fight the Red Ships. Where they sleep again now, Verity as Dragon amongst them.'

'Exactly. Again, I went down that forest path, and I saw him there. But he was not the one I sought. I found Girl on a Dragon there, sleeping, her arms clasping the neck of her dragon, just as you had told me. And I woke her and made her understand that I must come here, and once again I mounted hehind her and she flew here with me. And left me. So, you see, old friend, I did not lie to you. I flew here.'

I sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake. A hundred questions swelled in me but I asked the most important one. 'How did you wake her? It takes the Wit, the Skill and blood to wake a stone dragon. Well do 1 know that!'

'It did. And it does. The Skill I had on my fingertips, and blood was easy enough to come by.' He rubbed his wrist, possibly remembering an old cut. 'I did not and do not have the Wit. But you may remember that, foolishly, I had already put some of myself into Girl on a Dragon, when I was attempting to complete the carving of her and wake her.'

'As did I,' I recalled guiltily.

'Yes. I know,' he said softly. 'It is still in her. You put in the memories you could not stand to recall and the emotions you would not let yourself feel. You gave her your mother abandoning you, and never knowing your father. You gave her Regal's torment of you in his dungeons. You gave her, most of all, the pain of losing Molly and your child, to Burrich, of all people. You put into her your fury and your hurt and your sense of being betrayed.' He gave a little sigh. 'It is all in her still. The things you could not allow yourself to feel'

'I left all that behind me long ago,1 I said slowly.

'You cut out a part of yourself and went on, less than you had been.'

'I do not see it that way.' My reply was stiff.

'You cannot see it that way,' he informed me calmly. 'Because you cannot truly remember how awful any of it was. Because you put all of it into Girl on a Dragon.'

'On we leave this?' I asked, almost frightened, almost angry, but confused over what would scare or anger me.

'We must. Because you already left it, long years ago. And only I will ever know the full depth of what you felt about those things. Only I fully remember who and what you were before you did it. For we are bound together, not only by Skill and fate, and but also because both of us live on, inside Girl on a Dragon. Because I knew what went into her, 1 could reach her and rouse her. I could convey to her my desperate purpose. And so she brought me to Aslevjal.

'It was a strange journey, wild and wonderful. You know I have ridden with her before. I was with her when she and the other dragons attacked not just the Red Ships that assailed the Six Duchies, but the White Ships that were the cruel tools of the Pale Woman. It was strange for me to be caught up in true battle. I did not like it.'

'No one does,' I assured him. 1 put my brow back down on my knees and closed my eyes.

'I suppose not. But this time, flying with her, it was different. There was no killing to witness, no other dragons flying beside us. Instead, it was just she and I. I sat behind her and put my arms around her slender waist. She is a part of the dragon, you know, not a separate creature at all. Rather like a girl-shaped limb more than anything else. So she did not speak to me, yet, strangely enough, she did smile and from time to time, she would turn to look into my face or gesture to something on the world below us that she wished me to see.

'She flew tirelessly. From the time I climbed up behind her and the powerful beat of her dragon's wings lifted us through the canopy of tree limbs until the moment that we landed on the black sand beaches of Aslevjal, she took no rest. Nor did I. At first, we flew through blue summer skies of the lands beyond the Mountain Kingdom. Then higher we flew, until my heart pounded and I was giddy, over the snowy peaks and trodden passes of the Mountains, and then back into summer. We flew over the villages of the Mountain Kingdom. They nestle into the crooks and flanks of the mountains, and their flocks are scattered over the steep pastures like white apple blossoms Utter the orchard meadow after a spring windstorm.'

I saw it, in my mind, and smiled faintly when he spoke of flying over a Six Duchies hamlet early in the morning, and the one lad

who looked up and saw them and ran whooping into his cottage. And on he spoke, of rivers like silver seams in the land and planted fields like patchwork when seen from above, and of the ocean, wrinkling like paper tipped with silver. In my mind, I flew with him.

I must have fallen asleep, lulled by his strange story. When 1 awoke, night was deep all around us. The camp outside our tent was still, and his pot-fire held only a single flickering flame on a wick in the oil. I was huddled beneath one of his blankets, fallen over sideways on his bed. He slept, curled like a kitten, his brow nearly touching mine, on the other end of his pallet. His breathing was deep and even, and one long hand was palm up on the blankets between us, as if in offering, or beseeching something of me. Sleepily 1 reached over and set my hand in his. He did not seem to wake. Strangely, I felt at peace. I closed my eyes and sank down into a deep and dreamless slumber.