Fool's Fate Part 26

"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."

I 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 he 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," 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. I 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 Fa.r.s.eer 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 abruptly behaving like a petulant fifteen-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 pa.s.s 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," Chade told me, and then laughed aloud at the dismay on my face. "No, don't say you trust me. I don't think I could stand it."

"But I have to trust you," I pointed out, and Chade nodded. 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 replied. "Without doubt. I think that the absence of the Black Man's approval has inflamed every superst.i.tious 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."

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 me 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.

"I 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. 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 I hold dear in the process. When you went after the Skill, you went after it with abandon. I fear you will do so again and risk all I 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 practicing with a shovel those last months in Buckkeep instead of a sword." 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 practicing 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. I 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 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." 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 back 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 Fa.r.s.eers 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 Fa.r.s.eer," 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 Fa.r.s.eer. 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 Fa.r.s.eer 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 Fa.r.s.eer 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."

"That makes two of us," Chade grumbled.

"No. Three," I contradicted him. He was bent over by the little firepot 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 anymore." He repeated his favorite 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 wills 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 antic.i.p.ation 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." Chade 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 Kebal 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 s.h.i.+ps. And there is no denying that the aborted stone dragon back at our landing spot stinks of Red s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sing 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 I 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 handpicked by him, for both discretion and loyalty. How ruthlessly would they obey his commands?

I was still pondering that question 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 I 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.

"A 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. I brought it back."

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 circ.u.mstance, some by your wild struggles. You can say that you hate change, but you are are change." 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 pa.s.sage, against Chade's advice. And you came here on a s.h.i.+p 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 counseled 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 Harbormaster 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 s.h.i.+ps had sailed. Then I was dismissed, with many apologies and a.s.surances 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 I 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 I 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 I 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, traveling 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 pa.s.sed 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 enc.u.mbered 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 G.o.ds 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 facedown 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 pa.s.s through the portal."

He paused. I was leaning intently toward him, my heart in my throat. To pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sageways to distant places. I had used them less than a dozen times in my life, and never without dread and uneasiness. Some of Regal's 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, I 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. I slept, I 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 it had been chiseled yesterday. I studied them 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."