Assassin's Quest (63 page)

Once our basic camp was established, the Fool and I exchanged glances. I went to where Kettricken was checking our jeppas. Those hardy beasts were already at work nibbling bud tips and bark from the smaller trees that fronted one side of the camp. “I think Kettle may be following us,” I told her. “Do you think I should go back and look for her?”

“To what end?” Kettricken asked me. The question sounded callous, but she went on, “If she can catch up with us, then we will share what we have. You know that. But I suspect that she will weary before she gets here, and turn back to Jhaampe. Perhaps she has already turned back.”

And perhaps she has become exhausted and sunk down by the side of the trail, I thought. But I did not go back. I recognized in Kettricken’s words the harsh practicality of the Mountain folk. She would respect Kettle’s decision to follow us. Even if her attempt to do so killed her, Kettricken would not interfere with her own will for herself. I knew that among the Mountain folk, it was not unusual for an old person to choose what they called sequestering, a self-imposed exile where cold might put an end to all infirmities. I, too, respected Kettle’s right to choose her life path, or die in the attempt. But it did not stop me from sending Nighteyes back down our trail to see if she was still coming. I chose to believe it was only curiosity on my part. He had just returned to camp with a bloody white hare in his jaws. At my request, he stood, stretched, and woefully commanded me,
Guard my meat, then.
He disappeared into the gathering dusk.

The evening meal of porridge and hearth cakes was just finished cooking when Kettle came into camp with Nighteyes at her heels. She stalked up to the fire and stood warming her hands at it as she glowered at the Fool and me. The Fool and I exchanged a glance. It was a guilty one. I hastily offered Kettle the cup of tea I had just poured for myself. She took it and drank it before she said accusingly, “You left without me.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “We did. Kettricken came to us and said we must leave right away, so the Fool and I—”

“I came anyway,” she announced triumphantly, cutting through my words. “And I intend to go on with you.”

“We are fleeing,” Kettricken said quietly. “We can’t slow our pace for you.”

Sparks near leaped from Kettle’s eyes. “Did I ask you to?” she asked the Queen tartly.

Kettricken shrugged. “Just so you understand,” she said quietly.

“I do,” Kettle replied as quietly. And it was settled.

I had watched this interchange with a sort of awe. I felt an increase in respect for both of the women afterward. I think I fully grasped then how Kettricken perceived herself. She was the Queen of the Six Duchies and she did not doubt it. But unlike many, she had not hidden behind a title or taken offense at Kettle’s quick reply to her. Instead, she had answered her, woman to woman, with respect but also authority. Once more I had glimpsed her mettle and found I could not fault it.

We all shared the yurt that night. Kettricken filled a small brazier with coals from our fire and brought it within. It made the shelter surprisingly comfortable. She posted a watch and included both Kettle and herself in that duty. The others slept well. I lay awake for a time. I was once more on my way to find Verity. That brought a tiny measure of release from the incessant Skill-command. But I was also on my way to the river where he had laved his hands in raw Skill. That seductive image lurked always at the edge of my mind now. Resolutely I pushed the temptation from my mind, but that night my dreams were full of it. We broke camp early, and were on our way before the day was fairly born. Kettricken bid us discard a second, smaller yurt that had been brought along to accommodate our original larger party. She left it carefully stowed at the stopping place where another might find and make use of it. The freed beast was loaded instead with the bulk of the packs the humans had carried. I was grateful, for the throbbing of my back was unceasing now.

For four days Kettricken held us to that pace. She did not say if she truly expected pursuit. I did not ask. There were no real opportunities for private talk with anyone. Kettricken always led, followed by the animals, the Fool and me, Starling, and often trailing us by quite a distance, Kettle. Both women kept their promises. Kettricken did not slow the pace for the old woman, and Kettle never complained of it. Each night she came into camp late, usually accompanied by Nighteyes. She was often just in time to share our food and shelter for the night. But she arose the moment Kettricken did the next day and never complained.

The fourth night, when we were all within the tent and settling down to sleep, Kettricken suddenly addressed me. “FitzChivalry, I would have your thoughts on something,” she declared.

I sat up, intrigued by the formality of her request. “I am at your service, my queen.”

Beside me, the Fool muffled a snicker. I suppose we both looked a bit odd, sitting in a welter of blankets and furs and addressing one another so formally. But I kept my demeanor.

Kettricken added a few bits of dry wood to the brazier to bring up a flame and light. She took out an enameled cylinder, removed the cap, and coaxed out a piece of vellum. As she gently unrolled it, I recognized the map that had inspired Verity to his quest. It seemed odd to look at the faded map in this setting. It belonged to a much more secure time in my life, when hot meals of good food were taken for granted, when my clothes were tailored to fit me and I knew where I would sleep each night. It seemed unfair that my whole world had changed so much since I had last seen the map, but that it remained unchanged, an aging flap of vellum with a worn tracery of lines on it. Kettricken held it flat on her lap and tapped a blank spot on it. “This is about where we are,” she told me. She took a breath as if bracing herself. She tapped another spot, likewise unmarked. “This is about where we found the signs of a battle. Where I found Verity’s cloak and . . . the bones.” Her voice quavered a bit on the words. She looked up suddenly and her eyes met mine as they had not since Buckkeep. “You know, Fitz, it is hard for me. I gathered up those bones and thought they were his. For so many months, I believed him dead. And now, solely on your word of some magic that I do not possess or understand, I try to believe he is alive. That there is hope still. But . . . I have held those bones. And my hands cannot forget the weight and chill of them, nor my nose that smell.”

“He lives, my lady,” I assured her quietly.

She sighed again. “Here is what I would ask you. Shall we go directly to where the trails are marked on this map, the ones that Verity said he would follow? Or do you wish to be taken to the battle site first?”

I thought for a time. “I am sure you gathered from that place all there was to gather, my queen. Time has passed, part of a summer and more than half of a winter since you were last there. No. I can think of nothing I might find there that your trackers did not when the ground was bared of snow. Verity lives, my queen, and he is not there. So let us not seek him there, but where he said he would go.”

She nodded slowly, but if she took heart from my words, she did not show it. Instead, she tapped the map again. “This road here shown is known to us. It was a trade road once, and although no one even recalls what its destination was, it is still used. The more remote villages and the solitary trappers have their paths to it, and they then follow it down to Jhaampe. We could have been traveling on it all this time, but I did not wish to. It is too well used. We have come by the swiftest route, if not the widest. Tomorrow, however, we shall cross it. And when we do, we shall set our backs toward Jhaampe and follow it up into the Mountains.” Her finger traced it on the map. “I have never been to that part of the Mountains,” she said simply. “Few have, other than trappers or occasional adventurers who go to see if the old tales are true. Usually they bring back tales of their own that are even stranger than the ones that prompted them to go adventuring.”

I watched her pale fingers walk slowly across the map. The faint lines of the ancient road diverged into three separate trails with different destinations. It began and ended, that road, with no apparent source or destination. Whatever had once been marked at the end of those lines had faded away into inky ghosts. Neither of us had any way of knowing which destination Verity had chosen. Though they did not look far separated on the map, the terrain of the Mountains could mean they were days or even weeks apart. I also had small trust in such an old map being reliably to scale.

“Where are we going first?” I asked her.

She hesitated briefly, then her finger tapped one of the trail ends. “Here. I think this one would be closest.”

“Then that is a wise choice.”

She met my eyes again. “Fitz. Could not you simply Skill to him, and ask him where he is? Or bid him come to us? Or at least ask him why he has not returned to me?”

At each small shake of my head, her eyes grew wilder. “Why not?” she demanded in a shaking voice. “This great and secret magic of the Farseers cannot even call him to us in such need?”

I kept my eyes on her face, but wished there had been fewer listening ears. Despite all Kettricken knew of me, I still felt very uneasy speaking of the Skill with anyone save Verity. I chose my words carefully. “By Skilling to him, I might place him in great danger, my lady. Or draw trouble down on us.”

“How?” she demanded.

I briefly considered the Fool, Kettle, and Starling. It was hard to explain to myself the uneasiness I felt at speaking bluntly of a magic that had been guarded as a secret for so many generations. But this was my queen and she had asked me a question. I lowered my eyes and spoke. “The coterie Galen made was never loyal to the King. Not to King Shrewd, not to King Verity. Always they were the tool of a traitor, used to cast doubt on the King’s abilities and undermine his ability to defend his kingdom.”

From Kettle came a small gasp of indrawn breath, while Kettricken’s blue eyes went steely gray with cold. I continued. “Even now, were I to openly Skill to Verity, they might find a way to listen. By such a Skilling, they might find him. Or us. They have grown strong in the Skill, and ferreted out ways of using it that I have never learned. They spy on other Skill users. They can, using only the Skill, inflict pain, or create illusion. I fear to Skill to my king, Queen Kettricken. That he has not chosen to Skill to me makes me believe my caution is the same as his.”

Kettricken had gone snow pale as she mulled my words. Softly she asked, “Always disloyal to him, Fitz? Speak plainly. Did not they aid in defending the Six Duchies at all?”

I weighed my words as if I were reporting to Verity himself. “I have no proof, my lady. But I would guess that Skill-messages of Red Ships were sometimes never relayed, or were deliberately delayed. I think the commands that Verity Skilled forth to the coterie members in the watchtowers were not passed on to the keeps they were to guard. They obeyed him enough that Verity could not tell his messages and commands had been delivered hours after he had sent them. To his dukes, his efforts would appear inept, his strategies untimely or foolish.” My voice trailed away at the anger that blossomed in Kettricken’s face. Color came up in her cheeks, angry roses.

“How many lives?” she asked harshly. “How many towns? How many dead, or worse, Forged? All for a prince’s spite, all for a spoiled boy’s ambition for the throne? How could he have done it, Fitz? How could he have stood to let people die simply to make his brother look foolish and incompetent?”

I did not have any real answer to that. “Perhaps he did not think they were people and towns,” I heard myself say softly. “Perhaps to him they were only game pieces. Possessions of Verity’s to be destroyed if he could not win them for himself.”

Kettricken closed her eyes. “This cannot be forgiven,” she said quietly to herself. She sounded ill with it. With an oddly gentle finality, she added, “You will have to kill him, FitzChivalry.”

So odd, to be given that royal command at last. “I know that, my lady. I knew it when last I tried.”

“No,” she corrected me. “When last you attempted it, it was for yourself. Did not you know that had angered me? This time, I tell you that you must kill him for the sake of the Six Duchies.” She shook her head, almost surprised. “It is the only way in which he can be Sacrifice for his people. To be killed for them before he can hurt them any more.”

She looked around abruptly at the circle of silent people huddled in bedding, staring at her. “Go to sleep,” she told all of us, as if we were willful children. “We must get up early again tomorrow and once more travel swiftly. Sleep while you can.”

Starling went outside to take up her first night’s watch. The others lay back, and as the flames from the brazier fell and the light dimmed, I am sure they slept. But despite my weariness, I lay and stared into the darkness. About me were only the sounds of people breathing, of the night wind barely moving through the trees. If I quested out, I could sense Nighteyes prowling about, ever alert for the unwary mouse. The peace and stillness of the winterbound forest was all around us. They all slept deeply, save for Starling on watch.

No one else heard the rushing drive of the Skill-urge that grew stronger within me every day of our journeying. I had not spoken to the Queen of my other fear: that if I reached out to Verity with the Skill, I would never return, but would instead immerse myself in that Skill river I had glimpsed and be forever borne away on it. Even to think on that temptation brought me quivering to the edge of acquiescence. Fiercely I set my walls and boundaries, putting every guard between me and the Skill that I had ever been taught. But tonight I set them, not just to keep Regal and his coterie out of my mind, but to keep myself in it.

24

The Skill Road

W
HAT IS THE
true source of magic? Is one born with it in the blood, as some dogs are born to follow a scent while others are best at herding sheep? Or is it a thing that may be won by any with the determination to learn? Or rather are magics inherent to the stones and waters and earths of the world, so that a child imbibes abilities with the water he drinks or the air he breathes? I ask these questions with no concept of how to discover the answers. Did we know the source, could a wizard of great power be deliberately created by one desiring to do so? Could one breed for magic in a child as one breeds a horse for strength or speed? Or select a babe, and begin instruction before the child could even speak? Or build one’s house where one might tap the magic where the earth is richest with it? These questions so frighten me that I have almost no desire to pursue the answers, save that if I do not, another may.

It was early afternoon when we came to the wide trail marked on the map. Our narrow path merged into it as a stream joins a river. For some days we were to follow it. Sometimes it led us past small villages tucked into sheltered folds of the Mountains, but Kettricken hastened us past them without stopping. We passed other travelers on the road, and these she greeted courteously, but firmly turned aside all efforts at conversation. If any recognized her as Eyod’s daughter, they gave no sign of it. There came a day, however, when we passed the entire day without so much as a glimpse of another traveler, let alone a village or hut. The trail grew narrower, and the only tracks upon it were old ones, blurred by fresh snow. When we rose the next day and set forth upon it, it soon dwindled to no more than a vague track through the trees. Several times Kettricken paused and cast about, and once she made us backtrack and then go on in a new direction. Whatever signs she was following were too subtle for me.

That night, when we camped, she again took out her map and studied it. I sensed her uncertainty, and came to sit beside her. I asked no questions and offered no advice, only gazing with her at the map’s worn markings. Finally she glanced up at me.

“I think we are here,” she said. Her finger showed me the end of the trade trail we had followed. “Somewhere north of us, we should find this other road. I had hoped there would be some ancient connecting trail between the two. It was an idea that made sense to me, that this old road would perhaps connect to one even more forgotten. But now . . .” She sighed. “Tomorrow, I suppose we blunder on and hope for luck to aid us.”

Her words did not put heart into any of us.

Nevertheless, the next day we moved on. We moved steadily north, through forest that seemed to have been forever untouched by an axe. Tree branches laced and intertwined high above us, while generations of leaves and needles lay deep beneath the uneven blanketing of snow that had filtered down to the forest floor. To my Wit-sense, these trees had a ghostly life that was almost animal, as if they had acquired some awareness simply by virtue of their age. But it was an awareness of the greater world of light and moisture, soil and air. They regarded our passage not at all, and by afternoon I felt no more significant than an ant. I had never thought to be disdained by a tree.

As we traveled on, hour after hour, I am sure I was not the only one to wonder if we had lost our way completely. A forest this old could have swallowed a road a generation ago. Roots would have lifted its cobbles, leaves and needles blanketed it. What we sought might no longer exist except as a line on an old map.

It was the wolf, ranging well ahead of us as always, who came upon it first.

I like this not at all,
he announced.

“The road is that way,” I called to Kettricken ahead of me. My puny human voice seemed like a fly’s buzzing in a great hall. I was almost surprised when she heard me and looked back. She took in my pointing hand, then, with a shrug, led her pack sheep in a more westerly direction. We still walked for some time before I saw an arrow-straight break through the clustering trees ahead of us. A stripe of light penetrated the forest there. Kettricken led her pack sheep down onto its wide surface.

What is wrong with it?

He shook himself all over as if to rid his coat of water.
It is too much of man. Like a fire to cook meat over.

I do not understand.

He lay back his ears.
Like a great force made small and bent to a man’s will. Always fire seeks a way to escape containment. So does this road.

His answer made no sense to me. Then we came to the road. I watched Kettricken and the jeppas precede me. The wide road was a straight cut through the trees, its surface lower than that of the forest floor, as when a child drags a stick through sand and leaves a trough behind. The forest trees grew alongside it and leaned over it, but none of them had sent roots thrusting out into the road, nor had any saplings sprouted up from it. Neither had the snow that covered the road’s surface been marred, not even by a bird’s track. There were not even the muted sign of old tracks covered with snow. No one had trodden this road since the winter snows had begun. As far as I could see, no game trails even crossed it.

I stepped down onto the road’s surface.

It was like walking into trailing cobwebs face-first. A piece of ice down the back. Stepping into a hot kitchen after being out in an icy wind. It was a physical sensation that seized me, as sharply as any of those others, and yet as indescribable as wet or dry is. I halted, transfixed. Yet none of the others showed any awareness of it as they hopped down from the lip of the forest onto the road surface. Starling’s only comment, to herself, was that at least here the snow was shallower and the walking better. She did not even ask herself why the snow should be shallower on the road, but only hurried after the trailing line of jeppas. I was still standing on the road, looking about me, some minutes later when Kettle stepped out of the trees and onto the road’s surface. She, too, halted. For an instant, she seemed startled and muttered something.

“Did you say Skill-wrought?” I demanded of her.

Her eyes jumped to me as if she had been unaware of me standing right there before her. She glared. For a moment she didn’t speak. Then, “I said “Hell-rot!’ ” she declared. “Near twisted my ankle jumping down. These mountain boots are no stiffer than socks.” She turned away from me and trudged off after the others. I followed her. For some reason, I felt as if I were wading in water, save without the resistance of water. It is a difficult sensation to describe. As if something flowed uphill around me and hurried me along with its current.

It seeks a way to escape containment,
the wolf observed again sourly. I glanced up to find him trotting along beside me, but on the lip of the forest rather than on the smooth road surface.
You’d be wiser to travel up here, with me.

I thought about it.
I seem to be all right. Walking is easier here. Smoother.

Yes, and fire makes you warmer, right up until the time it burns you.

I had no reply to that. Instead I walked alongside Kettle for a way. After days of traveling single file on the narrow trail, this seemed easier and more companionable. We walked all the rest of the afternoon on the ancient road. It climbed ever upward, but always angling across the faces of the hills, so that the going was never too steep. The only things that ever marred the smooth coat of snow on its surface were occasional dead branches dropped from trees above, and most of these were decaying into sawdust. Not once did I see any animal tracks, either on the road or crossing it.

Not even a sniff of any game,
Nighteyes confirmed woefully.
I shall have to range this night to find fresh meat for myself.

You could go now,
I suggested.

I trust you not alone upon this road,
he informed me sternly.

What could harm me? Kettle is right here beside me, so I would not be alone.

She is as bad as you are,
Nighteyes insisted stubbornly. But despite my questions, he could not explain to me what he meant.

Yet as afternoon deepened into evening, I began to have notions of my own. Time and again, I caught my mind drifting in vivid daydreams, musings so engrossing that coming out of them was like waking with a start. And like many a dream, they popped like bubbles, leaving me with almost no recall of what I had been thinking. Patience giving military commands as if she were Queen of the Six Duchies. Burrich bathing a baby and humming as he did so. Two people I did not know, setting charred stones upon one another as they rebuilt a house. Foolish, bright-colored images they seemed, but edged so vividly that almost I believed my own musings. The easy walking on the road that had seemed so pleasant at first began to seem an involuntary hurrying, as if a current urged me on independent of my own will. Yet I could not have been hurrying much, for Kettle kept pace with me all the afternoon. Kettle broke in often on my thoughts, to ask me trivial questions, to draw my attention to a bird overhead, or to ask if my back was bothering me. I endeavored to answer, but moments later I could not recall what we had been talking about. I could not blame her for frowning at me, so muddle-witted was I, but neither could I seem to find a remedy for my absent mind. We passed a fallen log across the road. I thought of something odd about it, and intended to mention it to Kettle, but the thought fled before I could master it. So caught up was I in nothing at all that when the Fool hailed me, I startled. I peered ahead, but could not even see the jeppas anymore. Then, “FitzChivalry!” he shouted again, and I turned around, to find I had walked past not only him, but our whole expedition. Kettle at my side muttered to herself as she turned back.

The others had halted and were already unloading the jeppas. “Surely you don’t mean to pitch the tent in the center of the road?” Kettle asked in alarm.

Starling and the Fool looked up from where they were stretching out the goat leather shape of the yurt. “Fear ye the hurrying throngs and carts?” the Fool asked sarcastically.

“It’s flat and level. Last night, I had a root or a rock under my bedding,” Starling added.

Kettle ignored them and spoke to Kettricken. “And we’d be in full view for anyone who stepped onto this road for quite a way in both directions. I think we should move off and camp under the trees.”

Kettricken glanced about. “It’s nearly dark, Kettle. And I do not think we have a great deal to fear from pursuit. I think . . .”

I flinched when the Fool took my arm and walked me to the edge of the road. “Climb up,” he told me gruffly when we got to the edge of the forest. I did, scrambling up to stand once more on forest moss. Once I was there, I yawned, feeling my ears pop. Almost right away, I felt more alert. I glanced back to the road where Starling and Kettricken were gathering up the yurt hides to move them. Kettle was already dragging the poles off the road. “So, we’ve decided to camp off the road,” I observed stupidly.

“Are you all right?” the Fool asked me anxiously.

“Of course. My back is no worse than usual,” I added, thinking he referred to that.

“You were standing there, staring off up the road, paying no heed to anyone. Kettle says you’ve been like that most of the afternoon.”

“I’ve been a bit muddled,” I admitted. I dragged off my mitten to touch my own face. “I don’t think I’m getting a fever. But it was like that . . . bright-edged fever thoughts.”

“Kettle says she thinks it’s the road. She said that you said it was Skill-wrought.”

“She said I said? No. I thought that was what she said when we came onto it. That it was Skill-wrought.”

“What is “Skill-wrought’?” the Fool asked me.

“Shaped by the Skill,” I replied, then added, “I suppose. I’ve never heard of the Skill used to make or shape something.” I looked wondering back at the road. It flowed so smoothly through the forest, a pure white ribbon, vanishing off under the trees. It drew the eye, and almost I could see what lay beyond the next fold of the forested hillside.

“Fitz!”

I jerked my attention back to the Fool in annoyance. “What?” I demanded.

He was shivering. “You’ve just been standing there, staring off down the road since I left you. I thought you’d gone to get firewood, until I looked up and saw you standing here still. What is the matter?”

I blinked my eyes slowly. I had been walking in a city, looking at the bright yellow and red fruit heaped high in the market stalls. But even as I groped after that dream, it was gone, leaving only a confusion of color and scent in my mind. “I don’t know. Perhaps I am feverish. Or just very weary. I’ll go get the wood.”

“I’m going with you,” the Fool announced.

By my knee, Nighteyes whined anxiously. I looked down at him. “What’s the matter?” I asked him aloud.

He looked up at me, the fur between his eyes ridged with worry.
You do not seem to hear me. And your thoughts are not . . . thoughts.

I’ll be all right. The Fool is with me. Go and hunt. I can feel your hunger.

And I feel yours,
he answered ominously.

He left then, but reluctantly. I followed the Fool into the woods, but did little more than carry the wood he picked up and handed to me. I felt as if I could not quite wake up. “Have you ever been studying something tremendously interesting, only to suddenly look up and realize hours have passed? That is how I feel just now.”

The Fool handed me another stick of wood. “You are frightening me,” he informed me quietly. “You speak much as King Shrewd did in the days he was weakening.”

“But he was drugged then, against pain,” I pointed out. “And I am not.”

“That is what is frightening,” he told me.

We walked together back to camp. We had been so slow that Kettle and Starling had gathered some fuel and got a small fire going already. The light of it illuminated the dome-shaped tent and the folk moving around it. The jeppas were shadows drifting nearby as they browsed. As we piled our wood by the fire for later use, Kettle looked up from her cooking.