I let her fall back into the snow and stood. And there it was, right before me.
I’d seen the looming block of stone but not recognized what it was. The big tree that had grown up beside it had nearly toppled it. At the edge of the camp, the stone leaned drunkenly, one face of it touching the snow that had banked around it. Lichen had begun to encroach on the stone’s edges. I approached it slowly, as if it were game to be stalked. Lant and Riddle followed, but my two Rousters stood by with Perseverance as if they could sense danger.
Someone had recently swept the snow from the uppermost face of the stone. A hundred questions pelted me. How had the Servants known this stone was here? Were they Skilled, to be able to use it? Did they know more of that magic than we did? I’d been told there were no Skill-pillars in this area. How was it that the Servants knew of this and we did not? All useful questions, and the answers would have undoubtedly been even more useful. But pondering them now was a waste of time.
“Do you know where it goes? Do you recognize the rune?”
“I do. ” It was one of the few that I knew very well. “It goes to a crossroads market beyond the Mountain Kingdom. On our way to find King Verity we followed an Elderling road and came upon it. It’s not far from where we found the stone dragons sleeping. ” I recalled the place well indeed. Both the Fool and I had briefly fallen under the spell of that place. The memory stone there was strong, and he had seemed to become someone else, a long-ago White who had passed that way, a poet or jester …
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I drew off my glove.
“Fitz, no! Contact Nettle first, let her know what you—”
I pressed my hand to the cold black stone.
And nothing happened. I felt astonished. And sick.
“Maybe it’s broken. ” Riddle spoke doubtfully, and I heard his reluctance to encourage me at all.
“Shine said they went through the stone. ” I centered my hand on the rune, dug my fingers into the cold, rough impression. I pushed. Nothing. I could sense nothing from the stone.
Elfbark.
No. I could not allow myself to be dead to the Skill right now. It could not be so, not when Bee might be only two steps through darkness away from me. “No. No!”
I rubbed my hand down the face of the cold stone, eroded by age. I felt the skin of my palm snag on it, felt callus sand away. “No!” I shouted.
“Fitz, it might be—”
I do not recall whatever else Riddle might have said. I shoved at the stone, hit it with a fist. I went into a rage. The edges of my vision went red and black. And when I came out of my rage, I had ruined a battle-axe against the Skill-pillar. I did not even recall pulling it from my back sling. My arms, back, and shoulders hurt from the force of the blows but the stone itself showed little sign of my attack, other than a few gray scuffs on its black surface. I was out of breath, and sweat ran down my back to match the tears of frustration that had coursed down my cheeks. I found I was hoarse from roaring curses.
I dropped the useless weapon in the snow and stood, lungs screaming for the air that I gulped, my raw hands braced on my knees. When I could straighten up and look around me, I found all my companions standing in an awestruck circle, at a very safe distance away.
“Fitz?” Riddle’s voice was soft.
“What?”
“Why don’t you step back from that axe?”
Instead I stooped down and picked it up. I examined the peened-over edge, and then returned it to my back sling. I crouched, scooped up a handful of snow in my raw palm, and ate it. The moisture eased my throat. “I’m done,” I told them wearily.
“What happened?” Lant demanded.
“Stupidity happened,” I told him. “I drank elfbark tea so their wizard could not use the Skill to hide Bee from me, and I deadened my Skill to the point where I can’t use a portal. She might be only two steps away, and I cannot take them!”
“What now, sir?” It was one of my Rousters.
What now? I sank down and sat in the snow. It was cold. I didn’t care. I tried to master my thoughts. It seemed to take a long time. I looked up at Riddle, who was still keeping his distance.
“I’m staying right here. Perseverance, take Fleeter. She’s fast. Ride ahead to Buckkeep Castle. Riddle and Lant, follow as swiftly as you can, but I’ll wager the boy will get there first. Go straight to Skillmistress Nettle. Tell her what has happened and ask her to send me Skilled ones who are experienced at using the stones to travel and who know how to use a blade. Riddle and Lant, if you will, give a full report to King Dutiful. ”
Per spoke up fearfully. “Sir, I don’t know the fastest way. ”
He still held the horses’ reins. I looked at Fleeter. Do you know the swiftest way to the stables at Buckkeep? Can you run that far?
I do. Her Wit was contained. You still claim we cannot bond, and you ask this of me?
I do.
Then you will grant me a boon. When I ask it.
I promise it will be so, I replied humbly. She owed me nothing and I needed this so desperately. I held my breath.
I’ll take the boy there.
Bear him well, Fleeter.
I know no other way. She tossed her head, dismissing me.
Thought is swift. The bargain was sealed in that moment. I met Per’s gaze. “Trust Fleeter. She knows the way. Go now. ”
For an instant our gazes held. Then Per passed the reins of the other horses to Lant. He mounted Fleeter, turned her head, and she bore him away. I spoke to the others. “Sawyer and Reaper. You ride back to Captain Foxglove. Tell her that she and my guard are to take Lady Shine to Buckkeep as swiftly as they can. Sawyer, pick the six best soldiers in the Rousters. Bring them back here, with whatever supplies you can muster for spending the night in the open. ” I looked at Riddle, to see if I’d missed anything.
He was scowling. “I don’t like leaving you here. ”
“There’s nothing you can do for me by remaining. ”
He tipped his head. “The body?”
I just looked at him.
“We’ll take it. Foxglove can sling her over the white horse and take her back to Buckkeep. ”
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I didn’t care. Riddle turned away from me and began to give his orders
The forest seemed a different world after they had left. I’d sent my lightest follower on my swiftest horse. Per would reach Buckkeep before nightfall. I believed Nettle would listen to him. If not, Lant and Riddle would not be far behind. By tomorrow afternoon, someone should arrive who could use the stone. Someone else would go through the portal and face for me whatever lay on the other side. I might be sending them into an ambush, or into a scene of people deranged by a Skill-passage. They might find my child with her mind forever scrambled and leaking. They might find only tracks leading away. Had Dwalia known where she was taking them, or was it a random escape? Did she know how to use the pillars, and was she strong enough with her wizard to take that many followers through safely?
If she was, we were up against an incredibly powerful opponent. If she wasn’t, my quest might end with a child who would never recognize me again.
I knew I should build a fire and prepare for the oncoming night. The falling snow was not yet penetrating the interlaced evergreen boughs overhead, but it would. Colors were already fading from the day in the dimmer light of the forest. Pale gray, gray, dark gray, black. I watched it get darker and did nothing. More than once, I set my hand to the runes on the pillar, and hoped. In vain.
I heard my Rousters before I saw them. I could make out from the tone of their conversation that a night in the open, while their fellows traveled on to the comforts of the barracks at Buckkeep Castle, was not appreciated. They were carrying fire, probably from the cook-fire Foxglove had kindled earlier. The light of their makeshift torches wavered and danced as they approached.
Both S
awyer and Reaper had returned with six extra Rousters. “Make camp,” I told them, and they did. They built a fire where Dwalia’s had burned. Three shelters were thrown up rapidly, from tree limbs and pine boughs. They’d brought bedrolls, and they floored the shelter with those. They had food and they shared it among themselves. I had no appetite, but when they melted water for drinking, I heated some and made a tea for us. They exchanged some sidelong glances and did not drink until after I did. Evidently FitzVigilant or Perseverance had made complaint about my trickery.
Long after they had gone to bed, I sat and stared at the fire. I do not know how often I stood and walked to the stone and put my hand on it. It was foolish. I could feel that my Skill was quenched. It was the same ear-stoppered mental isolation that I had felt on Aslevjal the first time I’d accidentally eaten Outislander elfbark. I tried to reach out with the Skill without success. I unfolded my Wit, and sensed the sleeping men and an owl hunting nearby, and very little else. Toward dawn I crawled into the tumbledown shelter the Servants had left, and slept. I woke after the others were long risen. My head hurt and my spirits were less than low. I was cold and hungry and angry with myself.
I walked to the stone and put my hand on the rune.
Nothing.
The morning passed. More snow fell. I dismissed four of the Rousters to go and find meat. I wasn’t hungry but it gave them something to do. We had seen no sign of anyone else in the forest and they were chafing with boredom. The sun wandered the sky behind a layer of clouds. The hunters came back with two grouse. They cooked them. They ate them. I drank tea. The afternoon meandered toward evening. Too much time had passed. Was no one coming?
The light was going away when they arrived and I saw the reason why they had taken so long. Riddle led the way, and Nettle rode behind him. She sat her horse, but a litter followed: she’d probably disdained it. A full coterie of six Skill-users, armed and armored, followed them. And the baggage train, and attendants appropriate to Nettle’s station, trailed after them. I went to meet them. Her public greeting to me was restrained, but I read anger, weariness, disappointment, and sorrow on her face. Riddle was subdued to stillness.
She allowed Riddle to hand her down from her horse but I sensed the chill between them and knew I was the cause. She looked at me, not him, as she said, “The Skill-pillar?”
I led the way wordlessly. All around us her entourage was busy setting up a camp with a stout tent for her. I heard the ring of hatchets as firewood was gathered and horses were led away. Her coterie trailed her, their faces grim. When we reached the Skill-pillar, I touched the rune once again. “I know where it goes. ”
“The ancient marketplace on the trail to the stone dragons,” Nettle said. She met my gaze and said, “Did you think I would not know that?”
“I would like to describe it for the coterie, so they can know what to expect as they emerge from the pillar. ”
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“Do that. But we all know that there is no assurance the pillar has not toppled, and we cannot know if there are people there or if it is deserted. The Killdeer Coterie has offered to risk their lives to rescue Lady Bee. ”
I turned and bowed gravely to the six strangers. “I thank you. ” And I did, but I also hated them a little for being able to do what I could not. Then I told them of the pillar as last I had seen it, a pillar standing in what might have been a market-circle at some ancient time. Any town that had once existed there was long gone. The last time I had seen it, it had been surrounded by forest with no sign of human occupation. It would be cold in the Mountains in the winter. They nodded. Their leader, Springfoot, knit her brow and listened earnestly, and then formed her coterie up as if it were a military patrol. Left hands on the shoulder of the Skill-user before them, and right hands holding bared blades, they advanced to the Skill-stone and then looked to Nettle.
She nodded gravely. I watched what I had never seen before: a line of Skill-users swallowed one after another by the black stone. The appearance of the pillar never altered. The coterie simply walked into stone and was gone. When the last of them had vanished I lowered my face into my hands and breathed into the darkness I cupped, imagining a thousand possibilities.
“Fitz. ”
I looked up. Nettle’s expression was strange. I saw her swallow and then she spoke again.
“Springfoot has Skilled to me. They found no one. Only the plaza as you described it. Unbroken snow. No tracks leading away from the pillar. No one is there. ”
I stared at her. “They must have gone on from there! Blowing snow must have covered their tracks. ”
Nettle closed her eyes. I watched the lines of her brow deepen as she Skilled. She shook her head slowly, then met my gaze again. “Springfoot does not think so. She reports it is a calm, clear evening there. The snow is not fresh. There are rabbit tracks across the surface. Leaf litter, pine needles. All the signs that there has not been fresh snow or wind. Fitz. Springfoot does not think they ever emerged from the pillar. ”
I spoke without breath.
“Did they not sense her at all? In the passage?”
She shook her head slowly as she Skilled to them.
“When Chade and I were delayed, Dutiful found us in the pillar. Cannot they …?”
She lifted her hands, gloved fingers spread. “They are trying, Da. But they sense nothing there. Even to Skill back to me is a challenge, like shouting over the rush of a river. The Skill-current fountains there, they say, and is hard to navigate. ”
Riddle put his arm around her, shoring her up. I stood alone. Very alone. A trained coterie was barely able to function. An untrained woman had led a following there; what chance could they possibly have had? “Then … she is gone?”
“They will keep trying. ” But I had uttered the unthinkable aloud. Gone. Lost in the Skill-current.
Nettle spoke on. The coterie had supplies for five days and would have to remain for at least three days before using the pillar to return. This particular coterie was as talented with weapons as with Skill. She dared to hope that perhaps Dwalia and the others would still emerge from the pillar; that they were only delayed and not lost. I’d had that experience. I knew it could happen. She reminded me that the old tales were full of instances of folk who had accidentally entered a stone and then emerged months or even years later, untouched by the time that had passed. Her words meant as much to me as the sound of water flowing over icy stones. I’d not had luck that good in a very long time.
After a while, I had become aware that she had stopped speaking. She was silent. Tears, silver in the last light of the day, were tracking down her face. Riddle stood beside her and wept unashamed. No one was talking. There was nothing to say.
We stood and we waited. Nettle Skilled. I attempted to Skill, without result. Eventually, exhaustion claimed her and Riddle guided her off to a sturdy tent and a warm meal. I sat down, put my back to the cold stone, and waited. I spent the night staring into the dark.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Family
This is a true account of exactly what happened, penned by Scribe Simmer as told to me by the minstrel Drum, a man unlettered but sworn to speak only truth.
Kitney Moss, accused of the murder of his young wife, was dragged to the Witness Stones near Buckkeep Castle on the fifteenth day after Springfest. He did not go willingly. The brother of his wife, Hardy the tinker, had demanded that Kitney meet him there, to duel with staves and fists for the truth of the matter. Hardy judged Kitney had strangled Weaver in a drunken rage. Kitney admitted to his drunkenness that evening but insisted that he had found Weaver dead when he returned to their cottage, and had fainted from grief, only to wake to their son’s terrified screams when the boy found his dead mother.
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Hardy accused Kitney of murder and demanded that he be given his sister’s son to raise.
The contest commenced, and K
itney was soon badly battered by Hardy. When Kitney’s staff broke, Hardy laughed aloud and promised him a swift death. Kitney exclaimed, “By Eda, I swear that I did not do this awful thing. To the goddess I turn for protection. ”
He lifted his hands and ran. Some there said he only hoped to flee. But seven witnesses and Drum the minstrel said that he appeared to deliberately dash himself against the face of one standing stone. There he vanished, as if he had dived into deep water.
Summer has passed and still no one has seen Kitney Moss or heard word of him. But it has been discovered that Tag the miller had in his possession a silver chain and a ring that once belonged to Weaver. When his cot was searched, other stolen items were discovered, and it now appears that perhaps Weaver discovered him robbing her house and she was killed by him. Kitney Moss was apparently innocent.
—Scribe Simmer, One Account of the Matter of Kitney Moss
It was past noon when we reached Buckkeep Castle.
We had ridden slowly for Nettle’s comfort. Riddle rode at her side, and any anger she had felt toward him had vanished, swept away by the even more terrible loss we shared. By way of the Skill, she had kept Dutiful and the others abreast of our tragedy. I was deaf to the Skill and numb to every sense except my loss.
We had camped for five days at the site. Nettle had summoned a fresh coterie from Buckkeep. They had joined us there and attempted to find Bee in the pillar from our location. Their efforts had exhausted them with no results. They had returned to us, frostbitten and hollow-eyed. Nettle had thanked them and the Killdeer Coterie for their heroic efforts. We’d struck camp and left the standing stone in the deeply shaded winter forest. I carried that cold within me as we left.
I had Perseverance’s horse as a mount, a beast so well trained he took absolutely no management. Bleak and silent, I dropped back to ride with my Rousters. Not thinking took my entire focus. Every time a blade of hope sprouted, I rooted it out. I refused to think of what I’d done wrong, of what else I might have done. I refused to think at all.
We rode by daylight, but all seemed dimness to me. Sometimes I felt thankful that Molly was dead and not here to witness how badly I had failed. Sometimes I wondered if I was being punished because I had not loved Bee enough when she was small and dumb and helpless. Then I would push my mind back into not thinking.