“That’s enough,” I suggested pleasantly. He had stirred guilt in me, until his last words.
“I’m not like you!” he burst out. “I’m not like my father. I tried to be, to please him. But I’m not! And I don’t want to be. I’m here, I’m going with you, because, yes, I failed your daughter. Just as much as I failed my sister. My sister. Do you know how it twists inside me to name her that? What they did to Shine, to my sister—it makes me ill to think of her hurt that way. I want to avenge her, I want to avenge Bee. I know I can’t undo what happened. I can’t change what I did, only what I will do. And I’m not doing this for you, or even for my father. I’m doing it for me. To give myself whatever peace I can find over what happened.
“I don’t know how I’ll help you or what you’ll ask me to do or if I can do it. But I’m here. I intend to try. And I can’t go home until this is done. But I do want to go home, after all this is over, and I want to go home alive. So you’d better start talking to me and telling me what is going on, or teaching me what I have to do. Or something. Because I’m with you now until you go home. Or I’m dead. And I think that boy is, too. ”
“I don’t want you here. I didn’t want you to come. ”
“Yet here we are. And I don’t think even you are spiteful enough to let me die of ignorance. ”
That was true. I had almost thought of a response when I heard a muffled shriek. It burst suddenly louder and was followed by the sound of a wild struggle over by the Skill-pillar. Lant had the presence of mind to seize a flaming stick from the fire. I reached the pillar first but when Lant lifted the brand I shouted, “Get back! Don’t touch the Fool and don’t let him touch you!” And in the next breath, I told him, “Drag Spark over by the fire. Wake Per. Get water heating. ”
Spark was twitching and yelping like a dog having a bad dream, but her eyes were open. I feared for her. Many years ago, I’d seen what a trip through a Skill-portal could do to unprepared minds. Regal had driven many of his young Skill-apprentices mad when he had attempted to send a small army through a pillar. Spark was unSkilled and had just experienced her third trip through a Skill-portal in less than a day. I was angry at the Fool for risking the youngster, and heartsick that I would be helpless to aid her. I feared even more for the Fool. I prayed that the uneven light of the burning branch tricked my eyes, for it looked to me as if his left hand was unevenly silvered with Skill.
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He lay on his back, staring up at me and panting. His blind eyes were wide and the torchlight danced in their golden depths. The skirts he wore were flung wide around him, like a collapsed tent.
I heard Per’s sleepy voice raised in query, and Lant shouting at him to build up the fire, pack the pot with snow, get it melting, and bring a blanket for him to put around Spark. I’d let them create and manage that chaos. They were doing as much for Spark as I knew to do. Keep her warm and try to get food into her. I moved carefully to the Fool’s right side, away from the dangerously silvered hand. “Fool,” I said in as even a voice as I could muster. “Fool, can you hear me? Can you speak to me?”
“The dragon!” His words shuddered on a gasp. “Is the dragon coming?”
I lifted my eyes to the night sky. I saw nothing except stars frozen and twinkling in the darkness. “There is no dragon that I can see. ”
“It chased us. And we ran, with Spark gripping my hand and dragging me through the streets. They were crowded with Elderlings laughing and talking, and we ran and ran, we ran right through all of them. Spark shouted they weren’t real, that only the dragon was. But one of them was real, I think. One Elderling. I felt that arrow. ” He paused, panting for breath.
“Were you hit? Was Spark?”
“I don’t know. ” With his right hand, he plucked at the loose fabric of the shoulder of his blouse. “I felt it, as if someone had seized me hard for just a moment and then let go. Spark kept running, dragging me along, and I tried to keep up. Then she shouted, ‘The pillar!’ and I slapped it. And here we are. Oh, here we are, Fitz. Don’t be angry at me. Please don’t be angry. ”
“I’m not angry,” I lied. “I’m terrified for both of you. ” That was rock-hard truth. I spoke carefully. “Fool, it looks as if you have Skill on your left hand. As Verity did when he carved the dragons. I’m going to help you stand and walk you to the fire. Don’t touch yourself with that hand and don’t touch me. ” The failing light of the torch licked along his brightly shining fingers. I’d never discovered precisely where Verity had obtained so much of the raw magic. My king had coated both his hands in it, the better to shape a dragon from stone. The raw Skill had penetrated his flesh and stolen the focus of his mind. By the time we found him, he had scarcely recognized his queen. Kettricken had wept to see him so, but all he had cared for at that moment was to carve his dragon.
“Yes,” he said, and his smile was beatific and frightening in the torchlight. He held his silvered fingers up, and I shrank back from them. “That much I managed. Against all odds. I brought a glove with me, in the wild hope I might succeed. It’s in the pocket of my skirt. ”
“Right or left side?”
“Right,” he said and feebly patted there.
I did not want to touch his garments. I didn’t know how he had gotten raw Skill on his left hand but I feared it might be spattered elsewhere. I thrust the base of my branch, which now had but a single dancing flame on it, into the snow and found the edge of a white glove peeking from a pocket concealed in the voluminous skirts. I tugged it free. “Put your right hand on my wrist so you can feel what I’m doing. I’m holding the glove open. Oh, Fool, be so careful. I don’t want that stuff on me. ”
“If you could feel it as I do, you would,” he said. “It burns so sweetly. ”
“Fool, I beg you, be careful of me. ”
“I will. As I so seldom have before. Hold the glove wide, Fitz. ”
And I did. “Don’t let your left hand touch the outside of it. Don’t touch your left hand with your right. ”
“I know what I’m doing. ”
I muttered a small curse that expressed my doubt about that, and he appalled me by laughing. “Give me the glove,” he added. “I can do it myself. ”
I watched him anxiously, worried that he would silver either his right hand or the outside of the glove. I was not confident of the failing torchlight but I thought he had managed. “Can you stand and walk?”
“I put on a glove. Wasn’t that enough for you?”
“I suppose it was. ” I maneuvered an arm around him and hauled him to his feet. It took more effort than I’d expected and I abruptly realized the weight of the skirts and the fur-lined cloak he wore. “This way. We have a fire. ”
“I can sense it. ”
He was not steady on his feet but he walked. “Sense it? Or see the light against the dark?”
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“Both, and more. I think it’s a dragon-sense, from the dragon blood. I smell the fire, I see the light it gives off, but more. There’s something I can’t quite describe. It’s not my eyes, Fitz, but I sense warmth. The warmth of your body, and the greater heat of the fire. I can tell you that Lant stands to the left of it, and Perseverance crouches by Spark. Is she all right?”
“Let’s find out,” I suggested, swallowing my fears. I had the Wit so I knew what it was to have a sense that others did not possess. If he said he could sense my warmth, why doubt him? I knew that on the far side of the market-circle, a bitch fox watched us from the darkness of the forest edge. My Wit told me that. I would not dispute what his “dragon-sense” told him.
My heart sank as I steadied the Fool toward the fire. Spark sprawled in the snow, making pathetic little sounds, like a kitten mewling for its mother. Her hands scrabbled and her booted feet kicked uselessly. Per was hunkered down beside her. The conflict on his face was as shifting as the firelight. Fear. Sympathy. Uneasiness. Confusion.
“There??
?s a log here. Behind you. A little more. Sit down. ”
The Fool sat, more abruptly than I intended. Uneasiness rippled through me as he carefully gathered his skirts around him. The white glove on his left hand was feminine, as was his movement as he adjusted the hood of his cloak. I saw Lant’s lip twitch, as if he were a cat smelling something foul. I felt a surge of irritation with him. “Spark. How is she?” I asked Perseverance, and he flinched at the name.
“I don’t know. ”
I crouched down beside the girl and spoke for the Fool’s benefit. “She’s not unconscious. Her eyes are open and she’s making sounds. But there is no awareness in her eyes. ” I lifted my gaze to Per. “May I please have the butterfly cloak? Let’s keep her as warm as we can. ”
Without hesitation, he stood up, shed the garment, and handed it to me. I took off one of the cloaks I was wearing and gave it to him. He bundled into it gratefully as I tucked one edge of the butterfly cloak under Spark, rolled her onto it, and then snugged it around her, leaving only her face bare. She looked like a brightly colored cocoon. Her sounds grew softer and became a high soft humming. Her twitching eased. “Tell me everything,” I commanded the Fool.
He pulled his cloak more closely around himself. Even in the cold winter air, I could smell the mustiness of it. It was thick wool, lined with fur, from Lady Thyme’s closet. The heavy woolen skirts he wore came down to the top of his boots, which were leather, cut more for a city street than a snowy forest. He brushed his short, pale hair back from his brow and gave a small sigh. “You left me. You told me you were going to do it, and I heard in your voice that you meant it. So I immediately made my other arrangements. I wasn’t happy to do it, Fitz, but you left me no choice. I persuaded Spark that my place was beside you, as indeed it is in this venture. Lady Rosemary had dismissed her, to fend for herself in Buckkeep Castle, so it took little effort to make her completely mine. I persuaded her to attempt a foray back into Chade’s old quarters. She procured the dragon’s blood for me. ”
“Why dragon’s blood?”
“Hush. Let me speak. ” He looked unerringly at Lant. “There are tea herbs in that pack we left. Left front pocket. ” He glanced over at the pot. “The water will boil soon. ” Lant did not move instantly, but then he rose and turned toward the tent. “There are two cups in the pack also. The tea is a restorative one. It may help Spark,” he called after Lant, then shifted his attention back to me. “The clothing was easier. No one bothered us about that. It’s from Lady Thyme’s wardrobe, of course. Spark said the lock on the door was a good one, but old. And she had been taught how to outwit locks. Once we were in, we took the greater part of an afternoon to select what we wished. And Spark proved to have a knack at adjusting clothing for size. That was what took the most time. She had to move it, a garment or two at a time, down to my rooms, and there she worked on the cutting and fitting and hemming. We were mostly finished with it the last time you came battering at the door. I dared not let you in for fear you would immediately guess our plan. ”
It did not escape me that he had deflected my question about dragon’s blood. I’d have to corner him later and pester it out of him. Lant came back with the tea herbs. He glanced at me and I nodded, and he went about that task. Per had drawn closer to listen to the tale. The Fool turned his blind eyes in the boy’s direction and smiled at him. Per bowed his head. I did not blame him. The Fool’s golden gaze had become a daunting thing to meet.
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“How did you get to the Witness Stones?” I could not imagine the blind Fool and the burdened girl making that trek.
“We didn’t. ” The Fool spoke starkly. “In the dark of night, we dressed warmly and Spark shouldered our pack. She had obtained a walking staff for me. And we went down to the dungeons of Buckkeep. It was a trick to get past the guards, but when they changed for the night, we managed it. And Spark had done it before, following Chade. She knew where to take us. Dutiful had put an iron grate across that corridor, and locked it securely, but again Spark knew the trick of opening it. And once we were through, we took our first big gamble. She spread dragon blood on the palm of my hand, then held tight to me. I pressed my palm to the old Skill-stone, the one that whoever rebuilt Buckkeep Castle from an Elderling ruin had used in the foundation. And it worked. We stepped out in Aslevjal. ”
I recalled it well. I stared at him. “How long did you stay there?”
“Long enough to locate the correct facet of the pillar to bring us here. Another smear of dragon blood and on we came. Only to find Lant and Perseverance here. I was startled to find them. Spark, however, seemed almost to expect Perseverance. Though I sensed a bit of a chill from him when he saw how we were dressed. ” He turned his blind gaze on the lad again. Per said nothing and stared at the fire. “I guessed where you had gone. I even considered following you. I would like to once more walk in the Stone Garden. To touch Verity-as-Dragon. ” A strange smile curved his mouth. “To touch, a last time, Girl-on-a-Dragon. Did you visit her?”
“No. I didn’t. ” In some ways, the thought of that stone dragon still put a chill up my spine.
He lowered his voice. “Will she recover? Spark?”
I wanted to be angry with him, to demand he tell me why he had risked her so wildly. “I don’t know. Four portal journeys in less than two days? I’d never attempt it. We’ll keep her as warm as we can, try to get a hot drink down her, and wait. It’s all I know to do. ” I bit back the recriminations and questions. “I would love to understand why you seem so little affected. ”
He suddenly sat up straight and stared around the ancient pavilion almost as if he could see. “Fitz. We camped here. Do you recall? When I was dead?”
“How could I not recall it?” I ignored the peculiar looks that both Per and Lant were giving me. They had been staring at the fire but hanging on the edges of our conversation avidly. I had no intention of explaining to them what had happened here on that long-ago summer day. Just the Fool’s mention of it had brought it vividly to mind. It was not that I had become him in death that still shook me to my core; it was the remembrance of how, as we had traded our bodies that he might resume his existence as the Fool, we had mingled and for that long instant, become one creature. One being.
And it had felt so correct. So perfectly balanced.
“It was here,” I confirmed again.
“It was. And when we left here, we left my things here. The Elderling tent. My little cook-pot …”
“Decades ago,” I reminded him.
“But they were Elderling-made. And you made our camp on the pavilion stones. Do you recall where we camped? Could you look for what’s left of them, under the snow?”
I could. I recalled where I had pitched the tent, recalled, too, where I had built the funeral pyre for him. “Possibly. ”
“Please, Fitz. Look for them now. It would be warm shelter for all of us. Even if only enough of it remains to be blankets, it will warm us better than wool and furs. ”
“Very well. ” I knew I’d get no more of the tale out of him until I had done as he asked. I found a likely branch and thrust it into the fire. As I waited for it to kindle into a torch, I asked Per, “How is she?” He had gradually edged closer to his friend.
“She’s stopped moaning and muttering. She’s still now. Is that good?”
“I don’t know. I think she’s been through four Skill-pillar trips in quick succession. I’m not sure I could survive that, let alone an untrained mind like hers. ”
“But Mage Gr—your friend seems unscathed. ”
I said nothing to that. I didn’t want to speak of dragon blood and how I’d seen the Fool changing since he’d drunk it, let alone smeared it on his palm. “Keep her warm. Talk to her. Be her anchor to this world. Lant, come with me, please. ”
He rose with alacrity, and as I held our pathetic “torch” aloft, he followed me into darkness. I took a bearing from the Skill-pillar,
and recalled where the ornamental stone wall had been in relation to our tent. And the funeral pyre had been there. I lifted the torch higher. Was there a slight mound there beneath the snow, the reminder of limbs and logs and branches that had rotted there for years? I walked toward it.
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The tent had been beyond it. I walked more slowly, kicking my feet deeper into the snow, trying to get the soles of my boots all the way down to the stone of the pavilion. And suddenly my toe caught and dragged on something. Was it possible that anything of the Fool’s grand tent remained after all these years? I hooked my toe under it and pulled it up to the surface. Fabric. Brightly dyed so that the colors shone even in our feeble torchlight. All those years ago, the Fool and I had donned winter clothing and just walked away from this camp. Through the Skill-portal and back to Aslevjal I had taken him. All those years ago, and his grand tent was still here, collapsed under the snow.
“Help me drag this free,” I said to Lant, and he posted the flaming branch in the snow and bent to seize the edge of the fabric. We both pulled. It was heavy work, for more than snow weighted it. Fallen leaves and bits of moss, all the detritus that had seemed to vanish from both the pavilion and the Skill-road, were layered upon it. It came free slowly. As it emerged from the snow and I shook litter from it, the limber supports that held the tent up revived slightly, lifting the bright parade of dragons and serpents into view.
It took some time for us to drag it free. The torch burned out and still we struggled. There were objects inside the tent, so abruptly had the Fool and I departed, and I dreaded we would tear it before it came free, but it held. I recalled well how it had blocked out the icy winds of Aslevjal, and how the warmth of our bodies had been enough to heat it. Even if it was no longer tight, it would be shelter for our enlarged party. We dragged it slowly to our fireside. Frost rimed the bright panels, and it was hard to find the collapsed entry. “We found it,” I said, and the Fool beamed like a child.
Spark was still, her eyes open and her lips moving slightly. From time to time, the direction of her gaze shifted, and once she smiled at no one. Her lips moved, speaking silently. Revelation struck me.