“How can I have been so stupid? We have to get her off the stone flagging, away from the pavilion. Look at her. The stones are speaking to her. ”
“That whispering?” Lant asked, alarmed. “I thought it wind in the trees last night. Per did not hear it at all. ”
“And you, too,” I announced.
It was hard work in the dark and the cold. I put Lant and Per to digging a small fire-pit under the evergreens where the snow was shallowest. I lifted Spark and placed her inside my tent. Then I took the task of shaking the last of the snow and moss from the Elderling tent and stretching it out to find the corners. I had never paused to look at the supports before. They were white and reminded me of baleen from a great whale. I set them aside, and went back to where we had salvaged the tent. Kicking and digging in the snow with my hands, I found the remaining supports and the rusty shell of the old fire-pot. It would do.
It took me longer to set up the tent than it should have. We installed the fire-pot in the pit, moved coals, and soon had a fire to warm it. The Elderling pavilion was more spacious than my little tent had been. As soon as we had moved the bedding, I put Spark inside. We set a pot of snow to melt. “Stay with her,” I told Per. To Lant, I said, “Rummage in the packs. Put together some sort of meal for us. ”
I went back to where the Fool sat by the fire still. “Your tent is up. Shall I guide you inside?”
He was staring toward it, a faint smile on his face. “I can almost sense the shape of it, for it traps the warmth so well. ” He heaved a sudden sigh. “So many memories that shelter holds for me. Did I tell you that the dragon Tintaglia was the one who commanded the Rain Wild Traders to help me? That tent was given to me, and a lovely robe. But the cloak, the one you call the butterfly cloak? That was something that Prilkop found in Kelsingra. He managed to keep it, wadded small, even when we were slaves. He gave it to me in Clerres. And I gave it to Incalu. My messenger. ” He fell silent.
I felt a wave of sympathy for him, but I firmed my will. “You won’t distract me from one tale by dangling another in front of me, Fool. You and Spark went through the portal to Kelsingra. It’s claimed by Rain Wilders who call themselves the Dragon Traders now. Queen Malta and King Reyn rule there. Dragons live there, or near there. So. What happened when you emerged?”
If I had hoped to push him closer to the truth with what I already knew of Kelsingra, I failed. “Malta,” he said, and smiled. “Possibly the most annoying young female I’ve ever encountered. Yet lovely. I named a horse after her. Do you remember?”
“I do. Nettle said that Burrich was stunned to receive her as a gift. So. You came out of the portal …”
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He folded his lips for a moment, then spoke. “It was night. And Spark needed to sit and recover for a time. It was hard for me to let her do that, though I knew it was night, for I sensed no warmth from the surroundings. I’m blind, Fitz. But there, suddenly, the city was lit with unfailing light, and I saw the brightly clad folk you call Elderlings. We’d arrived in the midst of some sort of festival. At least, that was what the city remembered for us. And I could see! I do not think you can imagine what that is like, to be deprived for so long of my sight, to become accustomed and accepting that my vision is limited to the difference between light and dark, and then to suddenly see again. Colors and people’s faces, to catch shifting expressions, to see the moving shadows on the walls, the glorious torchlight! Oh, Fitz!”
For a time he fell silent, just breathing, as if he were a starving man who had just described a feast. I waited. “Well, I knew of course that it was a deception. Or a performance by the memory stone of the city, if you will. That did not lessen its fascination for me. If anything, it sharpened it. I wanted to know more. Strange to say, when Spark began to attempt to speak to the passing people, I became alarmed for her rather than for myself. I got her to her feet, and we walked together through the streets. And it was wonderful, Fitz, to walk arm in arm with her, but not need her vision. Well, almost. There are still parts of the city that are in need of repair, for it is a large place, still far too large for the population it has now. I asked her to be wary, to watch for live folk like ourselves, people who walked through the shadow-population the city showed us. She said she would try, but her voice was vague and I was not sure she could discern what I meant. ” He paused again, and again his sightless gaze wandered to the Elderling tent. “I’m cold,” he said.
“If we go into the tent, all will hear your tale. Out here, we have some small privacy. ”
“It matters little. Spark was with me, and I fancy that when she recovers, she will tell Perseverance all. They’ve become very good friends. ”
I did not say that she might not recover. Nor did I mention that Per had doubts about that friendship. Instead I helped him to his feet and guided him over the uneven ground to the Elderling tent’s entrance. It was beautiful in the night, for the light from the little fire inside the tent lit the fabric so that the dragons and serpents gleamed in gold and scarlet and azure. Its beauty was both strong and delicate. My heart soared to see it. The campfire crackled and danced behind us, scenting the cold forest air with pine resin. I could smell the porridge that Lant was cooking. The Fool was beside me and alive, despite his idiocy. My heart lifted in one wolfish instant of unadulterated satisfaction in the present moment.
In the next, shame scourged me. How did I deserve even an instant of peace when my Bee was forever lost? When I was on a mission to a land I’d never seen to kill as many Servants as I could find? When a young woman twitched and tattered away with the Skill-sickness in the beautiful tent before me?
“You are grinding your teeth,” the Fool pointed out quietly.
“I always fail the people I love the most. ”
“Say rather that you judge yourself more harshly than anyone else ever has. ”
We reached the tent door. “Duck your head,” I suggested.
“Let me shed some of this first,” he responded. I took from him the heavy fur-and-wool cloak and an amply padded embroidered vest, and then he untied a sash and dropped several layers of skirts to reveal his wool-trousered legs.
I gathered it all up, a substantial armful. “How much of a woman’s shape actually comes from her garments?” I wondered as I mastered my load.
“More than you would suspect,” he responded.
We entered the Elderling tent. It was already capturing the warmth of the tiny fire in the pit. Per had put down a layer of small pine boughs and edged Spark onto them. He sat cross-legged beside the fire, looking both worried and sullen. “A moment,” I told the Fool, and tucked his female garb into the cloak to transform it into a pallet. “Here,” I told him, and he sat carefully. He held his hands, one bare and one gloved, out to the fire.
“That’s so much better. ” He sighed.
Lant entered the tent, carrying the bubbling pot of porridge with him. He served out a portion for each of us, even Spark, and it was not too badly scorched. He was learning. He passed out bread and cheese to go with it, and I judged that he was right, that we all needed a more substantial meal. “Tomorrow, I’ll try for some meat,” I offered.
“Tomorrow, we should try to move on,” the Fool countered.
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“Only if killing Spark does not matter to you. I will not allow that girl to enter a portal for at least three more days, and even then I doubt she will be ready. If I can Skill to Buckkeep tonight, I will ask Nettle to send someone here, someone strong in the Skill, to take all of you back. ”
“Well, that is not going to happen,” the Fool observed sweetly after a stretched moment of silence.
Spark turned her head toward us and then spoke. “The dragon? The red dragon?”
“She’s not here,” the Fool replied comfortingly. “We escaped her. And when we return to Kelsingra, I will see that we go first to Malta and speak with her. She is
a friend, Spark. If I could have gone to her first, we would not have been attacked. ”
“And I think it is time we talked about that attack. Why did you go so swiftly to Kelsingra, why were you attacked, and how did you get Skill all over your hand?”
The Fool made a small sound in his throat. I already knew he was dancing around the edges of the truth. He cleared his throat. “As you know, my friendship with both Queen Malta and the dragon Tintaglia goes back many years, so I decided—”
“You are friends with a dragon and a queen?” Perseverance broke in, astonished.
“It’s news to me as well, lad. Though I had an inkling of it years ago. But no, Fool, we will not be sidetracked with a story about how all that came about. We accept your peculiar alliances, while reserving the right to demand that tale at a later time. Go on. ”
The Fool had moved to sit beside Spark. He felt for her hand to hold and when I saw her struggling, I stooped and unwound the butterfly cloak enough that she could get her arm and hand free. “Do you think you would like some hot tea? Or something to eat?” She looked at me, her gaze still vague, but managed a nod. I ventured a tendril of Skill toward her, fearful of being pulled into the vortex of the portal, but I sensed nothing from her. I suspected she had been battered by the Skill but not shredded. I dared to hope she would recover.
The Fool drew a breath. “Well, it was night there, and although the streets were dark and deserted, they did not seem so to me. They seemed wide and lit for a festival, the buildings themselves gleaming with a toadstool light that made the torches seem wild and bright. Yet sometimes I stumbled as we went, over fallen stones that the city did not show me, and once our way was blocked and we had to find a different route. ”
“But you knew where you were going. ” I allowed silence to take a breath. “Fool, had you ever been to Kelsingra before?”
He hesitated. “Not … not in person. Not as myself. But there is a dragon-sense in me now, Fitz. And from it, I’ve had dreams. Dreams that are more like memories. ” His brows drew together and abruptly I allowed myself to see how much he had changed. His skin had the same fine texture you’d see on the belly of a tiny lizard. His eyes gleamed gold and yet anxious in the dim light from the fire-pot. “I remember things. Flying over the ocean. The musky smell of an elk when it knows it cannot escape and turns to fight. The taste of hot blood over my tongue. Dragons are made of hungers and lusts that are beyond even human imagining. You others will not understand what I speak of, but Fitz will. I dreamed of silvery Skill, filling a well to brimming and flowing over. I dreamed of it rising to the surface of the river like an undulating silver ribbon after an earthquake. But most of all, I dreamed of drinking. Of plunging my muzzle into it nearly to my eyes and sucking it in, in long draughts. ” He gave a short, breathless sigh as if even speaking of it inflamed his hunger. “And I remembered where once I had drunk it. From a well in Kelsingra. So I went there. ”
He still held Spark’s hand but he turned toward me. “That was how I knew the dragon blood had Skill in it. All dragons crave it, with every fiber of their beings. And why I believed the blood would carry me through the Skill-portals as it did. ”
The pot of snow-water finally reached a grudging boil. Perseverance tended it, preparing cups of tea for each of us. For a time, the story was halted as we helped Spark to sit and hold a steaming cup and sip from it. I saw with relief that she was coming back to herself. She presented a thorny problem for me. I needed to be on my way, and the next step of my journey demanded that I go on to Kelsingra, unless the Fool had left it as stirred as a poked hive of bees. Spark sat up, the butterfly cloak draping her shoulders and a second cup of tea warming both her hands.
“I meant to go first to Malta, to find her and greet her, and gain her assistance. I dared to hope that Tintaglia would be there and would recall my service to dragons and actually show her appreciation. A thin hope, that, I will admit. Dragons regard us as we might regard gnats. One is much like another, and our deeds matter little. Still. That was my resolution, and Fitz, I truly believed I was clinging to it as I led the way through the streets of Kelsingra. But then I came to a part of the city that was dark. Lifeless. No Elderling memories shimmered there to guide me, and yet I still knew where I was going. I could smell it, Fitz. I could taste it in the back of my throat with every breath I took. And suddenly I could not think of anything else except that brimming Skill-well. And how it would strengthen me and sate me. ”
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His eyes. Was it the firelight that danced and shifted in them, or was it the gold that swirled? I stared at him, wordless.
“I didn’t drink of it, of course. ”
“Only because he couldn’t reach it,” Spark said. A very small smile was on her lips, a weary smile like a child’s after an exciting day. She did not try to sit up. “He dragged me there like a dog on a leash. He knew the way, but I followed him through the dark as he gripped my wrist. We came to an open place. I could see little in the dark, but it seemed a shabby part of the city, not near as grand as the boulevards we had earlier walked. And it smelled rank there. We walked past an immense pile of dung. ”
“Dragon droppings?” Per asked in awe, as if that were the most fantastic part of their tale.
“I suppose so,” she said, and the friends shared the first smile that I had seen pass between them since she had come back through the pillar.
“It stank,” the Fool confirmed. “But the odd part was that it stank in a familiar way. Almost as if I should recall whose droppings those were and walk lightly in her territory. ”
“Ugh,” said Lant, softly. I tended to agree with him.
“I tried to get the cover off the well. ”
“Which involved a lot of tugging, then kicking and cursing it,” Spark confided to Per. He tried not to grin.
“True,” the Fool admitted reluctantly. “Then I smelled Skill, very near me. There was an immense bucket nearby. It had been set down unevenly, and in the corner of it there was Skill. It was little more than a smear, as if someone had wiped it clean but missed a spot. And I could smell it. ”
“I could barely see it,” Spark said, sitting up a bit straighter, now a partner in the telling. “There was little moon, but it was so silver that it seemed to catch every bit of starlight. It was beautiful and yet terrifying. I wanted to move away from it, but he leaned on the edge of the bucket and reached as far down as he could and managed to get his hand into it. ”
“Just barely, but I touched it. ” He held up his gloved left hand and smiled as if the gods were pouring blessings upon him. “The sweetest agony you can imagine. ” He turned his face toward me. “Fitz. It was like that moment. You know of what I speak. One and complete. I felt I was the music of the world, strong and sweeping. My throat closed and tears ran down my face and I could not move for joy. ”
“And then the dragon came!” Spark continued. “She was red and even in the darkness of the night she shone red, so that I saw her almost before I heard her. But then she made a sound, like all the horns of Buckkeep blasting, but it was full of fury. She ran toward us. Dragons are not graceful when they run. They are terrifying, but not graceful at all. It was like watching a very angry red cow charge at us! I screamed and seized Lady Amber and dragged him away from the bucket. I could scarcely see where I was running, but run we did. Not that he was happy about it. ”
“Lady Amber?” Lant asked, confused.
Spark caught her lip between her teeth. “So he—no, so she told me I must think of her, guised as we are. ” She gave Per a look that asked for understanding and said softly, “Just as sometimes I am Ash. ”
Lant opened his mouth but before he could speak, the Fool took up the tale. “I could sense the other dragon. The red dragon, I mean. Her roaring was full of threats and name-calling and absolute fury that we had penetrated the city and dared to come to the well of Silver. I could hear other dragons respon
ding to her alarm, and then I heard a man’s voice raised in anger. He was urging the dragon on!”
Spark shook her head. “The dragons were so loud that I didn’t even hear the man, and I didn’t see him until he suddenly jumped out right in front of us. He had a sword, and he was wearing some kind of harness or armor. I dragged Lady Amber into a building. I just had time to slam a door closed behind us and then we ran in the dark, and we crashed into some stone stairs and we climbed those. ”
I made a sound of despair. “Upstairs? With an enemy in pursuit, you ran where you could be cornered?”
Spark looked at me with irritation. “I’ve never been chased by a man with a sword, let alone a dragon. So, yes, we ran upstairs. It was awful there: Furniture had gone to rot, and it littered the floor. I kept stumbling and I could hear the man shouting as he searched downstairs, for like you he could not believe we would be so stupid as to run up the stairs. Then I found a window, and it looked out on an alley that I judged was too narrow for the dragon. ”
The Fool took up the tale. “So we held hands and jumped out the window with little idea of what was below us. Oh, the terror of that jump for me! It was purest luck that we landed well. I still went to one knee, but Spark already had hold of me and was hauling me along. She flattened us against the wall and we went as silently as we could, staying to the narrow alley for quite a way. Once we came to where the buildings were wakeful, I could get my bearings and then I led the way. We could still hear the dragons trumpeting behind us, but it almost made me feel safer to know they were searching for us back by the well. I judged it was too late to seek an audience with Malta or to reach for Tintaglia, and that the pillar was our best way to escape, though I knew how much Spark dreaded it.
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“I thought I could run no farther. I had forgotten how heavy skirts can be, let alone a fur-lined cloak. And these boots!” He thrust one foot out before us. The toe was as pointed as a sword. “Not for running,” he said decisively. “But just as I slowed and told Spark that we could probably walk for a time, I heard running feet behind us. It was strange. The ghost-festivity was all around us, yet somehow I heard the sound of running footsteps. I felt I had no speed left in me and I shouted at Spark to flee but she would not leave me. Then I heard that sound just as I felt the arrow tug through the shoulder of my cloak. And I found that I could not only run but drag Spark along with me. ”