Fools Errand

Page 203

Nighteyes showed me a chamber, walls of stone, floor of earth. A cave, perhaps. He and the Fool were in a corner of it. Blood had sheeted down the side of the Fool's tawny face. Dried, it had cracked so that he looked like a badly glazed pot. Nighteyes and the Fool were prisoners, violently taken but kept alive, the Fool because he might know where the Prince had gone and how, and the wolf because of his link to me.

They puzzled that out, that we are linked?

I'm afraid it was obvious to all.

From out of the shadows, the cat appeared. She stalked stiffly toward us. Her whiskers vibrated and her intent stare fixed on Nighteyes. When the guard's dog turned to look at her, she spat and slashed at him. He leapt back with a yipe and the guard's scowl deepened, but both he and his dog gave ground to her. She prowled back and forth, padding stifflegged and casting sidelong glances up at the Fool while rumbling a threat in her throat. Her tail floated behind her.

The charm holds her at bay?

Yes. But not for long, I fear. The wolf's next thought surprised me. The cat is a miserable creature, honeycombed with the woman as a sick deer is riddled with parasites . She stalks about with a human looking out of her eyes . She does not even move like a true cat anymore.

The cat halted suddenly and opened her mouth wide as if taking our scent. Then she suddenly spun about and trotted purposefully away.

You should not have come. She senses you are with me. She has gone to find the big man. He is bonded to a horse. The charm does not bother prey, nor those who bond with them.

The wolf's thought rang with contempt for grasseaters, but there was an element of dread behind it. I pondered it. The Fool's charm was a charm against predators; it was logical it would not bother the man bonded to the warhorse.

Before I could follow that thought further, the cat returned with the man behind her. She sat down at his side, insufferably pleased with herself, and fixed us with a very uncatlike stare. The big man stared too, not at the defiant Fool, but past him at my wolf.

“There you are. We've been waiting for you,” he said slowly.

Nighteyes would not meet his gaze, but the big man's words fell on his ears and came to me. “I have your friends, you treacherous coward. Will you betray them as you've betrayed your Old Blood? I know you're somewhere with the Prince. I don't know how you vanished, nor do I care. I say only this to you. Bring him back, or they die slowly. ”

The Fool stood up between the man and my wolf. I knew he spoke to me when he said, “Don't listen. Stay away. Keep him safe. ”

I could not see past the Fool, but the shadow of the big man loomed suddenly larger. “Your hedgewitch charm means nothing to me, Lord Golden. ”

Then the Fool's flying body crashed suddenly into my battered wolf, and my Witbond to him vanished.

I jolted awake. I leapt to my feet, but all I saw was the graying of dawn and the empty beach. I heard only the cries of seabirds wheeling overhead. In my sleep, I had drawn my body up into a ball for warmth, but now I shook with something that was not cold. Sweat sheathed me and I was breathing hard. Sleep had fled completely. I stared out over the sea, my dream still vivid in my mind. I did not doubt the reality of it. I took a long, shuddering breath. The tide was rising again, but had not quite peaked. I sought in vain for some sign of a Skillpillar thrusting up from the waves. I would have to wait until afternoon, when the water would be at full ebb. I dared not wonder what would happen to the Fool and Nighteyes in the intervening hours. If luck sided with me, the retreating waves would bare the pillar that had brought us here, and I would go back to them. The Prince would have to manage here on his own until I could return for him.

If the retreating water did not reveal the pillar I refused to consider what that might mean. Instead, I focused on the problems I could solve right now. Find food and eat it. Keep up my strength. And break the woman's hold on the Prince. I turned to the stillsleeping boy and nudged him firmly with my foot. “Get up!” I grated at him.

I knew that waking him would not necessarily break his Witlink with the cat, but it would make it more difficult for him to focus on it exclusively. When I was a lad, I had spent my sleeping hours “dreaming” of hunts with Nighteyes. Awake, I was still aware of the wolf, but not in such an immediate way. When Dutiful groaned, and rolled away from me, stubbornly clinging to his Witdreams, I bent over him, seized him by the collar, and stood him on his feet. “Wake up!”

“Leave me alone, you ugly bastard,” he rasped at me. Catlike he glowered at me, head canted, mouth ajar. I almost expected him to hiss and claw at me. Then my temper got the better of me. I gave him a violent shake, then thrust him from me, so that he stumbled back, lost his footing, and nearly fell into the embers of the fire.