PART OF THE great mystery that surrounds the Elderlings is that the few images we have of them bear small resemblance to each other. This is true not only of tapestries and scrolls that are copies of older works and hence might contain errors, but also of the few images of Elderlings that have survived from King Wisdom's time. Some of the images bear superficial resemblances to the legends of dragons, featuring wings, claws, scaly skin, and great size. But others do not. In at least one tapestry, the Elderling is depicted as similar to a human, but gold of skin and great of size. The images do not even agree in the number of limbs that benevolent race possessed. They may have as many as four legs and two wings also, or have no wings at all and walk upon two legs as a man.
It has been theorized that so little was written about them because knowledge of the Elderlings at that time was regarded as common knowledge. Just as no one sees fit to create a scroll that deals with the most basic attributes of what a horse is, for it would serve no useful purpose, so no one thought that one day Elderlings would be the stuff of legends. To a certain degree, this makes sense. But one has only to look about at all the scrolls and tapestries in which horses are featured as the stuff of common life to find a flaw. Were Elderlings so accepted a part of life, surely they would have been more often depicted.
After a very confusing hour or two, I found myself back in the yurt with the others. The night seemed all the colder for my having spent an almost warm day in the city. We huddled in the tent in our blankets. They had told me I had vanished from the lip of the cliff only the night before; I had told them of all I had encountered in the city. There had been a certain amount of disbelief on everyone's part. I had felt both moved and guilty to see how much anguish my disappearance had caused them. Starling had obviously been weeping, while both Kettle and Kettricken had the owly look of folks who had not slept. The Fool had been the worst, pale and silent with a slight trembling to his hands. It had taken a bit of time for all of us to recover. Kettle had cooked a meal twice the size of what we usually had and all save the Fool had eaten heartily. He had not seemed to have the energy. While the others sat in a circle around the brazier listening to my tale, he was already curled in his blankets, the wolf snug beside him. He seemed completely exhausted.
After I had been over the events of my adventure for the third time, Kettle commented cryptically, "Well, thank Eda you were dosed with elfbark before you were taken; otherwise you would never have kept your wits at all."
"You say `taken'?" I pressed immediately.
She scowled at me. "You know what I mean." She looked about at all of us staring at her. "Through the guidepost or whatever it is. They must have something to do with it." A silence met her words. "It seems obvious to me, that's all. He left us at one, and arrived there at one. And returned to us the same way."
"But why didn't they take anyone else?" I protested.
"Because you are the only Skill-sensitive one among us," she pointed out.
"Are they Skill-wrought as well?" I asked her bluntly.
She met my glance. "I looked at the guidepost by daylight. It is hewn of black stone with wide threads of shining crystal in it. Like the walls of the city you describe. Did you touch both posts?"
I was silent a moment, thinking. "I believe so."
She shrugged. "Well, there you are. A Skill-imbued object can retain the intent of its maker. Those posts were erected to make travel easier for those who could master them:"
"I've never heard of such things. How do you know them?"
"I am only speculating on what seems obvious to me," she told me stubbornly. "And that is all I am going to say. I'm going to sleep. I'm exhausted. We all spent the entire night and most of the day looking for you and worrying about you. What hours we could rest, that wolf never stopped howling."
Howling?
I called you. You did not answer.
I did not hear you, or I would have tried.
I begin to fear, little brother. Forces pull at you, taking you to places I cannot follow, closing your mind to mine. This, right now, is as close as I have ever come to being accepted into a pack. But if I lost you, even it would be lost to me.
You will not lose me, I promised him, but I wondered if it was a promise I could keep. "Fitz?" Kettricken asked in a nudging voice.
"I am here," I assured her.
"Let us look at the map you copied."
I took it out and she drew out her own map. We compared the two. It was hard to find any similarities, but the scales of the maps were different. At last we decided that the piece I had copied down in the city bore a superficial resemblance to the portion of trail that was drawn on Kettricken's map. "This place," I gestured to one destination marked on her map, "would seem to be the city. If that is so, then this corresponds to this, and this to this."
The map Verity had set out with had been a copy of this older, faded map. On that one the trail I now thought of as the Skill road had been marked, but oddly, as a path that began suddenly in the Mountains and ended abruptly at three separate destinations. The significance of those endpoints had once been marked on the map, but those markings had faded into inky smears. Now we had the map I had copied in the city, with those three endpoints on it also. One had been the city itself. The other two were now our concern.
Kettricken studied the glyphs I had copied from the city's map. "I've seen such markings, from time to time," she admitted uneasily. "No one truly reads them anymore. A handful of them are still known. One encounters them mostly in odd places. In a few places in the Mountains, there are raised stones that have such marks. There are some at the west end of the Great Chasm Bridge. No one knows when they were carved, or why. Some are thought to mark graves, but others say they marked land boundaries."
"Can you read any of them?" I asked her.
"A few.. They are used in a challenge game. Some are stronger than others …." Her voice trailed off as she studied my scratchings. "None match exactly the ones I know," she said at last, disappointment heavy in her voice. "This one is almost like the one for `stone.' But the others I have never seen at all."
"Well, it's one of the ones that was marked here." I tried to make my voice cheery. "Stone" conveyed nothing at all to me. "It seems closest to where we are. Shall we go there next?"
"I would have liked to see the city," the Fool said softly. "I should have liked to see the dragon, too."
I nodded slowly. "It is a place and a thing worth seeing. Much knowledge is there, if only we had the time to ferret it out. Did not I have Verity always in my head with his `Come to me, come to me' I think I would have been more curious to explore." I had said nothing to them of my dreams of Molly and Chade. Those were private things, as was my ache to be home with her again.
"Doubtless you would have," Kettle agreed. "And doubtless gotten yourself into more trouble that way. I wonder, did he so bind you to keep you on the road and protect you from distractions?"
I would have challenged her again on her knowledge, had not the Fool repeated softly, "I would have liked to see the city."
"We should all sleep now. We are up at first light, to travel hard tomorrow. It heartens me to think that Verity had been there before FitzChivalry, even as it fills me with foreboding. We must get to him quickly. I can no longer stand wondering each night why he never returned."
"Comes the Catalyst, to make stone of flesh and flesh of stone. At his touch shall be wakened the dragons of the earth. The sleeping city shall tremble and waken to him. Comes the Catalyst." The Fool's voice was dreamy.
"The writings of White Damir," Kettle added reverently. She looked at me and for a moment was annoyed. "Hundreds of years of writings and prophecies and they all terminate in you?"
"Not my fault," I said inanely. I was already tucking my way into my blankets. I thought longingly of the almost warm day I had had. The wind was blowing and I felt chilled to the bone.
I was drowsing off when the Fool reached over to pat my face with a warm hand. "Good you're alive," he muttered.
"Thank you," I said. I was summoning up Kettle's game board and pieces in an effort to keep my mind to myself for the night. I had just begun to contemplate the problem. Suddenly I sat up, exclaiming, "Your hand is warm! Fool! Your hand is warm!"
"Go to sleep," Starling chided me in an offended tone.
I ignored her. I dragged the blanket down from the Fool's face and touched his cheek. His eyes opened slowly. "You're warm," I told him. "Are you all right?"
"I don't feel warm," he informed me miserably. "I feel cold. And very, very tired."
I began building up the fire in the brazier hastily. Around me the others were stirring. Starling across the tent had sat up and was peering at me through the gloom.
"The Fool is never warm," I told them, trying to make them understand my urgency. "Always, when you touch his skin, it is cool. Now he's warm."
"Indeed?" Starling asked in an oddly sarcastic voice.
"Is he ill?" Kettle asked tiredly.
"I don't know. I've never known him to be ill in my whole life."
"I am seldom ill," the Fool corrected me quietly. "But this is a fever I have known before. Lie down and sleep, Fitz. I'll be all right. I expect the fever will have burned out by morning."
"Whether it has or not, we must travel tomorrow morning," Kettricken said implacably. "We have already lost a day lingering here."
"Lost a day?" I exclaimed, almost angrily. "Gained a map, or more detail for one, and knowledge that Verity had been to the city. For myself, I doubt not that he went there as I did, and perhaps returned to this very spot. We have not lost a day, Kettricken, but gained all the days it would have taken us to find a way down to what remains of the road down there and then tramp to the city. And back again. As I recall, you had proposed spending a day just to seek for a way down that slide. Well, we did, and we found the way." I paused. I took a breath and imposed calm on my voice. "I will not seek to force any of you to my will. But if the Fool is not well enough to travel tomorrow, I shall not travel either. "
A glint came into Kettricken's eyes, and I braced myself for battle. But the Fool forestalled it. "I shall travel tomorrow, well or not," he assured us both.
"That's settled, then," Kettricken said swiftly. Then, in a more humane voice she asked, "Fool, is there anything I can do for you? I would not use you so harshly, were not the need so great. I have not forgotten, and never shall, that without you I would never have reached Jhaampe alive."
I sensed a story I was not privy to, but kept my questions to myself.
"I will be fine. I am just … Fitz? Could I beg some elfbark of you? That warmed me last night as nothing else has."
"Certainly." I was rummaging in my pack for it when Kettle spoke out warningly.
"Fool, I counsel you against it. It is a dangerous herb, and almost often more damaging than good. Who knows but you are ill tonight because you had some night before last?"
"It is not that potent an herb," I said disdainfully. "I've used it for a number of years, and taken no lasting ill from it."
Kettle gave a snort. "None that you are wise enough to see, anyway," she said sarcastically. "But it is a warming herb that gives energy to the flesh, even if it is deadening to the spirit."
"I always found it restored me rather than deadened me," I countered as I found the small packet and opened it. Without my asking her, Kettle got up to put water on to boil. "I never noticed it dulling my mind," I added.
"The one taking it seldom does," she retorted. "And while it may boost your physical energy for a time, you must always pay for it later. Your body is not to be tricked, young man. You will know that better when you are as old as I.
I fell silent. As I thought back over the times I had used elfbark to restore myself, I had the uncomfortable suspicion that she was at least partly right. But my suspicion was not enough to keep me from brewing two cups rather than just one. Kettle shook her head at me, but lay back down and said no more. I sat beside the Fool as we drank our tea. When he handed me back the empty mug, his hand seemed warmer, not cooler.
"Your fever is rising," I warned him.
"No. It is just the heat of the mug on my skin," he suggested.
I ignored him. "You are shaking all over."
"A bit," he admitted. Then his misery broke though and he said, "I am cold as I have never been before. My back and my jaws ache from shaking with it."
Flank him, suggested Nighteyes. The big wolf shifted to press more closely against him. I added my blankets to those covering the Fool and then crawled in beside him. He said not a word but his shivering lessened somewhat.
"I can't recall that you were ever ill at Buckkeep," I said quietly.
"I was. But very seldom, and I kept to myself. As you recall, the healer had little tolerance for me, and I for him. I would not have trusted my health to his purges and tonics. Beside. What works for your kind sometimes does nothing for mine."
"Is your kind so vastly different from mine?" I asked after a time. He had brought us close to a topic we had seldom even mentioned.
"In some ways," lie sighed. He lifted a hand to his brow. "But sometimes I surprise even myself." He took a breath, then sighed it out as if he had endured some pain for an instant. "I may not even be truly ill. I have been going through some changes in the past year. As you have noticed." He added the last in a whisper.
"You have grown, and gathered color," I agreed softly.
"That is a part of it." A smile twitched over his face, then faded. "I think I am almost an adult now."
I snorted softly. "I have counted you as a man for many years, Fool. I think you found your manhood before I did mine."
"Did I? How droll!" he exclaimed softly, and for a moment sounded almost like himself. His eyes sagged shut. "I am going to sleep now," he told me.
I made no reply. I shouldered deeper into the blankets beside him and set my walls once more. I sank into a dreamless rest that was not cautionless sleep.
I awoke before first light with a foreboding of danger. Beside me, the Fool slept heavily. I touched his face, and found it warm still and misted with sweat. I rolled away from him, tucking the blankets in tight around him. I added a twig or two of precious fuel to the brazier and began drawing my clothes on quietly. Nighteyes was immediately alert.
Going out?
Just to sniff about.
Shall I come?
Keep the Fool warm. I won't be long.
Are you sure you'll be all right?
I'll be very careful. I promise.
The cold was like a slap. The darkness, absolute. After a moment or two, my eyes adjusted but even so I could see little more than the tent itself. An overcast had blotted the stars even. I stood still in the icy wind, straining my senses to find what had disturbed me. It was not the Skill but my Wit that quested out into the darkness for me. I sensed our party, and the hunger of the huddled jeppas. Grain alone would not keep them long. Another worry. Resolutely I set it aside and pushed my senses further. I stiffened. Horses? Yes. And riders? I thought so. Nighteyes was suddenly beside me.
Can you scent them?
The wind is wrong. Shall I go see?
Yes. But be unseen.
Of course. See to the Fool. He whimpered when I left him.
In the tent, I quietly woke Kettricken. "I think there may be danger," I told her softly. "Horses and riders, possibly on the road behind us. I'm not certain yet."
"By the time we are certain, they will be here," she said dourly. "Wake everyone. I want us up and ready to move by light."
"The Fool is still feverish," I said, even as I stooped and shook Starling's shoulder.
"If he stays here, he won't be feverish, he'll be dead. And you with him. Has the wolf gone to spy for us?"
"Yes." I knew she was right, but it was still hard to force myself to shake the Fool to consciousness. He moved like a man in a daze. While the others bundled our gear, I hurried him into his coat and nagged him into an extra pair of leggings. I wrapped him in all our blankets and stood him outside while the rest of us struck the tent and loaded it. Of Kettricken I asked quietly, "How much weight can a jeppa bear?"
"More than the Fool weighs. But they are too narrow to straddle comfortably, and they are skittish with a live load. We might put him on one for a ways, but it would be uncomfortable for him and the jeppa would be difficult to control."
It was the answer I had expected, but it did not make me happy.
"What news from the wolf?" she asked me.
I reached for Nighteyes, and was dismayed to find what an effort it was to touch minds with him. "Six riders," I told her.
"Friend or foe?" she asked.
"He has no way to know," I pointed out to her. To the wolf I asked, How do the horses look?
Delicious.
Large, like Sooty? Or small, like Mountain horses?
Between. One pack mule.
"They are on horses, not Mountain ponies," I told Kettricken.
She shook her head to herself. "Most of my folk do not use horses this high in the Mountains. They would use ponies, or jeppas. Let us decide they are enemies and act accordingly."
"Run or fight?"
"Both, of course."'
She had already taken her bow from one of the jeppa's loads.
Now she strung it to have it ready. "First we look for a better place to stage an ambush. Then we wait. Let's go."
It was easier said than done. Only the smoothness of the road made it possible at all. Light was only a rumor as we started that day. Starling led the jeppas ahead. I brought the Fool behind them, while Kettle with her staff and Kettricken with her bow followed us. At first I let the Fool try to walk on his own. He lurched slowly along, and as the jeppas drew inexorably away from us, I knew it would not do. I put his left arm across my shoulders and my arm about his waist and hurried him along. In a short time he was panting and struggling to keep his feet from dragging. The unnatural warmth of his body was frightening. Cruelly, I forced him on, praying for cover of some sort.
When we came to it, it was not the kindness of trees, but the cruelty of sharp stone. A great portion of the mountain above the road had given way and cascaded down. It had carried off more than half the road with it, and left what remained heaped high with stone and earth. Starling and the jeppas were looking at it dubiously when the Fool and I limped up. I set him down on a stone, where he sat, eyes closed and head bowed. I pulled the blankets more closely around him, and then went to stand by Starling.
"It's an old slide," she observed. "Maybe it won't be that hard to scramble across it."
"Maybe," I agreed, my eyes already looking for a place to attempt it. Snow overlaid the stone, cloaking it. "If I go first, with the jeppas, can you follow with the Fool?"
"I suppose." She glanced over at him. "How bad is she?"
There was only worry in Starling's voice, so I swallowed my annoyance. "He can stagger along, if he has an arm to lean on. Don't start to follow until the last animal is up and moving across it. Then follow our tracks."
Starling bobbed her head in agreement but did not look happy.
"Shouldn't we wait for Kettricken and Kettle?"
I thought. "No. If those riders do catch up with us, I don't want to be here with stone at my back. We cross the slide."
I wished the wolf were with us, for he was twice as surefooted as I and much quicker of reflex.
Can't come to you without their seeing me. It's sheer rock above and below the road here, and they are between you and me.
Don't fret about it. Just watch them and keep me alerted. Do they travel swiftly?
They walk their horses and argue much among themselves. One is fat and weary of riding. He says little but he does not hasten. Be careful, my brother.
I took a deep breath, and, as no place looked better than any other, simply followed my nose. At first there was just a scattering of loose stone across the road, but beyond that was a wall of great boulders, rocky soil, and loose sharp-edged stone. I picked my way up this treacherous footing. The lead jeppa followed me and the others came behind her unquestioningly. I soon found that blowing snow had frozen across the rocks in thin sheets, often covering hollows and cracks beneath them. I stepped carelessly on one and thrust my leg down to my knee in a crack. I extricated myself carefully and proceeded.
When I took a moment and looked around me my courage almost failed. Above was a great slope of slide debris going up to a sheer wall of rock. I walked on a hillside of loose rock and stone. Looking ahead, I could not see where it ended. If it gave way, I would tumble and slide with it to the edge of the road and shoot off it into the deep valley beyond. There would be nothing, not a twig of greenery, not a boulder of any size that I could cling to. Small things became suddenly frightening. The jeppa's nervous tugging at the lead rope I clutched, a sudden shift in the push of the breeze, even my hair blowing in my eyes were abruptly life threatening. Twice I dropped to all fours and crawled. The rest of the way, I went at a crouch, looking before I placed a foot and trusting my weight to it slowly.
Behind me came the line of jeppas, all following the lead beast. They were not as cautious as I. I heard stone shift beneath them, and small scatterings of rock that they loosened went pebbling and bounding down the slope, to shoot off in space. Each time it happened, I feared it would waken other rocks and set them sliding. They were not roped together, save for the lead I had on the first beast. At any moment I dreaded to see one go slipping down the hillside. They were strung out behind me like corks on a net, and far behind them came Starling and the Fool. I stopped once to watch them and cursed myself as I realized the difficulty of the task I had given her. They came at half my crawling pace, with Starling gripping the Fool and watching footing for both of them. My heart was in my mouth when she stumbled once and the Fool sprawled flat beside her. She looked up then and saw me staring back at her. Angrily she lifted an arm and motioned to me to go on. I did. There was nothing else I could do.
The dump of rock and stone ended as abruptly as it had begun. I scrabbled down to the road's flat surface with gratitude. Behind me came the lead jeppa, and then the other beasts, jumping from scarp to rock to road like goats as they descended. As soon as they were all down, I scattered some grain on the road to keep them well bunched and clambered back up the slide's shoulder.
I could see neither Starling nor the Fool.
I wanted to run back across the face of the slide. Instead I forced myself to go slowly, picking my way back along the tracks the jeppas and I had left. I told myself that I should be able to see their brightly colored garments in this dull landscape of grays and blacks and whites. And finally I did. Starling was sitting quite still in a patch of scree with the Fool stretched out beside her on the stones.
"Starling!" I called to her softly.
She looked up. Her eyes were huge. "It all started to move around us. Little rocks and then bigger ones. So I stopped still to let it settle. Now I can't get the Fool up and I can't carry her." She fought the panic in her voice.
"Sit still. I'm coming."
I could plainly see where a section of the surface rock had broken loose and started tumbling. Rolling pebbles had left their tracks over the snowy surface. I sized up what I could see and wished I knew more of avalanches. The movement of stone seemed to have begun well above them and to have flowed past them. We were still a good ways above the edge, but once the scree began moving, it would swiftly carry us over the edge. I made my heart cold and relied on my head.
"Starling!" I called to her softly again. It was needless, her attention was entirely focused on me. "Come to me. Very slowly and carefully."
"What about the Fool?"
"Leave him. Once you are safe, I will go back for him. If I come to you, all three of us will be at risk."
It is one thing to see the logic of something. It is another to force oneself to keep a resolve that smacks of cowardice. I do not know what Starling was thinking as she got slowly to her feet. She never straightened up entirely, but ventured toward me one slow step at a time, crouched over. I bit my lip and kept silent though I longed to urge her to hurry. Twice small herds of pebbles were loosened by her steps. They went cascading downhill, rousing others to join them as they flowed down the incline and then bounded over the edge. Each time she froze in a crouch, her eyes fixed desperately on mine. I stood and stupidly wondered what I would do if she started to slide with the rocks. Would I fling myself uselessly after her, or watch her go and keep forever the memory of those dark eyes pleading?
But at last she reached the relative stability of the larger rocks where I stood. She clutched at me and I held her, feeling the trembling that rattled through her. After a long moment, I gripped her upper arms firmly and held her a little apart from me. "You have to go on, now. It's not far. When you get there, stay there and keep the jeppas bunched together. Do you understand?"
She gave a quick nod and then took a deep breath. She stepped free of me and began cautiously to follow the trail the jeppas and I had left. I let her get a safe distance away before I took my first cautious steps toward the Fool.
The rocks shifted and grated more noticeably under my greater weight. I wondered if I would be wiser to walk higher or lower on the slope than she had. I thought of going back to the jeppas for a rope, but could think of nothing to secure it to. And all the while I kept moving forward, one cautious step at a time. The Fool himself did not move.
Rocks began to move around my feet, tapping against my ankles as they tumbled past me, slipping out from under my feet. I halted where I was, frozen by the gravel hurrying past me. I felt one of my feet start to slip, and before I could control myself, I plunged forward a step. The exodus of small rocks became swifter and more determined. I did not know what to do. I thought of flinging myself flat and spreading my weight, but decided swiftly it would only make it more easy for the tumbling rocks to carry me with them. Not one of the moving stones was bigger than my fist, but there were so many of them. I froze where I was and counted ten breaths before the rattlings settled again.
It took every scrap of courage I could muster to take the next step. I studied the ground for a time and selected a place that looked least unstable. I eased my weight to that foot and chose a place for my next step. By the time I reached the Fool's prone body, my shirt was sweated to my back and my jaw ached from clenching it. I eased myself down beside him.
Starling had lifted the blanket's corner to shelter his face, and he still lay covered like a dead man. I lifted it away, to look down at his closed eyes. He was a hue I had never seen before. The deathly white of his skin at Buckkeep had taken on a yellowish cast in the Mountains, but now he was a terrible dead color. His lips were dry and chapped, his eyelashes crusted yellow. And he was still warm to the touch.
"Fool?" I asked him gently, but he made no response. I spoke on, hoping some part of him would hear me. "I'm going to have to lift you and carry you. The footing is bad, and if I slip, we're going to fall all the way. So once I have you up in my arms, you must be very, very still. Do you understand?"
He took a slightly deeper breath. I took it for assent. I knelt downhill of him and worked my hands and arms under his body. As I straightened up, the arrow scar in my back screamed. I felt sweat pop out on my face. I knelt upright for a moment, the Fool in my arms, mastering my pain and gaining my balance. I shifted one leg to get my foot under me. I tried to stand up slowly, but as I did so rocks began cascading past me. I fought a terrible urge to clutch the Fool to me and run. The rattling and scattering of loose shale went on and on and on. When it finally ceased, I was trembling with the effort of standing perfectly still. I was ankle deep in loose scree.
"FitzChivalry?"
I turned my head slowly. Kettricken and Kettle had caught up. They were standing uphill of me, well off the patch of loosened stone. They both looked sickened at my predicament. Kettricken was the first to recover.
"Kettle and I are going to cross above you. Stay where you are, and be as still as you can. Did Starling and the jeppas make it across?" I managed a small nod. I had not the spit to speak.
"I'll get a rope and come back. I'll be as quick as it is safe to be."
Another nod from me. I had to twist my body to watch them, so I did not. Nor did I look down. The wind blew past me, the stone ticked under my feet, and I looked down into the Fool's face. He did not weigh much, for a man grown. He had always been slight and bird boned, relying on his tongue for defense rather than fist and muscle. But as I stood and held him, he grew weightier and weightier in my arms. The circle of pain in my back slowly expanded, and somehow managed to make my arms ache with it.
I felt him give a slight twitch in my arms. "Be still," I whispered,,
He prized his eyes open and looked up at me. His tongue sought to moisten his lips. "What are we doing?" he croaked.
"We're standing very still in the middle of an avalanche," I whispered back. My throat was so dry it was hard to talk.
"I think I could stand," he offered weakly.
"Don't move!" I ordered him.
He took a slightly deeper breath. "Why are you always near when I get into these sort of situations?" he wondered hoarsely.
"I could ask you the same," I retorted, unfairly.
"Fitz?"
I twisted my screaming back to look up at Kettricken. She was silhouetted against the sky. She had a jeppa with her, the lead one. She had a coil of rope looped on one shoulder. The other end was fixed to the jeppa's empty pack harness.
"I'm going to throw the rope to you. Don't try to catch it, let it go past you and then pick it up and wrap it around yourself. Understand?"
"Yes."
She could not have heard my answer, but she nodded back to me encouragingly. In a moment the rope came flopping and uncoiling past me. It unsettled a small amount of pebbles, but their scurrying motion was enough to make me sick. The length of the rope sprawled across the rock, less than an arm's length from my foot. I looked down at it and tasted despair. I steeled my will.
"Fool, can you hold on to me? I have to try to pick up the rope."
"I think I can stand," he offered again.
"You may have to," I admitted unwillingly. "Be ready for anything. But whatever else, hold on to me."
"Only if you promise to hold on to the rope."
"I'll do my best," I promised grimly.
My brother, they have stopped where we camped last night. Of the six men
Not now, Nighteyes!
Three have gone down as you did, and three remain with the horses.
Not now!
The Fool shifted his arms to get an awkward hold on my shoulders. The damnable blankets that had swathed him were everywhere I didn't want them to be. I clutched at the Fool with my left arm and got my right hand and arm somewhat clear even though my arm was still under him. I fought a ridiculous impulse to laugh. It was all so stupidly awkward and dangerous. Of all the ways I had thought I might die, this one had never occurred to me. I met the Fool's eyes and saw the same panicky laughter in them. "Ready," I told him, and crouched toward the rope. Every taut muscle in my body screeched and cramped.
My fingers failed to touch the rope by a handsbreadth. I glanced up to where Kettricken and the jeppa were anxiously poised. It came to me that I had no idea what was supposed to happen once I had the rope. But my muscles were already extended too far to stop and ask questions. I forced my hand to the rope, even as I felt my right foot sliding out from under me.
Everything happened simultaneously. The Fool's grip on me tightened convulsively as the whole hillside beneath us seemed to break into motion. I grasped the rope but was still sliding downhill. Just before it tightened I managed to flip one wrap around my wrist. Above us and to the east of us, Kettricken led the surefooted jeppa on. I saw the animal stagger as it took part of our weight. It dug in its feet and kept moving across the slide zone. The rope tightened, biting into my wrist and hand. I held on.
I don't know how I scrabbled my feet under me, but I did, and made a semblance of walking as the hill kept rattling away beneath me. I found myself swinging like a slow pendulum with the taut rope providing me just enough resistance to keep me atop the rattling stone sliding downhill past me. Suddenly I felt firmer footing. My boots were full of tiny pebbles, but I ignored them as I kept my grip on the rope and moved steadily across the slide area. By now we were far downhill of the original path I had chosen. I refused to look down and see how close we were to the edge. I concentrated on keeping my awkward grip on the Fool and the rope and keeping my feet moving.
Abruptly, we were out of danger. I found myself in an area of bigger rocks, free of the loose scree that had nearly ended our lives. Above us, Kettricken kept moving steadily and so did we, and then we were climbing down onto the blessedly level road bed. In a few more minutes we were all on flat snowy ground. I dropped the rope and slowly, sagged down with the Fool. I closed my eyes.
"Here. Drink some water." It was Kettle's voice, and she was offering me a waterskin as Kettricken and Starling pried the Fool out of my arms. I drank some water and shook for a short while. Every part of me hurt as if bruised. As I sat recovering, something pushed into the front of my mind. I suddenly staggered to my feet.
"Six of them, and three have gone down as I did, he said."
All eyes turned to me at my blurted words. Kettle was getting water down the Fool, but he did not look much better. Her mouth was pursed with worry and displeasure. I knew what she feared. But the fear the wolf had given me was more compelling.
"What did you say?" Kettricken asked me gently, and I realized they thought my mind was wandering again.
"Nighteyes has been following them. Six men on horses, one pack animal. They stopped at our old campsite. And he said that three of them went down as I did."
"Meaning to the city?" Kettricken asked slowly.
To the city, Nighteyes echoed. It chilled me to see Kettricken nod as if to herself.
"How can that be?" Starling asked softly. "Kettle told us the signpost only worked for you because you had had Skill-training. It didn't affect any of the rest of us."
"They must be Skilled ones," Kettle said softly and looked at me questioningly.
There was only one answer. "Regal's coterie," I said and shuddered. The sickness of dread rose in me. They were so horribly close, and they knew how to hurt me so badly. An overwhelming fear of pain flooded my mind. I fought panic.
Kettricken patted my arm awkwardly. "Fitz. They'll not get past that slide easily. With my bow, I can pick them off as they cross." Kettricken offered these words. There was irony in my queen offering to protect the royal assassin. Somehow it steadied me, even as I knew her bow was no protection from the coterie.
"They don't need to come here to attack me. Or Verity." I took a deep breath, and suddenly heard an additional fact in my words. "They don't need to physically follow us here to attack us. So why have they come all this way?"
The Fool leaned up on an elbow. He rubbed at his pasty face. "Maybe they don't come here to pursue you at all," he suggested slowly. "Maybe they want something else."
"What?" I demanded.
"What did Verity come here for?" he demanded. His voice was weak but he seemed to be thinking very carefully.
"The aid of the Elderlings? Regal never believed in them. He saw it only as a way to get Verity out of his path."
"Perhaps. But he knew the tale he spread of Verity's death was a fabrication of his own. You yourself say that his coterie waited and spied upon you. In what hopes, if not to discover Verity's whereabouts? By now, he must wonder as much as the Queen does, why has Verity not returned? And Regal must wonder, what errand was so important that the bastard turned aside from killing him to set forth on it? Look behind you, Fitz. You have left a trail of blood and mayhem. Regal must wonder where it all leads."
"Why would they go down into the city?" I asked, and then a worse question, "How did they know how to go down into the city? I blundered into it, but how did they know?"
"Perhaps they are far stronger than you in the Skill. Perhaps the guidepost spoke to them, or perhaps they came here already knowing much more than you did." Kettle spoke carefully, but there was no "perhaps" in her voice.
It was all suddenly clear to me. "I don't know why they are here. But I know I am going to kill them before they can get to Verity, or trouble me any further." I heaved myself to my feet.
Starling sat staring at me. I think she realized at the moment exactly what I was. Not some romanticized princeling in exile who would eventually do some heroic task, but a killer. And not even a very competent one.
"Rest a bit first," Kettricken advised me. Her voice was steady and accepting.
I shook my head. "I wish I could. But the opportunity they've given me is now. I don't know how long they'll be in the city. I hope they'll spend some time there. I'm not going down to meet them, you see. I'm no match for them in the Skill. I can't fight their minds. But I can kill their bodies. If they've left their horses, guards and supplies behind them, I can take those things from them. Then when they come back, they'll be trapped. No food, no shelter. No game to hunt around here, even if they remembered how to hunt. I won't get a chance as good as this again."
Kettricken was nodding reluctantly. Starling looked ill. The Fool had sagged back into his bedding. "I should be going with you," he said quietly.
I looked at him and tried to keep amusement out of my voice. "You?"
"I've just a feeling … that I should go with you. That you should not go alone."
"I won't be alone. Nighteyes is waiting for me." I quested out briefly and found my comrade. He was crouched on his belly in the snow, downtrail of the guards and horses. They had built a small fire and were cooking food over it. It was making the wolf hungry.
Shall we have horse tonight?
We shall see, I told him. I turned to Kettricken. "May I take your bow?"
She handed it over reluctantly. "Can you shoot it?" she asked.
It was a very fine weapon. "Not well, but well enough. They've no cover worth mentioning, and they aren't expecting an attack. If I'm lucky, I can kill one before they know I'm even around."
"You'll shoot one without even issuing a challenge?" Starling asked faintly.
I looked into the sudden disillusionment in her eyes. I closed my eyes and focused on my task instead. Nighteyes?
Shall I drive the horses over the cliff, or just down the trail? They've already scented me and are getting anxious. But the men pay no attention.
I'd like the supplies they are carrying, if it can be managed.
Why did killing a horse bother me more than killing a man?
We'll see, Nighteyes replied judiciously. Meat is meat, he added.
I slung Kettricken's quiver over my back. The wind was kicking up again, promising more snow. The thought of crossing the slide area again turned my bowels to water. "There is no choice," I reminded myself. I looked up to see Starling turning away from me. She had evidently taken my remark as her reply. Well, it would serve there as well. "If I fail, they will come after you," I said carefully. "You should get as far from here as you can; travel until you can't see anymore. If all goes well, we'll catch up with you soon enough." I crouched down beside the Fool. "Can you walk at all?" I asked him.
"For a way," he said dully.
"If I must, I can carry him." Kettricken spoke with quiet certainty. I looked at the tall woman and believed her. I gave a short nod of my head.
"Wish me luck," I told them, and turned back to the slide zone.
"I'm coming with you," Kettle announced abruptly. She stood up from retying her boots. "Give me the bow. And follow where I walk."
I was speechless for a moment. "Why?" I demanded at last.
"Because I know what I'm doing crossing that rock. And I'm more than `good enough' with a bow. I'll wager I can drop two of them before they know we're there."
"But … " "She is very good on the slide," Kettricken observed calmly. "Starling, take the jeppas. I'll bring the Fool." She gave us an unreadable look. "Catch up as soon as you can."
I recalled that I'd tried to leave Kettle behind once before. If she was going with me, I wanted her to be with me, not coming up behind me when I didn't expect it. I glared at her, but nodded.
"The bow," she reminded me.
"Can you really shoot well?" I asked her as I grudgingly surrendered it.
A funny smile twisted her face. She looked down at her crooked fingers. "I would not tell you I could do a thing if I could not. Some of my old skills are still mine," she said quietly.
We set out to clamber back up onto the tumbled rock. Kettle went first, her probing staff in hand, and I came behind her, one staff length back as she had bid me. She didn't say a word to me as she glanced back and forth between the ground at her feet and where she wished to take us. I could not discern what it was that decided her path, but the loose stone and crystalline snow remained quiet under her short steps. She made it look easy enough that I began to feel foolish.
They are eating now. And no one keeps a watch.
I relayed the information to Kettle, who nodded grimly. To myself I fretted and wondered if she would be able to do what needed doing. To be good with a bow is one thing. To shoot a man down while he is eating his dinner peacefully is another. I thought of Starling's objection, and wondered what kind of man would show himself and issue a challenge before trying to kill all three men. I touched the hilt of my shortsword. Well, it was what Chade had promised me so long ago. Killing for my king, with none of the honor or glory of the soldier on the battlefield. Not that any of my battle memories had much of honor or glory in them.
We were suddenly clambering down from the loose rock of the slide area, going very quietly and carefully. Kettle spoke very softly. "We've a ways to go yet. But when we get there, let me choose my spot, and get my first shot off. As soon as the man is down, show yourself and draw their attention. They may not look for me, and I may get another clean shot."
"Have you done this sort of thing before?" I asked softly.
"It's not that different from our game, Fitz. From here, let us go silently."
I knew then she had not killed this way before, if she had ever killed a human before at all. I began to doubt the wisdom of giving her the bow. At the same time, I was selfishly grateful for her companionship. I wondered if I were losing my courage.
Perhaps you are learning that a pack is best for such things.
Perhaps.
There was little cover on the road. Above and below us, the mountainside rose sheer. The road itself was flat and bare. We rounded a shoulder of the mountain and their camp was in plain sight. All three guards still sat carelessly about the fire, eating and talking. The horses caught our scent and shifted with small snortings. But as the wolf had kept them uneasy for some time, the men paid them no mind. Kettle set an arrow to her bow as we walked and carried it ready. In the end, it was simple. Ugly mindless slaughter, but simple. She let go her arrow when one of the men noticed us. It took him through the chest. The other two leaped to their feet, turned to see us, and dived for their weapons. But in that short space of time, Kettle had nocked another arrow and let fly as the helpless wretch drew a sword clear. Nighteyes came suddenly from behind to bear the last man down and hold him until I could rush in to finish him with a sword.
It had happened swiftly, almost quietly. Three dead men sprawled in the snow. Six sweating, restless horses, one impassive mule. "Kettle. See what food they have on the horses," I told her, to stop her awful staring. She swung her gaze to me, then slowly nodded.
I went over the bodies, to see what they might tell me. They did not wear Regal's colors, but the origin of two were plain in the features of their faces and the cut of their clothes. Farrowmen. The third one, when I turned him over, near stopped my heart. I'd known him in Buckkeep. Not well, but enough to know his name was Tallow. I crouched looking down into his dead face, ashamed that I could recall no more of him than that. I supposed he had gone on to Tradeford when Regal moved the court there; many of the servants had. I tried to tell myself it did not matter where he had begun, he had ended here. I closed my heart and did my tasks.
I tumbled the bodies off the cliff's edge. While Kettle went through their stores and sorted out what she thought we two could carry back, I stripped the horses of every bit of harness and tack. This followed the bodies down the cliff. I went through their bags, finding little besides warm clothes. The pack animal carried only their tent and such things. No papers. What need would coterie members have of written instructions?
Drive the horses well down the road. I doubt they'll come back here on their own.
That much meat, and you want me to just chase it away?
If we kill one here, it's more than we can eat and carry. Whatever we left would feed those three when they return. They were carrying dry meat and cheese. I'll see your belly is full tonight.
Nighteyes was not pleased, but he heeded me. I think he chased the horses farther and faster than he truly needed to, but at least he left them alive. I had no idea what their chances were in the mountains. Probably end up in a snowcat's belly, or as a feast for the ravens. I was suddenly horribly tired of it all.
"Shall we go on?" I asked Kettle needlessly, and she nodded. It was a good trove of food she had packed for us to carry, but I privately wondered if I'd be able to stomach any of it. What little we could not carry nor the wolf stuff down, we kicked over the edge. I looked around us. "Dare I touch it, I'd try to push that pillar over the edge, too," I told Kettle.
She gave me a look as if she thought I had asked it of her. "I fear to touch it also," she said at last, and we both turned away from it.
Evening crept across the mountains as we went up the road, and night came swift on her heels. I followed Kettle and the wolf across the landslide in near darkness. Neither of them seemed afraid, and I was suddenly too weary to care if I survived the trek. "Don't let your mind wander," Kettle chided me as we finally came down off the tumble of stone and onto the road again. She took my arm and gripped it tightly. We walked for a time in almost blackness, simply following the straight flat road before us as it cut across the face of the mountain. The wolf went ahead of us, coming back frequently to check on us. Camp's not much farther, he encouraged me after one such trip.
"How long have you been doing this?" Kettle asked me after a time.
I didn't pretend to misunderstand the question. "Since I was about twelve," I told her.
"How many men have you killed?"
It was not the cold question it sounded. I answered her seriously. "I don't know. My … teacher advised me against keeping a count. He said it wasn't a good idea." Those weren't his exact words. I remembered them well. "How many doesn't matter after one," Chade had said. "We know what we are. Quantity makes you neither better nor worse."
I pondered now what he had meant by that as Kettle said to the dark, "I killed once before."
I made no reply. I'd let her tell me about it if she wished, but I really didn't want to know.
Her arm in mine began to tremble slightly. "I killed her, in a temper. I didn't think I could, she had always been stronger. But I lived and she died. So they burned me out, and turned me out.
Sent me into exile forever." Her hand found mine and gripped it tightly. We kept on walking. Ahead of us, I spied a tiny glow. It was most likely the brazier burning inside the tent.
"It was so unthinkable, to do what I had done," Kettle said wearily. "It had never happened before. Oh, between coteries, certainly, once in a great while, for rivalry for the King's favor. But I Skill-dueled a member of my own coterie, and killed her. And that was unforgivable."