THERE ARE LEGENDS, among the Mountain folk, of an ancient race, much gifted with magic and knowing many things now lost to men forever. These tales are in many ways similar to the tales of elves and Old Ones that are told in the Six Duchies. In some cases, the tales are so similar as to be obviously the same story adapted by different folk. The most obvious example of this would be the tale of the Flying Chair of the Widow's Son. Among the Mountain folk, that Buck tale becomes the Flying Sled of the Orphan Boy. Who can tell which telling was first?
The folk of the Mountain Kingdom will tell you that that ancient race is responsible for some of the more peculiar monuments that one may chance upon in their forests. They are also credited with lesser achievements, such as some of the games of strategy that Mountain children still play, and for a very peculiar wind instrument, powered not by a man's lungs, but by breath trapped in an inflated bladder. Tales are also told of ancient cities far back in the mountains that were once the dwelling of these beings. But nowhere in all their literature, spoken or written, have I found any account of how these people ceased to be.
Three days later we reached the quarry. We had had three days of hiking through suddenly hot weather. The air had been full of the scents of opening leaves and flowers and the whistles of birds and the drones of insects. To either side of the Skill road, life burgeoned. I walked through it, senses keen, more aware of being alive than I had ever been. The Fool had spoken no more about whatever he had foreseen for me. For that I was grateful. I had found Nighteyes was right. Knowing it was hard enough. I would not dwell on it.
Then we came to the quarry. At first it seemed to us that we had simply come to a dead end. The road ramped down into a worked gorge of bare stone, an area twice the size of Buckkeep Castle. The walls of the valley were vertically straight and bare, scarred where immense blocks of black stone had been quarried from it. In a few places, cascading greenery from the earth at the edge of the quarry covered the sheared rock sides. At the lower end of the pit, rainwater had collected and stagnated greenly. There was little other vegetation, for there was precious little soil. Beneath our feet, past the end of the Skill road, we stood on the raw black stone the road had been wrought from. When we looked up at the looming cliff across from us, black stone veined with silver met our eyes. On the floor of the quarry a number of immense blocks had been abandoned amidst piles of rubble and dust. The huge blocks were bigger than buildings. I could not imagine how they had been cut, let alone how they would have been hauled away. Beside them were the remains of great machines, reminding me somewhat of siege engines. Their wood had rotted, their metal rusted. Their remains hunched together like moldering bones. Silence brimmed the quarry.
Two things about the place immediately caught my attention. The first was the black pillar that reared up in our pathway, incised with the same ancient runes we had encountered before. The second was the absolute absence of animal life.
I came to a halt by the pillar. I quested out, and the wolf shared my searching. Cold stone.
Perhaps we shall learn to eat rocks, now? The wolf suggested.
"We shall have to do our hunting elsewhere tonight," I agreed.
"And find clean water," added the Fool.
Kettricken had stopped by the pillar. The jeppas were already straying away, searching disconsolately for anything green. Possessing the Skill and the Wit sharpened my perceptions of other folk. But for the moment, I sensed nothing from her. Her face was still and empty. A slackness came over it, as if she aged before my eyes. Her eyes wandered over the lifeless stone, and by chance turned to me. A sickly smile spread over her mouth.
"He's not here," she said. "We've come all this way, and he isn't here."
I could think of nothing to say to her. Of all the things I might have expected at the end of our quest, an abandoned stone quarry seemed unlikeliest. I tried to think of something optimistic to say. There was nothing. This was the last location marked on our map, and evidently the final destination of the Skill road as well. She sank down slowly to sit flat on the stone at the pillar's base. She just sat there, too weary and discouraged to weep. When I looked to Kettle and Starling, I found them staring at me as if I were supposed to have an answer. I did not. The heat of the warm day pressed down on me. For this, we had come so far.
I smell carrion.
I don't. It was the last thing I wanted to think about just now.
I didn't expect you would, with your nose. But there is something very dead not far from here.
"So go roll in it and have done with it," I told him with some asperity.
"Fitz," Kettle rebuked me as Nighteyes trotted purposefully away.
"I was talking to the wolf," I told her lamely. The Fool nodded, almost vacantly. He had not been at all himself. Kettle had insisted that he continue taking the elfbark, though our small supply limited him to a very weak dose of the same bark brewed over again. From time to time, I thought I caught a brief hint of the Skill-bond between us. If I looked at him, he would sometimes turn and return my look, even across camp. It was little more than that. When I spoke of it to him, he said he sometimes felt something, but was not sure what it was. Of what the wolf had told me, I made no mention. Elfbark tea or no, he remained solemn and lethargic. His sleep at night did not seem to rest him; he moaned of muttered through his dreams. He reminded me of a man recovering from a long illness. He hoarded his strength in many small ways. He spoke little; even his bitter merriment had vanished. It was but one more worry for me to bear.
It's a man!
The stench of the corpse was thick in Nighteyes' nostrils. I nearly retched with it. Then, "Verity," I whispered to myself in horror. I set out at a run in the direction the wolf had taken. The Fool followed more slowly in my wake, drifting like down on the wind. The women watched us go without comprehension.
The body was wedged between two immense blocks of stone. It was huddled as if even in death it sought to hide. The wolf circled it restlessly, hackles up. I halted at some distance, then tugged the cuff of my shirt down over my hand. I lifted it to cover my nose and mouth. It helped a bit, but nothing could have completely drowned that stink. I walked closer, steeling myself to what I knew I must do. When I got close to the body, I reached down, seized hold of its rich cloak, and dragged it out into the open.
"No flies," the Fool observed almost dreamily.
He was right. There were no flies and no maggots. Only the silent rot of death had been at work on the man's features. They were dark, like a plowman's tan, only darker. Fear had contorted them, but I knew it was not Verity. Yet I had stared at him for some moments before I recognized him. "Carrod," I said quietly.
"A member of Regal's coterie?" the Fool asked, as if there could be another Carrod about.
I nodded. I kept my shirt cuff, over my nose and mouth as I knelt beside him.
"How did he die?" the Fool asked. The smell did not seem to bother him, but I did not think I could speak without gagging. I shrugged. To answer I would have had to take a breath. I reached gingerly to tug at his clothes. The body was both stiff and softening. It was hard to examine it, but I could find no sign of any violence on him. I took a shallow breath and held it, then used both hands to unbuckle his belt. I pulled it free of the body with his purse and knife still on it, and hastily retreated with it.
Kettricken, Kettle, and Starling came up on us as I was coaxing the mouth of his purse open. I did not know what I had hoped to find, but I was disappointed. A handful of coins, a flint, and a small whetstone were all he carried. I tossed it to the ground, and rubbed my hand down my trouser leg. The stench of death clung to it.
"It was Carrod," the Fool told the others. "He must have come by the pillar."
"What killed him?" Kettle asked.
I met her gaze. "I don't know. I believe it was the Skill. Whatever it was, he tried to hide from it. Between those rocks. Let's get away from this smell," I suggested. We retreated back to the pillar. Nighteyes and I came last and more slowly. I was puzzled. I realized I was putting everything I could into keeping my Skill walls strong. Seeing Carrod dead had shocked me. One less coterie member, I told myself. But he was here, right here in the quarry when he died. If Verity had killed him with the Skill, perhaps that meant Verity had been here as well. I wondered if we would stumble across Burl and Will somewhere in the quarry, if they too had come here to attack Verity. Colder was my suspicion that it was more likely we would find Verity's body. But I said nothing to Kettricken of these thoughts.
I think the wolf and I sensed it at the same time. "There's something alive back there," I said quietly. "Deeper in the quarry."
"What is it?" The Fool asked me.
"I don't know." A shivering ran all over me. My Wit-sense of whatever was back there ebbed and flowed. The more I tried for a feel of what it was; the more it eluded me.
"Verity?" Kettricken asked. It broke my heart to see hope quicken once more in her eyes.
"No," I told her gently. "I don't think so. It doesn't feel like a human. It's like nothing I've ever sensed before." I paused and added, "I think you should all wait here while the wolf and I go see what it is."
"No." Kettle spoke, not Kettricken, but when I glanced back at my queen, I saw her complete agreement.
"If anything, I should have you and the Fool hang back while we investigate," she told me severely. "You are the ones at risk here. If Carrod has been here, Burl and Will could be back there."
In the end it was decided we would all approach, but with great caution. We spread out in a fan and moved forward across the quarry floor. I could not tell them specifically where I sensed the creature, and so we were all on edge. The quarry was like a nursery floor with some immense child's blocks and toys scattered across it. We passed one partially carved block of stone. It had none of the finesse of the carvings we had seen in the stone garden. It was lumpish and crude, and somehow obscene. It reminded me of the fetus of a miscarried foal. It repulsed me and I slipped past it as swiftly as I could to my next vantage point.
The others were doing likewise, moving from cover to cover, all of us endeavoring to keep at least one other of our party in sight. I had thought I could see nothing more disturbing than that crude stone carving, but the next one we passed wrenched at me. Someone had carved, in heartbreaking detail, a mired dragon. The thing's wings were half spread and its half-lidded eyes were rolled up in agony. A human rider, a young woman, bestrode it. She clutched the undulant neck and leaned her cheek against it. Her face was a mask of agony, her mouth open and the lines of her face taut, the muscles of her throat standing out like cords. Both the girl and the dragon had been worked in detailed colors and lines. I could see the woman's eyelashes, the individual hairs on her golden head, the fine green scales about the dragon's eyes, even the droplets of saliva that clung to the dragon's writhing lips. But where the dragon's mighty feet and lashing tail should have been, there was only puddled black stone, as if the two had landed in a tar pit and been unable to escape it.
Just as a statue, it was wrenching. I saw Kettle turn her face aside from it, tears starting in her eyes. But what unnerved Nighteyes and me was the writhing of Wit-sense that it gave off. It was fainter than what we had sensed in the statues back in the garden, but all the more poignant for that. It was like the final death throes of a trapped creature. I wondered what talent had been used to infuse such a living nuance into a statue. Even as I appreciated the artistry of what had been done, I was not sure I approved it. But that was true of much that this ancient Skilled race had wrought. As I crept past the statue, I wondered if this was what the wolf and I had sensed. It prickled my skin to see the Fool turn and stare back at it, his brow furrowed in discomfort. Plainly he sensed it, though not as well. Perhaps this is what we sensed, Nighteyes. Perhaps there is no living creature in the quarry after all, only this monument to slow death.
No. I smell something.
I widened my nostrils, cleared them with a silent snort, then took in a deep slow breath of air. My nose was not as keen as Nighteyes', but the wolf's senses augmented my own. I smelled sweat and the faint tang of blood. Both were fresh. Suddenly the wolf pressed close to me and as one we slunk around the end of a block of stone the size of two huts.
I peered around the corner, then cautiously crept forth. Nighteyes slipped past me. I saw the Fool round the other end of the stone, and felt the others drawing near as well. No one spoke.
It was another dragon. This one was the size of a ship. It was all of black stone, and it sprawled sleeping upon the block of stone it was emerging from. Chips and chunks and grindings of rock dust surrounded the ground around the block. Even from a distance, it impressed me. Despite its sleep, every line of the creature spoke of both strength and nobility. The wings folded alongside it were like furled sails while the arch of the powerful neck put me in mind of a battle charger. I had looked at it for some moments before I saw the small gray figure that sprawled alongside it. I stared at him and tried to decide if the flickering life I sensed came from him or the stone dragon.
The discarded fragments of stone were almost a ramp up to the block the dragon was emerging from. I thought the figure would stir to my crunching footsteps, but he did not move. Nor could I detect any small motions of breath. The others hung back, watching my ascent. Only Nighteyes accompanied me, and he came hackles abristle. I was within arm's reach of the figure when he jerkily arose and faced me.
He was old and thin, gray of both hair and beard. His ragged garments were gray with stone-dust, and a smear of gray coated one of his cheeks. The knees that showed through the legs of his trousers were scabbed and bloody from kneeling on broken stone. His feet were wrapped in rags. He gripped a much-notched sword in a gray gauntleted hand, but he did not bring it up to the ready. I felt it taxed his strength to hold the blade at all. Some instinct made me lift my arms wide of my body, to show him I held no weapon. He looked at me dully for a bit; then he slowly lifted his eyes to my face. For a time we stared at one another. His peering, near-blind gaze reminded me of Harper Josh. Then his mouth gapped wide in his beard, baring surprisingly white teeth. "Fitz?" he said hesitantly.
I knew his voice, despite the rust. He had to be Verity. But all I was cried out aghast that he could have come to this, this wreckage of a man. Behind me I heard the swift crunching of footsteps and turned in time to see Kettricken charging up the ramp of crumbling stone. Hope and dismay battled in her face, yet, "Verity!" she cried, and there was only love in the word. She charged, arms reaching for him, and I was barely able to catch her as she hurtled past me.
"No!" I cried aloud to her. "No, don't touch him!"
"Verity!" she cried again, and then struggled against my grip, crying out, "Let me go, let me go to him." It was all I could do to hold her back.
"No," I told her quietly. As sometimes happens, the softness of my command made her stop struggling. She looked her question at me.
"His hands and arms are covered with magic. I do not know what would happen to you, were he to touch you."
She turned her head in my rough embrace to stare at her husband. He stood watching us, a kindly, rather confused smile on his face. He tilted his head to one side as if considering us, then stooped carefully to set down his sword. Kettricken saw then what I had glimpsed before. The betraying shimmer of silver crawled over his forearms and fingers. Verity wore no gauntlets; the flesh of his arms and hands were impregnated with raw power. The smudge on his face was not dust, but a smear of power where he had touched himself.
I heard the others come up behind us, their footsteps crunching slowly over the stone. I did not need to turn to feel them staring. Finally the Fool said softly, "Verity, my prince, we have come."
I heard a sound between a gasp and a sob. That turned my head, and I saw Kettle slowly settling, going down like a holed ship. She clasped one hand to her chest and one to her mouth as she sank to her knees. Her eyes goggled as she stared at Verity's hands. Starling was instantly beside her. In my arms, I felt Kettricken calmly push against me. I looked at her stricken face, then let her go. She advanced to Verity a slow step at a time and he watched her come. His face was not impassive, but neither did he show any sign of special recognition. An arm's length away from him, she stopped. All was silence. She stared at him for a time, then slowly shook her head, as if to answer the question she voiced. "My lord husband, do you not know me?"
"Husband," he said faintly. His brow creased deeper, his demeanor that of a man who recalls something once learned by rote. "Princess Kettricken of the Mountain Kingdom. She was given me to wife. Just a little slip of a girl, a wild little mountain cat, yellow-haired. That was all I could recall of her, until they brought her to me." A faint smile eased his face. "That night, I unbound golden hair like a flowing stream, finer than silk. So fine I durst not touch it, lest it snag in my callused hands."
Kettricken's hands rose to her hair. When word had reached her of Verity's death, she had cut her hair to no more than a brush on her skull. It now reached almost to her shoulders, but the fine silk of it was gone, roughened by sun and rain and road dust. But she freed it from the fat braid that confined it and shook it loose around her face. "My lord," she said softly. She glanced from me to Verity. "May I not touch you?" she begged.
"Oh-" He seemed to consider the request. He glanced down at his arms and hands, flexing his silvery fingers. "Oh, I think not, I'm afraid. No. No, it were better not." He spoke regretfully, but I had the sense that it was only that he must refuse her request, not that he regretted being unable to touch her.
Kettricken drew a ragged breath. "My lord," she began, and then her voice broke. "Verity, I lost our child. Our son, died."
I did not understand until then what a burden it had been for her, seeking for her husband, knowing she must tell him this news. She dropped her proud head as if expecting his wrath. What she got was worse.
"Oh," he said. Then, "Had we a son? I do not recall …"
I think that was what broke her, to discover that her earthshaking tidings did not anger nor sorrow him, but only confused him. She had to feel betrayed. Her desperate flight from Buckkeep Castle and all the hardships she had endured to protect her unborn child, the long lonely months of her pregnancy, culminating in the heartrending stillbirth of her child, and her dread that she must tell her lord how she had failed him that had been her reality for the past year. And now she stood before her husband and her king, and he fumbled to recall her and of the dead child said only "Oh." I felt shamed for this doddering old man who peered at the Queen and smiled so wearily.
Kettricken did not scream or weep. She simply turned and walked slowly away. I sensed great control in that passage, and great anger. Starling, crouched by Kettle, looked up at the Queen as she passed. She started to rise and follow, but Kettricken made a tiny movement of her hand that forbade it. Alone she descended from the great stone dais and strode off.
Go with her?
Please. But do not bother her.
I am not stupid.
Nighteyes left me, to shadow off after Kettricken. Despite my caution to him, I knew he went straight to her, to come up beside her and press his great head against her leg. She dropped suddenly to one knee and hugged him, pushing her face against his coat, her tears falling into his rough fur. He turned and licked her hand. Go away, he chided me, and I pulled my awareness back from them. I blinked, realizing I had been staring at Verity all the while. His eyes met mine.
He cleared his throat. "FitzChivalry," he said, and drew a breath to speak. Then he let half of it out. "I am so weary," he said piteously. "And there is still so much to do." He gestured at the dragon behind him. Ponderously he sank, to sit beside the statue. "I tried so hard," he said to no one in particular.
The Fool recovered his senses before I did mine. "My lord Prince Verity," he began, then paused. "My king. It is I, the Fool. May I be of service to you?"
Verity looked up at the slender pale man who stood before him. "I would be honored," he said after a moment. His head swayed on his neck. "To accept the fealty and service of one who served both my father and my queen so well." For an instant I glimpsed something of the old Verity. Then the certainty flickered out of his face again.
The Fool advanced and then knelt suddenly beside him. He patted Verity on the shoulder, sending up a small cloud of rock dust. "I will take care of you," he said. "As I did your father." He stood up suddenly and turned to me. "I am going to fetch firewood, and find clean water," he announced. He glanced past me to the women. "Is Kettle all right?" he asked Starling.
"She nearly fainted," Starling began. But Kettle cut in abruptly with, "I was shocked to my core, Fool. And I am in no hurry to stand up. But Starling is free to go do whatever must be done."
"Ah. Good." The Fool appeared to have taken complete control of the situation. He sounded as if he were organizing tea. "Then, if you would be so kind, Mistress Starling, would you see to the setting up of the tent? Or two tents, if such a thing can be contrived. See what food we have left, and plan a meal. A generous meal, for I think we all need it. I shall return shortly with firewood, and water. And greens, if I am lucky." He cast a quick look at me. "See to the king," he said in a low voice. Then he strode away. Starling was left gaping. Then she arose and went in search of the straying jeppas. Kettle followed her more slowly.
And so, after all that time and travel, I was left standing alone before my King. "Come to me," he had told me, and I had. There was an instant of peace in realizing that that nagging voice was finally stilled. "Well, I am here, my king," I said quietly, to myself as much as to him.
Verity made no reply. He had turned his back to me and was busy digging at the statue with his sword. He knelt, clutching the sword by the pommel and by the blade and scraped the tip along the stone at the edge of the dragon's foreleg. I stepped close to watch him scratching at the black rock of the dais. His face was so intent, his movement so precise that I did not know what to make of it. "Verity, what are you doing?" I asked softly.
He did not even glance up at me. "Carving a dragon," he replied.
Several hours later, he still toiled at the same task. The monotonous scrape, scrape, scrape of the blade against the stone set my teeth on edge and shredded every nerve in my body. I had remained on the dais with him. Starling and the Fool had set up our tent, and a second smaller one cobbled together from our now excess winter blankets. A fire was burning. Kettle presided over a bubbling pot. The Fool was sorting the greens and roots he had gathered while Starling arranged bedding in the tents. Kettricken had rejoined us briefly, but only to get her bow and quiver from the jeppas' packs. She had announced she was going hunting with Nighteyes. He had given me one lambent glance from his dark eyes, and I had held my tongue.
I knew but little more than I had when we had first found Verity. His Skill walls were high and tight. I received almost no sense of the Skill from him. What I discovered when I quested toward him was even more unnerving. I grasped the fluttering Wit-sense I had of him, but could not understand it. It was as if his life and awareness fluctuated between his body and the great statue of the dragon. I recalled the last time I had encountered such a thing. It had been between the Wit-man and his bear. They had shared the same flowing of life. I suspected that if anyone had quested toward the wolf and me, they would discover the same sort of pattern. We had shared minds for so long that in some ways we were one creature. But that did not explain to me how Verity could have bonded with a statue, nor why he persisted in scraping at it with his sword. I longed to grab hold of the sword and snatch it from his grasp, but I refrained. In truth, he seemed so obsessed with what he did that I almost feared to interrupt him.
Earlier I had tried asking him questions. When I asked him what had become of those who left with him, he had shaken his head slowly. "They harried us as a flock of crows will haunt an eagle. Coming close, squawking and pecking, and fleeing when we-turned to attack them."
"Crows?" I had asked him, blankly.
He shook his head at my stupidity. "Hired soldiers. They shot at us from cover. They came at us at night, sometimes. And some of my men were baffled by the coterie's Skill. I could not shield the minds of those who were susceptible. Night fears they sent to stalk them, and suspicion of one another. So I bid them go back; I pressed my own Skill-command into their minds, to save them from any other." It was almost the only question he truly answered. Of the others I asked, he did not choose to answer many, and the answers he did give were either inappropriate or evasive. So I gave it up. Instead, I found myself reporting to him. It was a long accounting, for I began with the day I had watched him ride away. Much of what I told him, I was sure he already knew, but I repeated it anyway. If his mind was wandering, as I feared, it might anchor him to refresh his memory. And if my king's mind was as sharp as ever beneath this dusty demeanor, then it could not hurt for all the events to be put in perspective and order. I could think of no other way to reach him.
I had begun it, I think, to try to make him realize all, we had gone through to be here. Also, I wished to awaken him to what was happening in his kingdom while he loitered here with his dragon. Perhaps I hoped to wake in him some sense of responsibility for his folk again. As I spoke, he seemed dispassionate, but occasionally he would nod gravely, as if I had confirmed some secret fear of his. And all the time the sword tip moved against the black stone, scrape, scrape, scrape.
It was verging on full dark when I heard the scuff of Kettle's footsteps behind me. I paused in recounting my adventures in the ruined city and turned to look at her. "I've brought you both some hot tea," she announced.
"Thank you," I said, and took my mug from her, but Verity only glanced up from his perpetual scraping.
For a time, Kettle stood proffering the cup to Verity. When she spoke, it was not to remind him of tea. "What are you doing?" she asked in a gentle voice.
The scraping stopped abruptly. He turned to stare at her, then glanced at me as if to see if I, too, had heard her ridiculous question. The querying look I wore seemed to amaze him. He cleared his throat. "I am carving a dragon."
"With your sword blade?" she asked. In her tone was curiosity, no more.
"Only the rough parts," he told her. "For the finer work, I use my knife. And then, for finest of all, my fingers and nails." He turned his head slowly, surveying the immense statue. "I would like to say it is nearly done," he said falteringly. "But how can I say that when there is still so much to do? So very much to do … and I fear it will all be too late. If it is not already too late."
"Too late for what?" I asked him, my voice as gentle as Kettle's had been.
"Why … too late to save the folk of the Six Duchies." He peered at me as if I were simple. "Why else would I be doing it? Why else would I leave my land and my queen, to come here?"
I tried to grasp what he was telling me, but one overwhelming question popped out of my mouth. "You believe you have carved this whole dragon?"
Verity considered. "No. Of course not." But just as I felt relief that he was not completely mad, he added, "It isn't finished yet." He looked again over his dragon with the fondly proud look he had once reserved for his best maps. "But even this much has taken me a long time. A very long time."
"Won't you drink your tea while it's hot, sir?" Kettle asked, once more proffering the cup.
Verity looked at it as if it were a foreign object. Then he took it gravely from her hand. "Tea. I had almost forgotten about tea. Not elfbark, is it? Eda's mercy, how I hated that bitter brew!"
Kettle almost winced to hear him speak of it. "No, sir, no elfbark, I promise you. It is made from wayside herbs, I'm afraid. Mostly nettle, and a bit of mint."
"Nettle tea. My mother used to give us nettle tea as a spring tonic." He smiled to himself. "I will put that in my dragon. My mother's nettle tea." He took a sip of it, and then looked startled. "It's warm … it has been so long since I had time to eat anything warm."
"How long?" Kettle asked him conversationally.
"A … long time," Verity said. He took another sip of the tea. "There are fish in a stream, outside the quarry. But it is hard enough to take time to catch them, let alone cook them. Actually, I forget. I have put so many things into the dragon … perhaps that was one of them."
"And how long since you slept?" Kettle pressed him.
"I cannot both work and sleep," he pointed out to her. "And the work must be done."
"And the work shall be done," she promised him. "But tonight you will pause, just for a bit, to eat and drink. And then to sleep. See? Look down there. Starling has made you a tent, and within it will be warm, soft bedding. And warmed water, to wash yourself. And such fresh clothing as we can manage."
He looked down at his silvered hands. "I do not know if I can wash myself," he confided to her.
"Then FitzChivalry and the Fool will help you," she promised him blithely.
"Thank you. That would be good. But …" His eyes went afar for a time. "Kettricken. Was not she here, a while ago? Or did I dream her? So much of her was what was strongest, so I put it into the dragon. I think that is what I have missed the most, of all I have put there." He paused and then added, "At the times when I can recall what I miss."
"Kettricken is here," I assured him. "She has gone hunting, but she will return soon. Would you like to be washed and freshly clothed when she returns?" I had privately resolved to respond to the parts of his conversation that made sense, and not upset him by questioning the other parts.
"That one sees past such things," he told me, a shade of pride in his voice. "Still, it would be nice … but there is so much work to do."
"But it is getting too dark to work any more today. Wait until tomorrow. It will get done," Kettle assured him. "Tomorrow, I will help you."
Verity shook his head slowly. He sipped more of the tea. Even that thin beverage seemed to be strengthening him. "No," he said quietly. "I am afraid you cannot. I must do it myself, you see."
"Tomorrow, you will see. I think, if you have strength enough by then, then it may be possible for me to help you. But we shall not worry about it until then."
He sighed and offered the empty mug back to her. Instead, she quickly gripped his upper arm and drew him to his feet. She was strong for such an old woman. She did not seek to take the sword from his grasp, but he let it fall. I stooped to gather it up. He followed Kettle docilely, as if her simple act of taking his arm had deprived him of all will. As I followed, I ran my eyes down the blade that had been Hod's pride. I wondered what had possessed Verity to take such a kingly weapon and turn it into a rock-carving tool. The edges were turned and notched from the misuse, the tip no more pointed than a spoon. The sword was much like the man, I reflected, and followed them down to the camp.
When we got down to the fireside, I was almost shocked to see that Kettricken had returned. She sat by the fire, staring dispassionately into it. Nighteyes lay almost across her feet. His ears pricked toward me as I approached the fire, but he made no move to leave the Queen.
Kettle guided Verity directly to the makeshift tent that had been pitched for him. She nodded to the Fool, and without a word he took up a steaming basin of water from beside the fire and followed her. When I ventured to enter the tiny tent also, the Fool shooed both me and Kettle away. "He will not be the first king I have tended to," he reminded us. "Trust him to me."
"Touch not his hands nor forearms!" Kettle warned him sternly. The Fool looked a bit taken aback by that, but after a moment he gave a bobbing nod of agreement. As I left he was untying the much-knotted thong that closed Verity's worn jerkin, speaking all the while of inconsequential things. I heard Verity observe, "I have missed Charim so. I should never have let him come with me, but he had served me so long … He died slowly, with much pain. That was hard for me, watching him die. But, he, too, has gone into the dragon. It was necessary."
I felt awkward when I returned to the fire. Starling was stirring the pot of stew that was bubbling merrily. A large chunk of meat on a spit was dripping fat into the fire, making the flames leap and hiss. The smell of it reminded me of my hunger so that my belly growled. Kettle was standing, her back to the fire, staring off into darkness. Kettricken's eyes flickered toward me.
"So," I said suddenly, "How was the hunting?"
"As you see," Kettricken said softly. She gestured at the pot, and then tossed a hand casually to indicate a butchered out wood sow. I stepped over to admire it. It was not a small animal.
"Dangerous prey," I observed, trying to sound casual rather than horrified that my queen would take on such a beast alone.
"It was what I needed to hunt," she said, her voice still soft. I understood her only too well.
It was very good hunting. Never have I taken so much meat with so little effort, Nighteyes told me. He rubbed the side of his head against her leg in true affection. She dropped a hand to pull gently at his ears. He groaned in pleasure and leaned heavily against her.
"You'll spoil him," I mock-warned her. "He tells me he has never taken so much meat with so little effort."
"He is so intelligent. I swear, he drove the game toward me. And he has courage. When my first arrow did not drop her, he held her at bay while I nocked another one to my bow." She spoke as if she had nothing else on her mind but this. I nodded to her words, content to let our conversation be thus. But she suddenly asked me, "What is wrong with him?"
I knew she did not speak of the wolf. "I am not sure," I said gently. "He has known a great deal of privation. Perhaps enough to … weaken his mind. And …"
"No." Kettle's voice was brusque. "That is not it at all. Though I will grant you he is weary. Any man would be, to do what he has done alone. But-"
"You cannot believe he has carved that whole dragon himself!" I interrupted her.
"I do," the old woman replied with certainty. "It is as he told you. He must do it himself, and so he has done it." She shook her head slowly. "Never have I heard such a thing. Even King Wisdom had the help of his coterie, or what was left of it when he reached here."
"No one could have carved that statue with a sword," I said stubbornly. What she was saying was nonsense.
For answer, she rose and stalked off into the darkness. When she returned, she dropped two objects at my feet. One had been a chisel, once. Its head was peened over into a lump, its blade gone to nothing. The other was an ancient iron mallet head, with a relatively new wooden handle set into it. "There are others, scattered about. He probably found them in the city. Or discarded hereabouts," she observed before I could ask the question.
I stared at the battered tools, and considered all the months that Verity had been gone. For this? For the carving of a stone dragon?
"I don't understand," I said faintly.
Kettle spoke clearly, as if I were slow. "He has been carving a dragon, and storing all his memories in it. That is part of why he seems so vague. But there is more. I believe he used the Skill to kill Carrod, and has taken grievous hurt in so doing." She shook her head sadly. "To have come so close to finishing, and then to be defeated. I wonder how sly Regal's coterie is. Did they send one against him, knowing that if Verity killed with the Skill, he might defeat himself?"
"I do not think any of that coterie would willingly sacrifice himself."
Kettle smiled bitterly. "I did not say he was willingly sent. Nor did I say he knew what his fellows intended. It is like the game of stones, FitzChivalry. One plays each stone to best advantage in the game. The object is to win, not to hoard one's stones."