The religion of the White Prophets has never had a strong following in the north lands, yet for a time it afforded a most amusing pastime to the nobility of the Jamaillian court. Satrap Esclepius was quite enamored of the books of prophecy, and paid great sums to traders who could bring him copies of those rare manuscripts. These he entrusted to the priests of Sa, who made yet more copies of them for him. It was said that he often consulted them in this fashion. He would make an offering to Sa, pose his question, and randomly select a passage from one of the manuscripts. He would then meditate on that passage until he felt he had resolved the question.
The nobility of his court, ever anxious to mimic their ruler, soon procured copies of the White Prophecies for themselves and began to use them in like fashion. For a time, the pastime enjoyed great popularity until the head priest of Sa began to decry it as being a portal to idolatry and blasphemy. At his insistence, most of the scrolls were gathered and either destroyed or consigned to the restrictive care of the priesthood. It is rumored, however, that the Satrap's fondness for the writings was instrumental in winning the aid that he offered to a young boy of strangely pale mien who wrangled his way into a hearing with the Satrap. Impressed by the lad's ability to quote from the sacred writings, and persuaded that his help to the boy had been foretold by several verses the lad interpreted for him, the Satrap responded by granting him a free passage on one of the slaving ships then bound for Chalced.
I came back to consciousness twice before I could hold fast to it. The first time I was being dragged, one man to each arm, down an icy hallway. The second time, I became aware that I was on my belly and someone was firmly binding my wrists behind my back. The third time, I was again being dragged by my two guards. This time, I clung stubbornly to wakefulness, however painful. We had entered a palatial throne room. It had been hewn from the icy interior of the glacier, and the fat fluted columns that had been left to support its lofty ceiling were blue. On the walls carvings in bas-relief celebrated a woman repeatedly, in one lofty tableau after another. She was shown with a sword in her hand, on the bow of a ship with her hair streaming in the wind; she stood over her crushed enemies, her foot upon one man's throat; enthroned, she pointed a finger of judgment at the wretches who cowered before her. All of the figures were many times life-sized, towering above us, wrathful and implacable. We had entered the realm of the Pale Woman.
Yet even here, in the heart of her kingdom, she had a rival. In the glassy ceiling of the chamber, behind the blue blurring of thick ice, I glimpsed finally the complete outline of the one I had come so far to see. Our winding path through the corridors had taken us beneath the dragon. I thought I could even glimpse a brighter rectangle of light that might have been our feeble excavation efforts. I wondered if, above us, our friends still labored to chip through the ice to the trapped dragon. Useless to scream out to them; it would have been like trying to scream through not one, but three or four castle walls.
Scores of the Pale Woman's followers had gathered to watch us brought before her. Immense white globes, suspended from frost-encased chains, lit the hall with an unnatural blue-white light. Heavily clad in furs and skins, her Outislander warriors seemed like dwarves in the overwhelming immensity of the ice palace. They were silent, their faces stoic as we were dragged past them. Their clan tattoos had been obliterated by black blotches. A few wore some sign of regard for their new liege, in the form of dragon or serpent tattoos. They regarded us without pity or hatred or even much curiosity. They did not seem fired with hatred or passion of any kind. The deadness I saw in them went beyond resignation to the beastlike tolerance for suffering that is usually attributed to abused animals. Even my Wit-sense of them was dampened. I wondered if she had discovered some lesser form of Forging, one that tore away their connections to humanity but left them enough fear of her to make them obedient. One of them I recognized. The woman Henja, who had been the Narcheska's servant at Buckkeep, was as uninterested as the rest of them. I turned my head to confirm it. Yes, it was she. Since she'd left Buckkeep Castle, I'd glimpsed her once in Buckkeep Town when the Piebalds nearly killed me, and again when she had spied on the Prince and the Narcheska riding ponies on the hillside of Mayle Island. How did she fit into all of this? I could not make her role clear to myself, but I knew with sudden certainty that she had always been the Pale Woman's tool. Danger threatened my prince as surely as it did me. I managed to get my feet under me, but I could not keep up with the quick step of my guards. I stumbled between them, and when they finally halted and forced me onto my knees before her, I did not resist. My head was still spinning. I would rest in whatever posture I could, and find my strength in blessed stillness. I tried to turn to look at the Fool, but had only a glimpse of him, head lolling, as his guards held him in a limp obeisance before their ruler. Then a stinging slap from one of my wardens brought my eyes back to my captor. She was white, as the Fool was once white, and her hair floated unbound around her shoulders. Her eyes were colorless, just as the Fool's had been when he was a boy. Her face was his, softened to a woman's countenance. Her beauty was unearthly, cool as the ice that surrounded her. She sat on overlapping furs, white bear, white fox, and ermine with dangling black tails, on a throne chiseled from ice. Her robe of purest white wool did not conceal the womanly curves of her body. About her throat she wore a necklace of flowers carved from ivory.
Diamonds sparkled in their centers. Her long-fingered hands rested in idle relaxation on the fur-draped arms of her throne. Her fingers were ringed with silver, all set with glistening white stones. She looked down at us, held on our knees before her, and appeared neither pleased nor surprised. Perhaps, like the Fool, she had always known it would come to this.
Her throne nestled in the coil of a curved and sleeping carved dragon. The black-and-silver memory stone of his body gleamed in a mountainous arch behind her throne and his folded wings were thick and heavy against him. He was not one single piece of stone, but rather blocks of it, probably painstakingly hauled here from the quarry at the other end of the island, and then fitted tightly together to form a continuous sculpture. The fine seams in the carefully matched stone were barely visible. The dormant dragon was immense, larger than Verity-as-Dragon had been, and yet still not as big as Icefyre. And he was incomplete, soft and slumped and without details, an unformed suggestion of a dragon rather than a reality. His blocky head on his curved long neck rested before the Pale Woman's elevated throne like a step. His eyes were lidded. Even so, I shuddered at his cruel countenance. My Wit clamored with conflicting emotions, fear, hatred, pain, lust, and vengeance. All were trapped within the crudely worked stone.
The source of the dragon's developing essence was plain. Several Outislanders, nearly spent, were chained against his flanks. The captives bore the marks of torture and privation; that would be how the Pale Woman wrung sufficient emotion from them to make them useful to her. Emotions and memories were what a Skill coterie fed into a stone dragon as they created it to hold their joined awareness. I could not understand how she could imagine a creature fed by the discordant memories of tormented wretches could become a sentient creature. What would unite them and give purpose to the dragon's flight? The stone dragons I had seen had been works of single-minded devotion, the crowning glory of the coteries that had created them. Beauty had infused them, no matter how odd the shapes each coterie had selected to represent it. Even the Winged Boar had gained grace in flight. This creature of hers was a mosaic of stolen pain. What temperament would such a creature have? It was obvious to my Wit that the prisoners' humanity had already been Forged away from them, stripped from their souls and forced into the dragon. What she fed it now was the dumb torment of creatures less than beasts. What sort of a dragon would he be, founded on pain and hatred and cruelty? Between the sleeping dragon's forepaws was another throne, also of ice and also draped with furs. The ice and coverings of that throne were corroded with filth and human waste. A caricature of a human was chained to it, manacled at ankles, wrists, and throat to rings sunk deep in the ice of the royal chair. The black crown he wore looked painfully tight, as if locked to his brow, and his royal robes were stained and tattered. He wore chains of silver about his neck, and the chains that restrained him had been set with jewels, mocking his captivity. His beard and hair were grown long and matted; his nails were yellow and crusted. The ends of his bare toes and fingers were black with frostbite. Discarded bones, picked clean of meat, littered the floor near his feet. Perhaps one was a human armbone. I looked away, unwilling to know what they fed him. He was Forged, but not completely. I could still feel his hate, and how it burned. Perhaps that was the only feeling left to him. And then, like a numbed limb returning to life, I felt an odd tingling of my Skill. I turned my head as if I could capture it, like a man straining after a sound. It came no more clearly to me, but I discerned the source of it. The mad king Skilled at me. His teeth were set in a yellow snarl and his sunken eyes were fixed on me. For an instant, I felt the full force of his Skilled hatred and it struck me like a blow. Then it was gone, not because I shielded myself, but because my ability to feel it faded again. I heaved in a panting breath, shocked at his Skill-strength. Perhaps Thick could have matched him in Skill-power; I knew I never could have. I managed to lift my head and look back at the woman, and was startled to find her smiling at me. She had been waiting for me, letting me look my fill and reach my own conclusions. A long, graceful hand gestured at her captive king. "Kebal Rawbread. But I'm sure you guessed that only my failed Catalyst could be worthy of such a punishment, FitzChivalry Farseer. Oh, you need not look so aghast. I am only finishing what your Six Duchies dragons began. He foolishly ventured out, to draw his bow and fire at a flight of dragons overhead. But their mere passage above him sapped much of his intelligence. Not that he had much to begin with. He was a useful tool, for a time. He had cunning, ambition, and he knew the ways of war."
She stood, and then descended the dais of her throne, treading on the dragon's head in passing. She strolled over to the soiled throne and the squalid monarch upon it and considered her prisoner. "Nonetheless, he failed me." She stretched out a slender hand to him. His nostrils flared and he bared his teeth as if to snap at her. She shook her head, almost fondly, as a man might over a stallion too spirited to be trusted. Her voice was sweet as she asked him, "Shall I give a bit more of you to the dragon, my pet? Would you like that?"
The muscles around the mad king's deep-set eyes twitched as if he desperately tried to recall something. Then he cringed away from her, raising one shoulder as if that could shelter him. A low moan of "Nooooooo!" oozed from him.
"Not now, perhaps. Eventually, of course, he will have all of you. When there is nothing else to wring from you, I shall fling you on top of him and watch you melt into him. That is how it happens, is it not?" She turned suddenly to confront me. "At the final quickening, are not the sacrifices to the dragon completely absorbed? When your Skill coteries are given to a dragon, do not they vanish completely into its body?" I held my tongue, as much from shock as from a desire to withhold the information from her. She spoke as if coteries were forced into a dragon, rather than entering one willingly. I would not take her ignorance from her. One of my guards growled and lifted a fist to menace me, but she shook her head and flicked her fingers at him, dismissing my silence as inconsequential.
Instead she transferred her gaze to the Fool, dangling insensible between his captors, and for the first time, a frown marred her sculpted face. "You have not damaged him, have you? I warned you that I wished him brought to me intact. He is the greatest curiosity in the world, that most rare creature, a false White Prophet. Though he scarcely deserves such a title now. Look at him, gone all brown as a withered flower. Is he dead?"
"No, Lady Most High. He has but fainted." The guard who spoke sounded nervous.
"I don't believe it. Shake him a bit. He has the tenacity of a cat, and I'll wager he'd be just as hard to kill as one. Open your eyes, Beloved. Greet me again, with a smile and a little bow, as you did once when you were a pale wisp of a child. Oh, how sweet a creature he was, as if made all of whipped egg white and milk and sugar crystal, a confection of a child. With the tongue of a viper!" She leaned forward suddenly, venom in her voice. As if her hatred warned him of its poison, the Fool gave a sudden gasp and stirred. He wobbled his head upright, and stared blindly about. Then comprehension crashed down around him. I thought he would scream as every muscle in his face went taut. Then he went suddenly still. He looked at me and spoke to me only. "I am so very sorry. So very sorry."
The Pale Woman turned abruptly away from us and remounted her throne. She took her time settling herself into her throne, snuggling into her furs. When she was comfortable, she issued her orders. "This day has been long in coming. I see no point in either hurrying or delaying my enjoyment of it. Truth to tell, I had expected that you both would stand before me almost a year ago. The Piebalds had been promised much gold, but only if they delivered both of you, intact. And that they could not seem to do. Some silly personal scheme of vengeance overturned all our arrangements with them. They were unreliable allies, with all their dirty little animals traipsing around after them, tainting their minds with animal thoughts like men fornicating with sheep! No wonder they failed me. I should never have wasted my time with them. Well. It matters not now. I have you here, by my own maneuvering, and that makes it all the sweeter." She leaned back, steepling her slender hands as she regarded us with satisfaction.
"I have long had quarters prepared for you. Guards, escort each of my guests to his proper accommodations, and see that they take full advantage of them. Rest and relax, FitzChivalry. I shall come to call upon you soon. Until then, do you have any questions for me? No? A pity. I do not often offer to answer questions, but for you, I would have. For I think that, the more you know, the more you will see how you have been deceived and misled by our darling little pretender. Take them off, but gently, gently. Harm not a hair of their heads." At the door of her grand hall they parted us, the Fool's captors taking him in one direction and mine jostling me along in the other. "Fitz!" His sudden shout startled me and made me strain against my guards' grip. One gently twisted my arm higher behind my back. I set my heels to the ice and skidded as they dragged me relentlessly on. The Fool's shout came faint to my ears. "I knew my fate! I chose to meet it! Stay your course and do not doubt! All will be as—" His shout ended in a muffled cry, and then they staggered me around a corner and down yet another icy hall.
"Where are they taking him?" I demanded, and received another example of the Pale Woman's guard's idea of gentleness as a gauntleted fist doubled me over. I could almost take a full breath again when they paused at one of the icy doors. One of the guards produced a long tool and thrust it into a small opening in the ice. He jigged it until I heard a catch give, and then pulled the door open with it. They threw me inside and I landed facedown on some patchy deerskins on the floor. One followed me, and I rolled, trying to escape the punishment sure to come, but he only caught at my bound wrists, pulled them up high and screamingly tight, and then suddenly released them. The knife he had used to cut the bindings nicked my hand in passing. He was not concerned. "Don't make noise!" he warned me. "She doesn't like it, and I don't like having to come and make you be quiet."
The icy door closed behind him before I could think of a reply. The earlier blow to my head had left me woozy. I lifted my head just enough to be sure I was alone in the chamber. As soon as I was reassured that no Forged Ones lurked there, I let my head drop, closed my eyes, and tried to think.
I opened them again. A minute, a day, a week had passed. The light in the chamber remained the same. I had had no useful thoughts, and perhaps I had slept. I got up slowly, feeling various aches. They were washed from my awareness by the tide of anxiety I felt for the Fool. Where had they taken him and what was his fate? It suddenly seemed incomprehensible to me that we had not struggled harder to keep from being separated. My cell was quickly explored. The bed was a wooden box of straw with several blankets over it. A bucket in the corner for waste. Another bucket held water, skimmed over with ice. A rag by it suggested that perhaps it was for washing. The deer hides on the floor. I patted my clothes. My guards must have taken the dragon tools while I was unconscious. I had no weapons, not even the Fool's little knife. No windows except the low slit in the unyielding door. A light globe was stuck to the ceiling, far out of my reach. No food. No way to measure the passage of time. I moved from the floor to the bed, such as it was. I considered Nighteyes' old advice: when sleep is the only comfort you can take, take it. It will leave you better prepared for whatever might come next. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. It didn't work. I tried to Skill. Nothing. I quested out with my Wit. I could vaguely sense other humans nearby, but the prevailing presence was that of the dragon. And then Icefyre was gone again. I sat up and leaned the bruised back of my head against the icy wall of my chamber. It eased the throbbing. I must have dozed, for I woke with my hair frosted to the wall. I pulled free slowly, groaning irritably at myself.
I had explored the slit in the door and the crack that outlined the edges of the door several times when the guard came back. I was sitting on the floor, peering out of my cell. I wondered if I should be flattered that she sent three guards for me. They were different men from the ones that had captured us. "Lie facedown on the floor!" one of them ordered me through the door slit.
I obeyed. Fighting three men would not improve my physical condition. I heard them come in, and one of them matter-of-factly dropped a knee into my back to hold me still while he roped my wrists behind me again. They used the rope and my hair to haul me to my feet. They were a practiced team, with no need to speak as they marched me out of my cell and down the corridor. They marched me grimly down the hall. "Where is my companion? The tawny man that was with me?"
A punch to my left side, just below my ribs, answered me. They marched on, dragging me until I got my feet under me again. We passed no one else, and I realized that I had lost my bearings. The icy corridors were all too much the same. Even if I had been released that instant, I would not have known where to begin searching for either the Fool or a way out. For now, my only option seemed to be to go with them.
Then we came to an arched portal of ice with doors of polished wood. One of my guards knocked. A woman's voice bade them bring me in. The doors opened and we entered the Pale Woman's bedchamber. The white orbs that gave off light were placed oddly, on the floor and on a low table, illuminating only the center of the room. An iron brazier burned smokelessly, adding a slight note of warmth. The rest of the chamber softened off into shadow. I glimpsed a large bed crouching at the edge of the light, and a row of servants standing silently, waiting to be summoned. I could not tell how large the chamber was. The Pale Woman had just emerged from a tub of steaming water. The tub itself seemed to be made of very thick glass. The water within it was a cloudy white, and the fragrance of summer flowers rose with its steam. She stood naked on a lush white bearskin, calmly regarding us as two dispassionate maids patted and rubbed her dry. She seemed to feel no discomfort at baring herself to our gaze. She was an even white all over, a woman of snow or marble. Her white hair was painted flat to her skull with water that dripped off the pointed tips of her tresses. The faintest hint of rose showed in the standing nipples on her globular breasts. The tuft of hair at her loins was as white as that on her head. Like the Fool, she was long limbed and limber waisted, but lush of hip and breast. No man could have looked at her and not felt a stirring of lust. She knew that. Yet she showed herself to us, captive and guards alike, as if her ability to flaunt her body and yet remain safe from undesired attentions emphasized her power over us all. Her stone-faced guards made no reaction to seeing their mistress thus. They stood, one on each side of me and one behind me, and waited.
Her handmaidens brought her soft fur boots and draped her in a robe of fine silk, followed by a second, heavier pelisse of wool trimmed with white fur. She took her time seating herself in a low-backed throne of dark wood. A third Outislander woman entered, and I recognized her suddenly as Henja. She carried a fresh towel and brushes and pins. She moved behind the Pale Woman and began to dress her damp hair for her. And all this while, the lady had not spoken a word. She leaned back in the chair, and gave herself over to Henja's attentions with evident pleasure, for her eyes closed to narrow slits as Henja's ivory brush moved slowly through her white mane. When her long hair had been combed out and then braided in a multitude of long plaits and pinned to her head, she opened her eyes and looked about the room. She gazed at me as if noticing me for the first time and gave a small frown.
"He is unwashed! Did not I tell you to provide washwater for him before you brought him to me?"
The guards cowered and one said hastily, "We did, my lady. He ignored it."
"I am not pleased." These simple words to my guards made them pale.
She shifted her gaze to me. "You reek like Kebal Rawbread. I had thought Six Duchies men were cleaner." Her eyes flicked toward the tub. "Remedy it now. There is water in the tub." She lounged back in her throne, challenging me. "Wash, FitzChivalry. You will dine with me, and I desire to smell the food, not you." I did not move or allow my expression to change. She smiled lazily.
"Do you fear to lose your dignity by undressing and washing? I assure you, most of my servants do not remember what 'human dignity' means, let alone care for yours. You cling to your stench as if it were your pride. I promise you this: you will lose far more than your dignity if you must be forced to bathe. Choose swiftly. I am not patient, and I will not smell such a smell at my table." In an aside to her servants, she observed, "You would think that a king's son, even a bastard, would have more pride in himself."
"My hands are bound," I pointed out stiffly. My mind searched for escape, for advantage in the situation, and found none. Her words had made me aware that I did stink. I felt a moment of shame and then recognized her tactic. Chade had long ago explained the usefulness of breaking a man's pride and self-worth before interrogating him. For some men, it was more effective than torture. Take a man's dignity, imprison him like a beast, and when you offer him back the small comforts of civilization, his gratitude is often disproportionate. Sometimes a man can be won over simply by a small display of kindness. Kept in a cold cell in the dark with no food, a man will perceive a candle and a hot bowl of soup as an offer of amnesty. It is far less work to break a man that way than with torture.
She smiled at me. "Ah, yes. Bound hands would make your task more difficult." She gestured to the guard. "Take him to the tub and cut him free."
I was propelled to the tub in a way that left no doubt that they would force me to do anything she desired. Refusing would give the guards further excuse to beat me. Complying might yield me some advantage, if only that of having my hands free. I gritted my teeth and surrendered my dignity. Once my hands were free, I turned my back to her and stripped. I managed to palm my fox pin from inside my shirt as I did so. I entered the water. I washed quickly, refusing to let the warm water offer me too much comfort. One of her women brought me soft soap in a bowl. Somehow I found myself gravely thanking her. She made no reply. The water was gray when I stood up from it. Two women advanced on me with towels. I took both towels and turned away from them to dry myself. A moment later, they were back, offering soft shoes of felted wool and a clean white wool robe. My weary Buck garb had vanished. I put on what they offered, concealing my pin inside the collar of the robe, and turned back to my audience. The Pale Woman had had her chair turned so that she could watch me. She smiled a cat's smile now, and observed, "You have some interesting scars. And the body of a warrior. Shave him, Henja. I would see the full face of the man who was almost a king."
It shocked me to hear such words. I had never thought of myself that way. For a moment, the title almost seemed true. Then I rejected it as another tactic of hers. The two women were back, bearing a chair, and Henja appeared with a bowl, soap, and shaving blade. "I'll do it myself," I said hastily. The idea of that woman flourishing a knife near my throat was unbearable.
"That you will not," the Pale Woman informed me, smiling faintly. "I do not underestimate you, FitzChivalry. I know what you were trained to be. Your family made you a killer, not a prince. They never let you see what they cheated you out of. But I will. I will show you the rightful heritage they stole from you. Yet, until I know that you perceive all that I offer you, no weapon will I put in your hand. Sit still now. Henja is a skilled body- servant, but I shall not hold her responsible if you twitch."
I do not think I have ever been more uncomfortable in my life. While Henja shaved my face and then combed back my damp hair, the other women inspected my hands, cleaned my nails and trimmed them. And all the while, the Pale Woman watched me like a cat watches a bird. No one had ever administered to me in such a way before, yet I found this luxury humiliating rather than comforting. I opened my mouth once, to ask, "Where is the Fool?" Henja's blade immediately nicked me. I felt the trickle of blood start from the side of my neck. Henja placed a towel firmly against the cut to staunch it while the Pale Woman replied, "I do believe we are looking at him, are we not?"
At that point, I could scarcely argue with her evaluation. Her guards chuckled dutifully, but a glance from her restored their composure. As her maids fussed over me and her guards stood and stared coldly, other servants brought in a table. They set it with a white cloth and heavy silver implements and dishes. They placed a candelabrum upon it and lit the six tall white candles. Then they brought in covered plates and tureens. Steams and rich odors of food escaped to taunt me. Wine and glasses were brought as well, and finally two cushioned chairs were set at either end of the table. Henja wiped my face and stepped aside to bow to her mistress. The Pale Woman came closer to me, but remained out of arm's reach. She cocked her head and studied me coldly, from head to foot, as if I were a horse she was considering buying. "You are not ill made," she offered me. "Before your family allowed you to be abused, you might have been handsome. Well. Shall we dine?" She walked to her chair, which one of her guards drew out for her. I rose and followed her to the table, aware that one of her guards shadowed me. A wave of her hand indicated that I should seat myself opposite her. Once I was seated, she waved again. The guard at my back retreated to the shadowed depths of the room. At her command, the pale globes in the room suddenly dimmed. Only the candlelight remained, isolating us in an island of yellow light. It gave a false air of intimacy to the setting, yet I knew that her guards and maids lingered unseen in the dimness, watching us from outside the circle of the candlelight.
The table was small. She ladled soup into a bowl and placed it before me before serving herself from the same tureen. "So you do not think I will poison or drug you," she explained as she took up her spoon. "Eat, FitzChivalry. You will find it very good, and I know you must be hungry. I shall not trouble you with talk just yet." Nonetheless, I waited until I had seen her take two mouthfuls before I picked up my own spoon. It was very good, a rich and creamy white soup with bobbing chunks of root vegetables and tender meat. It was the best thing I had tasted since I'd left Buckkeep, and I would have wolfed it down if my manners had not stayed me. My self-control seemed to be the only shield I had left, and so I forced myself to eat slowly, to take bread from the basket she offered and butter from the plate. She poured white wine for us, and when the soup was gone, offered me slices of tender pale fowl from a platter. It was delicious, and the food comforted my body despite my desire to stay on guard against her. There was a white pudding for dessert, redolent of vanilla and speckled with warm spices. We spooned it away, and all the while she watched me, silent and speculative. The wine hummed in my blood, relaxing me. I struggled against it, then recognized what I was feeling. I took a deep breath and relaxed into it. Now was not the time to struggle.
She smiled. Had she sensed that surrender? I became more aware of her. She was wearing a perfume, a scent like narcissus.
When we had finished, we stood. A wave of her hand notified the unseen servants. As they emerged from the shadows to clear the table away, the fire in the brazier blazed up as a man set fresh fuel on it. A cushioned couch, curved in a half-circle, had been placed to face it. The Pale Woman walked to it and seated herself, patting the pillows beside her. I followed her and sank down into its comfort. Her kindness was disarming my wariness. Food and wine had filled me and taken my edges away. She would try to get information from me with innocent questions. I kept my thoughts small. My task would be to remain on my guard, and to get as much information from her as I could while giving her as little as possible. She smiled at me, and I feared that she sensed my ploy. But then she curled her legs under her just as the Fool would have and leaned toward me. Her round knees pointed at me. "Do I remind you of him?" she asked suddenly. It seemed pointless to dissemble. "Yes. You do. Where is he?"
"In a safe place. You are very fond of him, aren't you? You love him?" She replied for me before I could answer. "Of course you do. He has that effect on people, when he chooses to use it. He is so intriguing, so charming. Do not you feel flattered that he offers you even the chance to know him? He dances at the edges of your understanding, offering you tiny hints of who he truly is, like feeding bits of sugar to a dog. With each little bit he offers you, you feel valued that he trusts you so. And all the while, he extracts from you every bit of knowledge that he needs, plunges you into danger and pain for his own ends, and takes from you everything you have to offer."
"He is my dearest friend. I would like to see him and know he is well treated." My words sounded stiff. My heart sank. Her description of the Fool was cruelly accurate. It demoralized me and I saw that she knew it. "I am sure you would. Perhaps later. After we have talked. Tell me. Do you believe he is truly the White Prophet, come to set the world on a better course?"
I lifted one shoulder. I had never come to a firm answer on that. Yet I felt disloyal to the Fool as I said, "So he has always told me."
"Ah. But he could just as easily tell you that he was the Lost King of the Island of Tales. Would you believe that, also?"
"I've never had reason to doubt him." I tried to speak stoutly, but felt the doubt she sent creeping into my heart.
"Haven't you? I see. Well, I shall have to give you some, then." She reached down and, from an unseen vessel on the floor, took a handful of something. She tossed it onto the flames and a sweet scent rose as it burned. I leaned away from it, and she laughed. "Do you fear I'll try to intoxicate you? I do not need to. Your own logic and common sense will convince you. So. Our friend has told you he is the White Prophet. Even though he is, undeniably, no longer white. Surely he has told you that true White Prophets remain white, all through their long lives? No? Well, then, I do tell you that now. We are descended, as he may or may not have told you, from the true Whites of legends. They were a wonderful folk, long vanished from this and all other worlds. Pale as milk and wise beyond telling. For they were prescient.
"Now, anyone with two thoughts in their mind can see that no future is set in stone. An infinite number of futures bud at the end of every moment, and each one of them can be changed by a falling rose petal. Even so, some are more likely than others, and a few so likely that they are like fierce channels for time to thunder through. In ancient days before your people's telling, we saw this, we Whites, and began to see also that by our actions, we could influence which of those futures would come to be. We could not guarantee them, of course, but we could use what we knew to set other, lesser folk onto paths that would gradually divert the flow of time into quieter, safer waters, where all could prosper. Do you understand what I am telling you, FitzChivalry?" I nodded slowly. Despite her words, the fragrant smoke from the brazier was inclining me toward her. I was aware of her scented skin and of her fine white hair, so sleekly braided. Awareness of her body was slipping into my skin like spring sap moving into buds. I sighed, and she smiled. She seemed to have come closer without moving.
"Yes. That is right. Consider how you came here, walking into my stronghold, delivering yourselves into my hands. I knew that one day I would possess both of you. And yet the devices by which you came into my power were unclear. And so I set out to sway the future, by setting into motion every device that might bring you to me, or make an end of you. My agents traded with Regal, oh yes, to be sure that some tools that might have been useful to you were sent out of your reach. Many that were Forged were given a purpose as well, to find you or Verity, and kill you. All of them failed, but still I labored on. I sent Henja to Buckkeep, and we bribed the Piebalds to capture you both and deliver you. Yet they failed. Again I cast my nets, sending you a cake with delvenbark in it, to quench your magic. But only you partook of it, and that sent that plan awry. I captured the men Chade sent for supplies, knowing well you must come after them. But before I could take you, you vanished from my knowing. Only to walk right into my power. That is the power of the flow of time, FitzChivalry. It was almost inevitable that you would come to me. I could have trusted to luck to bring you here. But it is the White way to try to assure the future we wish to see. And even when we knew our race was vanishing from the world, we tried to reach forward in time to assure that we would not lose all our influence. "You see, the prescience of the Whites warned them that they would one day perish, and that the world would have to blunder on without them. But one among them, a woman with truer vision even than the rest of her race, knew that their influence could go on, if she would willingly mingle her blood with that of an ordinary mortal. And so she did. She roamed the world, and whenever she found a worthy hero, she bore him a child. Six sons and six daughters did she bear, and each looked as human as could be. But when she went on from the world, she was well satisfied. For she knew that whenever the descendants of her children met and mingled in lovemaking, a White child would be born. Their wisdom and gifts of prophecy would not be lost to the world. Isn't that a lovely tale?"
"The Fool said that only one White Prophet is born at a time."
"The Fool, oh, that is such a charming love-name for him." She smiled, her pale lips arching like an ivory bow. "And so apt, I'm surprised that he lets you call him that." She gave a little sigh. "I suppose I should be pleased that he was that honest with you. Yes. Only one White Prophet can reign. And for this age, that one is, of course, me. He is a freak of breeding, a throwback born out of his time. I suppose that is why he is darkening. Had he been kept at the temple until he darkened, he could have done no harm. But his keepers were always too soft with him, too trusting of such a charming little fellow. And so he wriggled away from them and went off into the world, working his mischief. Let us see if we can undo a little of it, you and I. Tell me. What is the terrible fate that he so fears for the world, that he must pit his paltry influence against mine?"
I was silent for a time then admitted, "I don't exactly know. A time of darkness and evil."
"Erm." She made a pleased sound, like a settling cat. "Well, I shall speak more plainly to you than he has. He fears an age of man when the strongest shall rule and bring the wildness and disorder of the earth under their dominion. Why he sees that as an evil, I have never understood. For me, it is my goal. Let us have order and productivity, let us see the strong beget strong children to come after them. If I succeed, I shall see that power is balanced in the world. My poor Outislanders lack all good things. They have stony soil to till in their weak and chilly summers, and wring their living from the unforgiving sea. Despite this, they have grown to be a strong people, deserving of better things. I came to try to help them. You cannot deny that would be a great good for the world. But your tawny friend thinks he has finer ideas. He thinks, among other silly things, that he must restore dragons to the world, that the dominion of humanity must be checked by competition. Has he told you that?"
"He has spoken somewhat of it."
"Has he? That surprises me. What great good did he say would come of restoring an immense predator that regards the entire world as its hunting ground? A predator that respects no boundary, concedes no ownership, and regards humanity as, at best, useful and more often as a food source? Tell me. Do you relish the idea of your people becoming cattle for great scaled beasts?"
"Not particularly." It was the only possible answer to such a question, but again I felt traitorous. Her careful words were sending streamers of uncertainty unfurling through me.
She laughed, delighted with my response, and settled herself more closely to me. "Of course not. None of us do. I may be a White, but my parents were human."
I struggled a little. "But you set the Outislanders on my people, to raid us in their Red Ships. They burned and despoiled and Forged my people. That was not a good thing."
"And you think I incited them to that? Oh, what a twisted view. I held them back, dear friend. I restrained them, and did not allow them to claim the lands they had conquered. You have seen Kebal Rawbread. Does he look like a man who carried out his dreams of conquest and plunder? Of course not. Who put him where he is? I did. How can you look at that and think I am the enemy of your people?"
I did not have an answer to that. I turned from her to stare at the brazier. I felt again the tickle of my Skill Magic, and heard, or thought I heard, Thick's distant music. I told myself I imagined it for the Skill was dead in me. I felt the touch of her cool hand on my cheek and she turned me back to meet her eyes. I considered the white column of her throat. How soft it would be beneath my touch.
She held my eyes, speaking. "Your Fool did not lie to you when he said the White Prophets come to divert history from its set course. I've done my best. I could not completely change the course of events, but I tried. The Red Ships raided your coast, but they did not claim your lands." She spoke simply and reasonably. I felt her words close around me like a net. "When traitors within your own land sold Kebal's merchants books of your magic, I could not prevent him from learning it and attempting to turn it against your folk. But some of the blame for that must fall on your own people. They sold the Skill scrolls, did they not? And why? Because a younger son, of undeniably royal lines, desired more power for himself. I know you did not like Regal. He did not care for you. Some part of him recognized how unlikely a creature you were, how rare the occurrence of your birth in all the braided lines of time that might be. Almost instinctively, he tried to do away with you, so that time might flow in its allotted channel. Think of this. Regal traded secretly with the Outislanders. Had he come to power, that trade would have been more open. The Outislanders would have been welcomed to your shores, in trade, not war, for the mutual enrichment of all. Would that have been so terrible? It might have come to be, were it not for the machinations of your Fool. I will be honest with you. Such peace and prosperity would have demanded that your life spark wink out early. But can you honestly say that the price would have been too high? Time and time again, you have been willing to lay down your life for your family. Was not Regal your family, as much a Farseer as you? If you had died but once, swiftly and mercifully, for him, would not that have been an honorable sacrifice?"
She had taken my view of the world and my family and the Six Duchies and twisted it into an unrecognizable form. The silky thread of her telling wrapped around me inexorably, becoming a new truth that bound me. I groped after all I had known but a moment before, and found a flaw in her logic. "If I had not been born, my father would have reigned."
She laughed lightly, but her smile was gentle. "Oh, you quibble, and you know it. Your father would have died, childless, in a hunting accident while he was still a young man. Over and over, I have seen it happen in my visions. Verity would never have wed, and would have perished from a fever the next winter. If you had died, at the right moment, then in time the throne would have passed smoothly to Regal. He would have had his father's favor and guidance, and he would have become a great ruler. Yes, the line would have ended with him, but it would have ended splendidly, in peace and plenty, for the Six Duchies as well as the Out Islands. I have no reason to lie to you about any of this. It is far too late for that future to be, so what could motivate me to lie to you?"
I did not know, and yet I did. My Skill again fluttered at the edges of my awareness. It was a flighty, untrustworthy magic. I knew that; I had always known that. I felt her assure me of it. Pay no mind to it. "You're deliberately confusing me. You contradict yourself, and twist my knowledge of truth. You're mocking me." She laughed, throaty and delighted. "Of course I am. Just as your beloved Fool does. And you love it when he dances his words all around you, offering you a hundred ways to see the world. And so shall I delight you, now that you are mine. For I am taking you. I must. We must work together to put the world back on its true course. Not by your death this time, but by the life I shall give you. You will be my Catalyst now, a Catalyst a thousand times more powerful than Kebal Rawbread. And I shall delight you a thousand times more than your pitiful Fool did. For we are, at last, the perfect fit for one another. We shall be not just Prophet and Catalyst, but male and female, making the whole that turns the world. I will be to you everything that he secretly longed to be to you and could not. Except that I will be perfect, as he was flawed. You will come to see that you are not betraying him, but being true to the world and all that was meant to be. Taste the sweetness of the world as it was meant to be. Taste." Her face had come ever closer to mine as she spoke, and then her mouth touched mine. Her lips were all softness, her tongue a teasing coolness that bade my lips part. And she spoke true. A giddy sweetness, wilder than anything I had ever known, spread through me at her cool touch. I shivered as I put my hands on her shoulders, holding her mouth against mine.
Lust flooded me and the rightness, the inevitability, of the moment pushed aside all other thoughts. I cared not that her guards and maids watched us from outside the circle of candlelight; I cared for nothing except the gleaming white perfection of her body. Only one thing was still lacking in the future she offered me. I let my thoughts stray to it.
"Our child will be beautiful," she assured me as she released me and stood up. "You will delight in our son. I promise you this."
I could feel the truth of her words and they went thrilling through me, like ice and silver in my blood. A child, she would give me a child whom I could hold and cherish. A child who would never be taken from me. She knew all that I most desired and offered it all to me. She created in my thoughts the future that I had always most longed for, tailored to my every need. How, why, could I resist that?
She stood and lifted her robe over her head and let it drop to the floor beside the couch. The silken shift followed it. She stood before me, letting the yellow light of the brazier play over her body. Golden light touched her whiteness, gilding the curves of her body and face. Her white breasts were round and heavy. She lifted them to show me, weighing them in her hands, inviting me to taste them. Slowly she sank down beside me, and then leaned back, opening her arms and her thighs to me. "Come to me. I know everything that you have ever wanted, and I will give it all to you." She lolled her head back against the arm of the couch. Her colorless eyes looked through me and beyond me.
The truth of her words thundered through me with my pounding blood. I stood and fumbled my garments out of the way. She dropped her eyes to see what I would offer her.
And in that instant, I slammed up my Skill-walls tighter than ever I had before, blocking her insidious tendrils of influence. I flung myself on her, as she had expected, but my hands closed on that milky throat as I brought my knee down sharply onto her gently rounded belly. I felt her Skill batter at me along with her fists. I knew well I had one chance to make good my grip on her, and I knew the icy instant when I had missed it. I should have known that just as she mirrored the Fool in appearance, so also she possessed his uncanny strength. She had no need of her guard as she tucked her chin down tight to thwart my strangle. Her clasped hands came up between my elbows, and then she flung her arms wide, breaking my grip on her throat. She flung me backward off her, and as I fell against the brazier, sending it and hot coals flying in every direction, she lifted her hands. The white globes of light blazed suddenly, flooding the room with illumination. Guards surged at me from all directions, a flood of armed men. It was inevitable that they would take me down, and I would have been wise to let them, to offer them my sudden surrender. Yet my glimpse of the Fool, gagged and spread like a trophy hide on one icy wall, roused in me an anger I had not felt since the days when I had battled Red Ship raiders with an axe.
The tumbled brazier burned my hands as I seized it and flung it at my attackers. I fought them, expecting them to kill me, and thus holding back nothing. I think that is why it took them so long to subdue me. They were more restrained than I was and rendered less damage to me than I did to several of them. I know I broke one man's collarbone, for I heard it crack, and I recall that I spat out a piece of ear, but as with all battles when such a mood is on me, my recollection is disjointed and vague.
I recall clearly that I lost the struggle. I knew it was over when I was down on my belly with three men kneeling on me. There was blood in my mouth, some of it my own. I have never scrupled against using my teeth in a brawl, not since I first bonded with the wolf. My left arm no longer obeyed me. As they hauled me to my feet, that arm flopped and flailed against my side. Wrenched out of its socket, I thought sickly, and waited for that pain to find me.
I had almost made it to the Fool's feet. I lifted my eyes to look at him. He was pinned to the icy wall like a butterfly, his arms spread wide, and even his head held against it with a metal band around his throat. The gag was tight enough to cut his mouth. Blood had leaked in a line from the corner of his mouth to drip down his shirt. They must have ransacked his pack, for he wore the Rooster Crown, the wooden circlet jammed down on his head to the top of his ears. His eyes were open, and I knew he had witnessed all that the Pale Woman had staged for his torment, that that had been the whole point of her attempted seduction of me. I knew too as our eyes met, that he understood that I had never betrayed him. I saw the feeble twitch of the Skilled tips of his fingers on one pinioned hand. He too had sensed her subtle attack on me through my reviving Skill-sense. "I tried!" I cried out to him as his head bowed as much as his binding would allow it and his eyes began to sag shut. The guards had had their sport with him. Patches of blood seeped through his clothing and streaked his sweaty hair. Now he was held immobile and silenced against the ice, tormented with the cold he had always so hated. Had he foreseen this slow and icy end for himself? Was that why he had always so dreaded the cold?
"Bring them both to my throne room!" The Pale Woman's voice was like ice cracking. I swung my head to look at her. She had retrieved her garments and donned them. Her lower lip was beginning to swell and several loosened plaits dangled by her face. Such were the fruits of my deadly attack upon her. Yet I felt small amusement as my guards seized me roughly, careless that one of my arms hung limp and useless. The piteous cries of the Fool followed me as they tore him from his bindings.
The halls seemed longer and whiter than they had been, as if the lights burned brighter with the anger of the woman who strode ahead of us. We encountered few people, but all we passed cowered or shrank to the side of the corridor as she swept by them. I tried to make note of how we went and what turns we made, telling myself that if the Fool and I escaped, we must know in which direction to run. It was useless, both the effort to memorize the way and the effort to fan hope in myself. It was finished, we were finished and that was the end of it. The Fool was going to die, and I would die alongside him, and all he had worked for would come to a bloody and useless end. "Just as if I had died the very first time that Regal looked at me and proposed to Verity that I meet a discreet end."
I did not know I had spoken aloud until one of the guards gave me a rough shake at the same time he bade me, "Shut your hole."
On we went. It was hard to focus, and harder still to overcome my fear, but I lowered the walls I had raised against the Skill. I gathered my small strength and tried to Skill out to Dutiful, to warn them and to beg for help. I was like a man patting his clothes, trying to find a misplaced pouch. My magic was gone and I could not muster it. Even that last weapon was lost to me.
The Pale Woman had already resumed her throne by the time we entered the hall. A few of her retainers lined the walls. They watched dispassionately as the Fool and I were dragged before them. There we were halted and pushed to our knees as before. For a long time, she looked down on us in silence. Then she gestured at the Fool with her narrow chin. "Give that one to the dragon. He can have Theldo's place. Let the other one watch."
"No!" I cried before a fist to my ear sent me sprawling on the ice. The Fool made not a sound as they dragged him forward. When they were close to one of the chained captives, the guard matter-of-factly drew his blade and plunged it into the wretch. The man did not die swiftly, but neither did he make much noise or fuss about it. I think most of him had already gone into the dragon, and there was little left of his spirit to mourn his body's passing. He fell against the dragon as he died, and slid down the creature's stony flank. For a few moments, his blood was a vivid red smear down the stone. Then, as sand takes in water, the blood was sucked away from the surface, leaving the scales in that area more clearly defined than they had been.
Two guards moved efficiently, careful not to touch the dragon-stone as they unshackled the hapless wretch. One glanced at their queen, and at a nod from her, he cut and disjointed one of the man's arms from his shoulder as neatly as if he were preparing a fowl for the pot. He did not look as he tossed it in Kebal Rawbread's direction. I wished I had not. The mad king lunged the length of his chain, seized the flopping, bloody arm and fell upon it as hungrily as a dog on a joint of fresh meat. He was a noisy eater. I turned aside, sickened.
But a worse sight awaited me. My guards tightened their grips on me, and a third man stepped up to seize my head by my warrior's tail and grip me tight. The Fool's guards moved forward with him. He did not resist. His face looked like that of a man near bled to death, as if he could no longer feel horror or pain, only the encroachment of death. They shackled him, ankle and wrist, to the dragon. By standing in a half-crouch, knees and elbows held out, the Fool could avoid contact with the thirsty stone. It was a posture that was a torment in itself, and one that no man could hold for long. Sooner or later, he must tire, and when he did, he must fall against the dragon and yield something of himself to it. The Fool faced a slow death by Forging.
"No," I breathed as the reality seeped into me, and then, "NO!" I roared at the Pale Woman. I twisted my head to look up at her, heedless of the hair torn from my head. "Anything!" I promised her. "Anything you want from me, if you let him go!"
She leaned back on her furs. "How tedious. You capitulate much too easily, FitzChivalry Farseer. You didn't even wait to witness the demonstration. Well. I shall not deny myself that pleasure. Dret! Introduce him to my dragon."
The named guard stepped forward, drawing his sword. "No!" I roared, twisting helplessly against my guards as Dret set the point of his blade to the small of the Fool's back and urged him against the stone dragon. He held him there for only an instant. The Fool did not scream. Perhaps it did not cause pain to his body. But as the man took back his sword, the Fool recoiled from the stone as a hand does from a hot ember. He leaned against the brief length of his chains, trembling but soundless. On the dragon's skin, I saw for an instant the outline of my friend's body as the dragon drank in his memories and emotions. Then his silhouette faded into the stone.
I wondered what the Fool had lost in that brief kiss of stone. A summer's day from his childhood, a moment of watching King Shrewd and Chade talking by the firelight of the hearth in the old King's room? Had it been some moment he and I had shared, now snatched from him and gone forever? He would know such things had happened, but Forging would erase their significance to him. Our friendship and all we had meant to one another slowly would be erased from his mind before he died. When he died, he would not even have memories of having been loved to ease his passage. I lifted my eyes to the Pale Woman. I think she drank in my misery as the dragon had sucked down the Fool's stolen moments. "What do you want of me?" I asked her. "What?"
She spoke calmly. "Only that you take the easiest path and play the most likely role in the days to come. It will not be difficult for you, FitzChivalry. In almost every future I have foreseen, you accede to my request. Do your prince's bidding, do Chade's bidding, do the Narcheska's bidding. And mine. Take Icefyre's head. That is all. Think of the good you will do. Chade will be pleased, and your queen will win her alliance with the Out Islands. You'll be a hero in their eyes. Dutiful and the Narcheska can consummate their love for one another. I ask nothing difficult of you, only that you do what so many of your friends hope you will do."
"Don't kill Icefyre!" the Fool's low-voiced cry begged me.
The Pale Woman sighed, as exasperated as if interrupted by an ill-mannered child. "Dret. He wishes to kiss the dragon again. Assist him."
"Please!" I shouted as the man again slowly drew his sword. I pulled my head free of my captor's grip to bow it in subservience before her. "Please don't! I'll kill Icefyre. I will."
"Of course you will," she agreed sweetly as the tip of the sword sank into the Fool's back. He resisted, even as fresh blood soaked his shirt. "Fitz! She has the Narcheska's mother and sister captive here. We saw them, Fitz. They are Forged! Elliania and Peottre do her will to buy their deaths!" And then, the Fool screamed wordlessly as he surrendered to the sword's bite and sagged against the dragon. He twitched all over and the press of the guardsman's blade seemed to hold him there for an eternity. I would have covered my eyes if my hands had been free. I did shut my eyes tightly against the unbearable sight. When the scream ceased and I opened my eyes, my friend's body was outlined in silver on the dragon. More precious than blood, the experiences that made him who he was seeped away into the soulless stone. The Fool stood, muscles taut, straining against his chains to avoid contact with the stone. I heard the gasp of his breath, and prayed he would not speak again, but he did. "She showed them to me! To show me what she could do to me. You can't save me, Fitz! But don't make it all for nothing. Don't do her—"
"Again," she said, between weariness and amusement at his stubbornness. Again Dret stepped forward. Again the sword, again the slow, relentless push. I bowed my head as my friend screamed. If I could have died at that moment, I would have done so. It would have been easier than listening to his torture. Far easier than the terrible, soulless relief that it was not me.
When the echoes of his cries had faded, I did not look up. I could not bear to. I would say nothing more to her or to the Fool, nothing that might tempt him to speak and bring more punishment on himself. I watched the drops of sweat that dripped from my face fall onto the ice and vanish. Just as the Fool was vanishing into the dragon.Beloved. I tried to Skill the thought to him, to send him something of my strength, but it was a futile effort. My erratic magic, poisoned by elfbark, was gone again.
"I think I've convinced you," the Pale Woman observed sweetly. "But I'll make it very clear. You choose now. Icefyre's life, or your Beloved's. I'll set you free, to be on your way to kill the dragon. Do my will, and I give your friend back to you. Or as much as is left of him. The more swiftly you go, the more of him there will be for you to reclaim. Delay, and he may be Forged completely. But not dead. I promise you that. Not dead. Do you understand me, FitzChivalry Farseer, little assassin-king?"
I nodded, not lifting my eyes to her. I got a fist in the short ribs for that, and managed to lift my head. "Yes," I said softly. "I understand." I feared to look at the Fool.
"Excellent." Satisfaction burned in her voice. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling of her glassy chamber and smiled. She spoke aloud. "There, Icefyre. He understands. He will deliver you to your death." She looked back at my guards. "Turn him out from the north chimney. Let him go there." Then, as if she could feel my confusion, she met my eyes and smiled kindly. "I don't know how you find your people again. I only know that you do. And that you kill the dragon. All is so clear before me now. There is no other path. Go, FitzChivalry. Do my will, and buy your Beloved back. Go."
I called no word of farewell to the Fool as they marched me from the room. I feared he would somehow acknowledge my departure and earn another kiss from her stone dragon. They took me through the icy labyrinth of her lair at a quick march, and up an endless flight of stairs that eventually emerged into a sort of ice cave, a space between the rock and the glacier. Two held me, kneeling, as the third cleared the ice-blown snow and frost that blocked the entry. Then they stood me up and cast me out.