The more I delve into the affairs and associations of Lord and Lady Grayling, the more I am convinced that your suspicions are well founded. Although they have conceded to the Queen's "invitation " for young Lady Sydel to spend time at the Buckkeep Court, they did not do so graciously or eagerly. Her father was more determined to be hard-hearted in this matter than her mother. Her mother was truly scandalized that he sent her off with no garb fit for an ordinary day at court, let alone for feasting or dancing. The allowance he allotted her is also insufficient for a milkmaid. I believe he hopes that she will embarrass herself at court sufficiently to be sent home.
The woman he chose as her maid is not to be trusted. I suggest that a grievance against Opal be discovered and that she be dismissed from Buckkeep as swiftly as possible. Take care that her gray housecat leaves with her. Sydel herself seems guilty of little more than being young and flighty. I do not think, for those reasons, that she even knows her parents have declared as Piebalds, let alone is privy to any of their plotting.
Favorable tides had brought the ships to us sooner than we had expected. But if we were surprised to see the ships so soon, the crews of the ship were equally shocked at the size of the party that awaited them on the shore. The boats they put over to come to shore were crowded with folk anxious to discover the news. So many of our men met them on the beach that the boats were literally picked up clear of the water and run far up the sand before the crews could disembark. The uproar sounded like a battle as every man strove to tell the tale his own way to our amazed transport. There was laughter, chest thumping, and shoulder slapping as each man strove to be the first to tell the tale. Above all was the joyous roar of Arkon Bloodblade as he shared the Narwhal triumph. His reunion with Oerttre was more restrained and formal than I had expected it to be. Father he might be to Elliania, but he had never been formally wed to Oerttre, nor had he sired Kossi. So he rejoiced in their return as a friend, not as a father and husband, and it seemed more the satisfaction that a warrior took in the triumph of an ally.
Later, I would discover that the Narcheska had promised much to her father in terms of crops, trade, and other favors. The Boar Clan lands were rocky and steep, fine lands for grazing swine but not for growing field crops.
Bloodblade had eight young nieces of his own clan to provide for, and these Boar youngsters would prosper because of the Narwhal triumph.
But all I knew at the time was that once more, rejoicing and triumph surrounded young Swift and me, making our sorrow all the deeper in comparison. Worse, I had made a resolution last night, one that felt so precisely correct that I knew nothing would turn me aside from it. So, while men whooped outside and overshouted one another telling their portions of the tale, I spoke quietly to Swift as we sat in dimness under draped canvas beside his unresponsive father.
"I won't be going back with you. Can you take care of your father without me?"
"Can I… what do you mean, you won't be coming back with us? What else can you do?"
"Stay here. I need to go back to the glacier, Swift. I want to find a way into her underground palace. At the least, I want to find my friend's body and burn it. He hated to be cold. He would not wish to be entombed forever in ice."
"And what else do you hope to do? There is something you are not saying."
I took a deep breath, thought of a lie, and then set it down. Enough lies for one lifetime. "I hope to look on the Pale Woman's body. I hope to find her dead, to know that she died for all she has done to us. And if I find her living, I hope to kill her."
It was a small and simple promise I'd made to myself. I doubted it would be easy to carry out, but it was the only comfort I could find to offer myself.
"You look a different man when you talk like that," Swift said in a hushed voice. He leaned close to me. "When you talk like that, you have a wolf's eyes."
I shook my head and smiled. At least, my teeth showed. "No. No wolf wastes time on vengeance, and that is what this is. Vengeance, pure and simple. When people look most vicious, what you are seeing is not their animal side. It is the savagery that only humans can muster. When you see me loyal to my family, then you see the wolf."
He touched a finger to his dangling earring. He knit his brows and asked, "Do you want me to stay with you?
You should not face this alone. And, as you have seen, I did not lie. I am good with a bow."
"You are indeed. But you have other duties, more pressing ones. Burrich has no chance at all if he stays here.
Get him onto the ship and back to Zylig. They may have skilled healers there. At the very least, they will have a place that is warm, with decent food and a clean bed for him."
"My father is going to die, FitzChivalry. Let us not pretend otherwise."
Oh, the power that lurks in the naming of names. I let go. "You are right, Swift. But he need not die in the cold, under a piece of flapping canvas. That much we can give him."
Swift scratched his head. "I want to do my father's will in this. I think he would tell me to stay with you. That I cannot be as useful to him as I could be to you."
I thought about it. "Perhaps he would. But I do not think your mother would tell you that. I think you need to be with him. He may rally again, before the end, and what words he may have for you could be precious ones. No, Swift. Go with him. Be with him, for me." He did not reply, but bowed his head to my words.
Even as we spoke, men were dismantling our camp and loading it aboard the ship. I think it shocked Swift when it was the Outislanders who came for him and Burrich. Bear came, to incline his head gravely to the boy and ask the honor of transporting him and his father aboard the Hetgurd ship. "Demon-slayers," he named both of them, and I think it shocked Swift to realize that he had been left to grieve in isolation out of respect, not out of negligence. The Owl, their bard, sang them aboard the Bear ship, and though he twisted the words in their bard's tongue, still I heard with throat-choking pride of the man who had brought the dragon-demon to its knees and the boy who slew it to set the Pale Woman's hostages free. Web, I noted, rode out in the boat with them, and would be taking ship with Swift. This comforted me. I did not want the lad to be alone among strangers, no matter how they might honor him when Burrich died, and I feared he would not live to see Zylig port. Then the Prince was at my side, demanding to know which ship I was embarking upon. "You are welcome on either, but it will be close quarters no matter which you choose. They did not expect to carry off this many people. We shall be packed like salt fish in a keg. Chade, in his wisdom, has chosen to separate me from the Narcheska, so I will be on the Bear ship. Chade goes on the Boar ship with Peottre and his women, for he hopes to further advance the final negotiations of our alliance during the voyage."
I had to smile, despite my heavy heart. "Alliance, you still call it? It has begun to look like a wedding to me. And have you given Chade reason to think it best to separate you from Elliania for the voyage to Zylig?"
He raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth quirking. "Not I! It was Elliania who proclaimed she was satisfied as to her challenge to me to be worthy of her, and declared that she now regarded me as her husband. I do not think her mother was entirely pleased, but Peottre declined to oppose her. Chade has tried to explain to Elliania the necessity of my vowing to her in my 'mothershouse,' but she will have none of that. She asked him, 'And what is a man, to oppose a woman's will in this matter?' "
"I would have loved to hear his reply to that," I said.
"He said, 'Truly, lady, I do not know. But my queen's will is that her son shall not bed with you until you have stood before her and her nobles in her house, and proclaimed that you are satisfied he is worthy of you.' "
"And did she accept that?"
"Not graciously." The Prince was obviously flattered by his bride-to-be's eagerness. "But Chade has extracted a promise from me that I will act with restraint. Not that Elliania has made that easy for me. Ah, well. So I sail on the Bear ship and she on the Boar. Chade will be on the Boar, and we think Thick, for the Outislanders have made much of him and his Eda's Hands. So. Which one for you? Come on the Bear. You can be with Burrich and Swift and me."
"Neither ship will I board. But I'm glad to hear you'll be on the Bear ship with Swift. This is a hard time for him. He may bear it better among friends."
"What do you mean, neither?"
Time to announce it. "I'm staying here, Dutiful. I need to go back and try to find the Fool's body." He blinked, considering it, and then, in an act of understanding that warmed me, simply accepted that I had to do it. "I'll stay with you, of course. And you'll need some men, if you're hoping to tunnel down through the dragon pit."
It touched me that he did not argue the necessity of it, and that he offered to delay his own triumph. "No. You go on. You've a narcheska to claim and an alliance to create. I'll need no one, for I'm hoping to go back in where Riddle and the others came out."
"That's a fool's errand, Fitz. You'll never find it again. I listened to Riddle's answers as closely as you did." I smiled at his choice of words. "Oh, I think I will. I can be tenacious about things like this. All I ask is that you leave me what food you can spare and any extra warm clothing you have. It may take me some time to accomplish this."
He looked uncertain at those words. "Lord FitzChivalry, forgive me for saying this, but this may be a rash risk of yourself, for no gain. Lord Golden is beyond feeling anything. There is little chance you will find a way back in, let alone find his body. I do not think I am wise to allow this."
I ignored his final statement. "And that is another thing. You will be going back to enough chaos. You scarcely need Lord FitzChivalry's resurrection in the midst of it. I suggest that you meet quietly with your Wit coterie and still all their tongues about me. I've already spoken to Longwick. I don't think I need worry about Riddle. Everyone else is dead."
"But… the Outislanders know who you are. They've heard you called by that name."
"And it has no significance for them. They won't recall my true name any more than I can recall Bear's or Eagle's. I'll simply be the crazy one who stayed on the island."
He threw his hands wide in a gesture of despair. "And we are still back to you remaining on this island. For how long? Until you starve? Until you find that your quest is as futile as mine was?"
I pondered it briefly. "Give me a fortnight," I said. "Then arrange for a boat to come back here for me. If I haven't succeeded in a fortnight, I'll give it up and come home."
"I don't like this," he grumbled. I thought he would argue further, but then he countered with "A fortnight. And I won't wait to hear from you, so do not Skill to me to beg for more time. In a fortnight, there will come a boat to this beach to take you off. And regardless of your success or failure, you will meet it and board it. Now, we have to hurry, before they've finished loading everything."
But in the end, that was an idle fear. The crews were actually unloading things from the ships to make more room for the extra passengers. Chade grumbled and swore at my stubbornness, but in the end, he had to give way to me, mostly because I would not change my mind and everyone else was in a great rush to leave on the change of the tide.
It was still surpassing strange to stand on the shore and watch the ships borne away on the tide's change. Heaped behind me on the beach was a miscellaneous dump of equipment. I had far too many tents and sleds for one man to use, and an adequate if very uninteresting supply of food. In the time between the ships' vanishing and the fall of night, I picked through what they had left me, loading what I thought I'd actually use into my own battered old pack. I put in extra clothing, as much food as I thought I would need, and my feathers from the Others beach. Longwick had left me a very serviceable sword; I think it had been Deft's. I had Longwick's own belt knife. The Fool's tent and bedding I kept, setting it up for my night's shelter, and his cooking supplies, as much because they were his as because they were the lightest to pack. Chade, I found to my amusement, had left me a small keg of his blasting powder. As if I'd risk tinkering with that again! My hearing was still not what it should have been. Yet, in the end, I did put a pot of it into my pack.
I built up a good fire for myself that night. Driftwood was not plentiful on the beach, but there was only one of me to warm, so I indulged myself. I had expected to find the peace that isolation usually brought to me. Even when my spirits were darkest, solitude and the natural world had always comforted me. But tonight, I did not feel that. The restless humming of the submerged stone dragon was like a simmering reminder of the Pale Woman's evil. I wished there were a way to still it, to cleanse the evil carving back to honest stone again. I made up a generous pot of hot porridge for myself and recklessly sweetened it with some barley sugar that Dutiful had left for me.
I had just taken my first mouthful when I heard footsteps behind me. I choked and sprang to my feet, drawing my sword. Thick stepped into the circle of my firelight, grinning sheepishly. "I'm hungry." I swayed with the shock of it. "You can't be here. You're supposed to be on the ship, going back to Zylig."
"No. No boats for me. Can I have some dinner?"
"How did you stay behind? Does Chade know? Does the Prince? Thick, this is impossible! I have things to do, important things to do. I can't look after you right now."
"They don't know yet. And I'll look after myself!" he huffed. I'd hurt his feelings. As if to prove he could, he went to the heap of abandoned cargo and rummaged until he came up with a bowl. I sat, staring at the flames, feeling completely defeated by fate. He came back into my firelight and sat down on a stone across from me. As he dished up more than half the porridge for himself, he added, "It was easy to stay. I just sent with Chade, with Chade at Prince, and with Prince, with Prince at Chade. They believed me and got on the boats."
"And no one else noticed you were missing?" I asked skeptically.
"Oh. I went don't see me, don't see me at the others. It was easy." He resumed eating with pragmatic enjoyment of the food. He was obviously pleased with how clever he'd been. Between mouthfuls he asked, "How did you trick them into letting you stay?"
"I didn't trick them. I stayed because I had a task I had to do. I still do. They'll be back for me in a fortnight." I put my head into my hands. "Thick. You've done me a bad turn. I know you didn't mean to, but it's bad. What am I going to do with you? What did you plan to do when you stayed here?"
He shrugged and spoke through the porridge. "Not get on a boat. That's what I planned. What did you plan to do?"
"I planned to go on a long walk, back to the icy place. And kill the Pale Woman if I could find her. And bring back Lord Golden's body, if I could find it."
"All right. We can do that." He leaned forward and looked into the porridge pot. "Are you going to eat that?"
"It seems not." My appetite had fled, along with all thoughts of peace. I watched him eat. I had two choices. I knew I could not leave him alone on the beach while I went off to hunt the Pale Woman. It would have been like leaving a small child to look after himself. I could remain here with him on the beach for a fortnight until the boat that Dutiful had promised to send back for me arrived. Then I could send Thick off with it, and try to resume my tasks. By then, autumn would be upon this northern island. Falling snow would join the blowing snow to obscure all signs of passage. Or I could drag him along with me, proceeding at his plodding, torturous pace, taking him into danger. And taking him, also, into a very private part of my life. I did not want him to be there when I recovered the Fool's body. It was a task I wished and needed to do alone.
Yet there he was. Depending on me. And unwanted, there came to me the memory of Burrich's face when I had first been thrust into his care. So it had been for him. So it was for me now. I watched him scraping the last of the porridge from the kettle and licking the sticky spoon.
"Thick. It's going to be hard. We have to get up early and travel fast. We are going up into the cold again. Without much fire, and with very boring food. Are you sure you want to do this?" I don't know why I offered him the choice. He shrugged. "Better than getting on a boat."
"But eventually, you will have to get on a boat. When the boat comes back for me, I'm leaving this island."
"Nah," he said dismissively. "No boats for me. Will we sleep in the pretty tent?"
"We need to let Chade and the Prince know where you are."
He scowled at that, and I thought he might try to use the Skill to defeat me. But in the end, when I reached for them, he was with me, very much enjoying the prank he had played on them. I sensed their exasperation with him and their sympathy for me, but neither offered to turn back the ships. In truth, they could not. A tale such as they bore would not await the telling. Neither ship could turn back. For either the Prince or the Narcheska to be absent would not be acceptable to the Hetgurd. They must go on. Chade offered grimly to send back a boat for us the moment they docked in Zylig, but I told him to wait, that we would Skill to them when we were ready to leave. Not on a boat, Thick added emphatically, and none of us had the will to argue with him just then. I was fairly certain that when he saw me leave, he would depart with me. By then, he would probably be very weary and bored with survival here. I could not imagine him desiring to stay on the island alone. And as the night wore on, I reflected that perhaps it was better for me that he was there, in some ways. When I bedded down in the Fool's tent that night, Thick seemed an intruder there, as out of place as a cow at a harvest dance. Yet, if he had not been there, I know I would have sunk into a deep melancholy, and dwelt on all I had lost. As it was, he was a distraction and an annoyance, and yet also a companion. In caring for him, I did not have time to examine my pain. Instead, I had to create a pack for him with a share of supplies that I thought he could carry. Into his pack I put mostly warm clothing for him and food, knowing he would not abandon food. But as I prepared for sleep, I already dreaded the morrow and dragging him along with me. "Are you going to sleep now?" Thick demanded of me as I pulled my blankets up over my head. "Yes."
"I like this tent. It's pretty."
"Yes."
"It reminds me of the wagon, when I was little. My mother made things pretty, colors and ribbons and beads on things."
I kept silent, hoping he would doze off to sleep. "Nettle likes pretty things, too."
Nettle. Shame washed through me. I had sent her into danger and nearly lost her. And since that moment, I had made no effort to contact her. The way I had risked her shamed me, and I was shamed that I had not been the one to save her. And even if I'd had the courage to beg her forgiveness, I did not have the courage to tell her that her father was dying. Somehow, it felt like that was my fault. If I had not been here, would Burrich have come? Would he have challenged the dragon? This was the measure of my cowardice. I could go off, sword in hand, hoping to kill the Pale Woman. But I could not face the daughter I had wronged. "Is she all right?" I asked gruffly.
"A little bit. I'm going to show her this tent tonight, all right? She will like this."
"I suppose so." I hesitated, and then ventured one step closer. "Is she still afraid to go to sleep?"
"No. Yes. Well, but not if I'm there. I promised her I wouldn't let her fall in there again. That I'll watch her and keep her safe. I go into sleep first. Then she comes in."
He spoke as if they were meeting in a tavern, as if "sleep" were a room across town, or a different village down the road. When he spoke again, my mind struggled to comprehend what the simple words meant to him. "Well. I have to go to sleep now. Nettle will be waiting for me to come for her."
"Thick. Tell her… no. I'm glad. I'm glad you can be there like that."
He leaned up on one stubby elbow to tell me earnestly, "It will be all right, Tom. She'll find her music again. I'll help her." He took a long breath and gave a sleepy sigh. "She has a friend now. Another girl."
"She does?"
"Um. Sydel. She comes from the country and is lonely and cries a lot and doesn't have the right kind of clothes. So she is friends with Nettle."
That told me far more than I'd wanted to know. My daughter was afraid to sleep, unhappy at night, lonely, and befriending a disowned Piebald. I was suddenly certain that Hap was doing just as well as Nettle was. My spirits sank. I tried to be satisfied that Kettricken had removed Sydel from her undeserved isolation. It was hard. The Fool's tiny oil firepot flickered between us and died away to nothing. Darkness, or what passes for darkness in that part of the world on a summer night, cupped our tent under her hand. I lay still, listening to Thick's breathing and the wash of the waves on the beach and the disquieting mutter of the disjointed dragon under the water. I closed my eyes, but I think I was afraid to sleep, fearful both that I'd find Nettle or that I wouldn't. After a time, it seemed to me that sleep truly was a place and I'd forgotten the way there. Yet, I must have slept eventually, for I awoke to dawn light shining in through the colors of the Fool's tent. I'd slept far longer than I intended, and Thick slumbered still. I went outside, relieved myself, and brought washwater to heat from the icy stream. Thick did not get up until he smelled the morning's porridge cooking. Then he emerged, stretching cheerfully, to tell me that he and Nettle had hunted butterflies all night, and she had made him a hat out of butterflies that flew away just before he woke up. The gentle silliness cheered me, even as it made a sharp contrast with my plans.
I tried to hurry Thick along, with small success. He walked idly on the beach while I struck the tent and loaded it onto my back. It took some persuasion to get him to take up his own pack and follow me. Then we set off down the beach in the direction from which Riddle and his fellows had come. I had listened intently to Riddle's tale. I knew they had followed the beach for about two days. I hoped that if I did the same and then watched for where they had climbed down onto the beach, I'd find my way back to the crevasse where they had emerged from the Pale Woman's realm.
Yet I had not reckoned with having Thick with me. At first he followed me cheerfully down the beach, investigating tide pools and bits of driftwood and feathers and seaweed as we went. He wet his feet, of course, and grumbled about that, and was soon hungry. I'd thought of that, and had travelers' bread and some salt fish in a pouch. It was not what he had hoped for, but when I made it clear that I was going to continue hiking regardless of what he did, he took it and chewed as we walked.
We did not lack for fresh water. Rivulets of it cut the beach or dampened the stony cliff faces. I kept an eye on the rising tide, for I had no wish to be caught by it on a section of beach where we could not escape it. But the tide did not come up far, and I was even rewarded by footprints above the tideline. These traces of Riddle's passage cheered me, and we trudged on.
As night came closer, we picked up the sparse bits of driftwood that the beach yielded to us, set up our tent well above the high water line, and built our fire. If I had not had such a heavy heart, it would have been a pleasant evening, for we had a bit of moon and Thick was inspired to take out his whistle and play. It was the first time I'd ever been able to give myself over completely to both his musics, for I was as aware of his Skill-music as I was of the whistle's piping. His Skill-music was made of the ever-present wind and the keening of the seabirds and the shush of waves on the shore. His whistle wove in and out of it like a bright thread in a tapestry. Because I had access to his mind, it was a comprehensible music. Without the Skill, I am sure it would have been annoying, random notes.
We ate a simple meal, a soup made from dried fish with some fresh seaweed added from the beach and travelers' bread. It was filling; that was possibly the kindest thing that could be said for it. Thick ate it, mainly because he was hungry. "Wish we had cakes from the kitchen," he said wistfully while I scrubbed out the pot with sand.
"Well, we won't have anything like that until we travel back to Buck. On the boat."
"No. No boat."
"Thick, there is no other way for us to get there."
"If we just kept walking, we might get there."
"No, Thick. Aslevjal is an island. It has water all around it. We can't get back home by walking. Sooner or later, we have to get on a ship."
"No."
And there it was again. He seemed to grasp so many things, but then we would come to the one that he either refused or could not accept. I gave it up for the night and we went to our blankets. Again, I watched him slip into sleep as effortlessly as a swimmer enters water. I had not had the courage to speak to him about Nettle. I wondered what she thought of my absence, or if she noticed it at all. Then I closed my eyes and sank.
By that second day of hiking, Thick was bored with the routine. Twice he let me get so far ahead of him that I was nearly out of his sight. Each time, he came huffing and hurrying over the wet sand to catch up with me. Each time, he demanded to know why we had to go so fast. I could not think of an answer that satisfied him. In truth, I knew only my own urgency. That this was a thing that must be finished, and that I would know no peace until I did. If I thought of the Fool as dead, if I thought of his body discarded in that icy place, the pain of such an image brought me close to fainting. I knew that I would not truly realize his death until I saw it. It was like looking down at a festering foot and knowing it must come off before the body could begin to heal. I hurried to face the agony.
That night caught us on a narrow beach along a cliff face hung with icicles. Sheeting water ran down the rock face. I judged there was just room to pitch the tent and that we would be fine, as long as no storm rose to drive the tide higher. We set up our tent, using rocks to hold it in the sand, and made our fire and ate our plain provender.
The moon was a little stronger, and we sat for a time under the stars looking out over the water. I found time to wonder how Hap was doing, and if my boy had overcome his dangerous affection for Svanja or succumbed to it completely. I could only hope he had kept his head and his judgment. I sighed as I worried about that and Thick asked sympathetically, "You got a gut ache?"
"No. Not exactly. Worrying about Hap. My son back in Buckkeep Town."
"Oh." He did not sound very interested. Then, as if this was a thing he had pondered for a long time, he added, "You're always somewhere else. You never do the music where you are."
I looked at him for a moment, and then lowered my perpetual guard against his music. Letting it in was like letting the night into my eyes when twilight came over the land and it was a good time to hunt. I relaxed into the moment, letting the wolf's enjoyment of the now come into me, as I had not for far too long. I had been aware of the water and the light wind. Now I heard the whispering of blowing sand and snow, and deep behind it, the slow groaning creak of the glacier across the land. I could suddenly smell the salt of the ocean and the iodine of the kelp on the beach and the icy breath of old snow.
It was like opening a door to an older place and time. I glanced over at Thick and suddenly saw him as complete and whole in this setting, for he gave himself to it. While he sat here and enjoyed the night, he lacked nothing. I felt a smile bend my mouth. "You would have made a good wolf," I told him.
And when I went to sleep that night, Nettle found me. It took me some time to become aware of her, for she sat at the edge of my dream, letting the wind off the sea ruffle her hair as she stared out of the window of my boyhood bedchamber at Buckkeep. When I finally looked at her, she stepped out of the window and onto my beach, saying only, "Well. Here we both are."
I felt all the apologies and explanations and excuses rise in me, crowding to be the first words out of my mouth. Then she sat down beside me on the sand and looked out over the water. The wind stirred her hair like a wolf's ruff rippling in the breeze. Her stillness was such a contrast to all the jumbled communication inside me that I suddenly felt what a tiresome fellow I was, always filling the air with the rattle of words and anxieties. I found that I was sitting beside her with my tail neatly curled around my forefeet. And I said, "I promised Nighteyes that I would tell you tales of him, and I have not."
Silence spun a web between us and then she said, "I think I would like to hear one tonight." So I told her about a clumsy, blunt-nosed Cub springing high to land on hapless mice and how we had learned to trust one another and to hunt and think as one. And she listened through the night, and to some tales I told, she cocked her head and said, "I think I remember that."
I came awake to dawn seeping in through the bright beasts that cavorted on the tent walls, and for a moment I forgot that I was weighted with sorrow and vengeance. All I saw was a gleaming blue dragon, wings spread wide as he rocked on the wind while below him scarlet and purple serpents arched through the water. Slowly I became aware of Thick snoring and that the waves were very close to the door of our tent. That sound woke alarm in me, and I scuttled to the door to peer out. At first, I was relieved, because the water was retreating. I had slept through the real danger, when the sea had reached within two steps of our door. I crawled out of the tent and then stood, stretching and looking out over the waves. I felt an odd sense of peace. My dolorous mission was still before me, but I had reclaimed a part of my life that I thought I had spoiled. I walked a little away from the tent to relieve myself, almost enjoying the chill of the packed wet sand under my bare feet. But when I turned back to the tent, all my equanimity fled. Twisted into the sand, inches from the tent flap, was the Fool's honey jar.
I recognized it in that instant, and recalled well how it had disappeared from outside my tent on my first night on this island. I scanned the beach hastily and then the cliffs above us, looking for any sign of another person. There was nothing. I crept up on the honey jar as if it might bite me, all the while searching for even the tiniest sign of who had come and left so silently in the night. But the encroaching waves had wiped the beach clean of any sign of his passage. The Black Man had once more eluded me.
At last I picked it up. I took out the stopper, expecting I knew not what, but found it perfectly empty, with not even a trace of its former sweetness left within. I took it inside the tent and packed it carefully away with the Fool's other possessions, even as I pondered what it might mean. I thought of Skilling of my strange discovery to Chade and Dutiful, but at length I decided I would say nothing of it to anyone for now. I found little wood that morning, and so Thick and I had to be content with salt fish and cold water for breakfast. The supplies that had seemed more than adequate for one man now seemed to be dwindling all too swiftly. I took a deep breath and tried to be a wolf. For now, there was fine weather and enough food for the day, and I should take advantage of that to continue my journey without whining for more. Thick seemed in a genial mood until I began to pack up the tent. Then he complained that all I wanted to do was to walk down the beach every day. I bit my tongue and did not remind him that he was the one who had chosen, uninvited, to stay behind and link his life to mine. Instead, I told him that we did not have much farther to go. That seemed to encourage him, for I did not mention that I would be looking for whatever marks Riddle and the others might have left when they clambered down to the sand. He had mentioned a cliff, and I hoped their passage had left some trace that wind and tide had not yet obscured.
So on we tramped, and I tried to take pleasure in the freshness of the day and the ever-changing countenance of the sea, even as I kept one eye on the cliffs that backed us. Yet the sign that suddenly greeted me was, I was sure, no doing of Riddle or of his companions. It was freshly scratched on the stone of the cliffs, unweathered by wind or water, and its meaning was unmistakable. A crude dragon cavorted over an arched serpent. Above them, an arrow pointed straight up.
It seemed to me that whoever had made the marks had chosen for us a fairly easy climb from the beach to the clifftops. Even so, I went up first and unencumbered while Thick waited placidly on the beach below. At the top of the wind-scoured cliffs, there was a thin edge of bare ground. Stubborn grasses tufted there amidst a crunchy sort of moss. A sort of shallow meadow bloomed beyond it, of grasses and lichen-crusted rocks and pessimistic bushes. I had climbed up, knife in teeth, but no one, friend or enemy, awaited me there. Instead, there was only the barren sweep of cold wind from the crouching glacier.
I returned to the beach, to bring up first our packs and then Thick. He did well enough at climbing, but was hampered by his shorter stature and stockier girth. Eventually, however, we stood on the clifftop together. "Well," he exclaimed when he had finished puffing. "And now what?"
"I'm not sure," I said, and looked about, guessing that whoever had left us such a plain sign on the cliff would not abandon us now. It took me a moment to see it. I do not think it was intended to be subtle, but rather that there was little to work with. A row of small beach stones was set in a line. One end of it pointed toward the place we had just climbed up. The other end pointed inland.
I handed Thick his pack and then settled my own on my shoulders. "Come on," I said. "We're going that way." I pointed.
He followed my finger with his eyes and then shook his head in disappointment. "No. Why? There's nothing there but grass. And then snow."
I had no easy explanation. He was right. In the distance, the plain of stubby grass gave way to snow and then looming ice. Beyond them, a rock face shone with a frosting of ice and snow. "Well, that's where I'm going," I said. And I struck out. I set an easy pace, but avoided looking back. Instead, I listened, and with my Wit, quested for an awareness of him. He was following, but grudgingly. I slowed my pace enough to allow him to catch up. When he was alongside me, I observed companionably, "Well, Thick, I think that today we will have answers to at least a few of our questions."
"What questions?"
"Who or what is the Black Man?"
Thick looked stubborn. "I don't really care."
"Well. It's a lovely day. And I'm not just hiking on the beach anymore."
"We're hiking toward the snow."
He was right, and soon enough we reached the outlying edges of it. And there, plainly, were the tracks of the Black Man, going and coming. Without commenting on them, I followed them, Thick trudging at my heels.
After a short time, Thick observed, "We aren't poking the snow. We might fall right through."
"As long as we follow these tracks, I think we're safe," I told him. "This isn't the true glacier yet."
By early afternoon, we had followed the tracks across a windswept plain of snow and ice to a rocky cliff wall.
Towering and forbidding, it defied the wind. Ice made columns down its face and had wedged cracks into it. At the base of it, the tracks turned west and continued. We followed. Night grayed the sky and I pushed on doggedly, giving Thick sticks of salt fish when he complained of being hungry. As the twilight grew deeper around us, even my curiosity lagged along with my energy. At length, we halted. I felt sheepish as I turned to Thick and said, "Well, I was wrong. We'll set up the tent here for the night, shall we?"
His tongue and lower lip pouted out and he beetled his brows at me in disappointment. "Do we have to?"
I glanced around, at a loss for what else I could offer him. "What would you like to do?"
"Go there!" he exclaimed and pointed. I lifted my eyes to follow the stubby finger. My breath caught in my chest.
I had been keeping my eyes on the tracks. I had not lifted my gaze to the looming cliff wall. Ahead of us, and halfway up the bluff, a wide crack had been fitted with a door of gray wood. The rest of the crack had been filled in with rocks of various sizes. The door had been left ajar and yellow firelight shone within. Someone was in there.
With renewed haste, we followed the tracks to where they suddenly doubled back to follow a steep footpath that worked up and across the face of the cliff. Calling it a footpath was generous. We had to go in single file and our packs bumped against the rock as we negotiated it. Nevertheless, it was a well-used trail, kept free of debris and treacherous ice. Where trickles of ice from above had attempted to cross the path, they had been chopped off short and brushed away. It appeared to be a recent effort.
Despite these signs of hospitality, I was full of trepidation when I stood at last before the door. It had been constructed of driftwood, hand-planed and pegged together painstakingly. Warmth and an aroma of cooked food wafted out from it. Although it was ajar and the space in front of it small, still I hesitated. Thick didn't. He shoved past me to push the door open. "Hello!" he called hopefully. "We're here and we're cold."
"Please, enter do," someone replied in a low and pleasant voice. The accent on the words was odd, and the voice seemed husky as if from disuse, but the welcome was plain in the tone. Thick didn't hesitate as he stepped inside. I followed him more slowly.
After the dimness of the night, the fire in the stone hearth seemed to glare with light. At first, I could make out no more than a silhouette seated before the fire in a wooden chair. Then the Black Man slowly stood and faced us. Thick drew in his breath audibly. Then, with a show of recovery and manners that astounded me in the little man, he said carefully, "Good evening, Grandfather."
The Black Man smiled. His worn teeth were as yellow as bone in his black, black face. Lines wreathed his mouth and his eyes nestled deep in their sockets, like shining ebony disks. He spoke, and after a time my mind sorted out his badly accented Outislander. "I know not how long I've been here. Yet this I know. This is the first time that anyone has entered and called me 'Grandfather.' "
When he stood, it was without apparent effort, and his spine was straight. Yet age was written all over his countenance, and he moved with the slow grace of a man who protects his body from shocks. He gestured to a small table. "Guests I seldom have, but my hospitality I would offer despite what is lacked. Please. Food I have made. Come."
Thick didn't hesitate. He shrugged out of his pack, letting it slide to the floor without regret. "We thank you," I said slowly as I carefully removed my own and set both of them to one side. My eyes had adjusted to the light. I do not know if I would have called his residence a cave or a large crevice. I could not see a ceiling, and I suspected that smoke traveled up but not out. The furnishings were simple but very well made, with both the craft and attention of a man who had much time to learn his skills and apply them. There was a bedstead in a corner, and a larder shelf, a water bucket and a barrel, and a woven rug. Some of the items appeared to have been salvaged, windfalls from the beach, and others were obviously made from the scanty resources of the island. It bespoke a long habitation.
The man himself was as tall as I was, and as solidly black as the Fool once had been white. He did not ask our names or offer his, but served soup into three stone bowls that he had warmed by the fire. He spoke little at first. Outislander was the language we used; yet it was not native to any of us. The Black Man and I worked at communicating. Thick spoke Duchy-tongue but managed to make himself understood. The table was low, and our chairs were cushions with woven reed covers stuffed with dry grass. It was good to sit down. His spoons were made of polished bone. There was fish in the soup, but it was fresh, as were the boiled roots and meager greens. It tasted very good after our long days of dried or preserved food. The flat bread that he set out with it startled me and he grinned when he saw me looking at it.
"From her pantry to mine," he said, with no apology. "What I needed I took. And sometimes more." He sighed. "And now it is done. Simpler, my life will be. Yours, lonelier, I think."
It suddenly seemed to me that we were in the middle of a conversation, with both of us already knowing, without words, why we had come together. So I simply said, "I have to go back for him. He hated the cold. I cannot leave his body there. And I must be sure that this is finished. That she is dead." He nodded gravely to the inevitable. "That would be your path, and you that path must tread."
"So. You will help me, then?"
He shook his head, not regretfully but inevitably. "Your path," he repeated. "The path of the Changer belongs to you only."
A shiver ran down my back that he called me that. Nevertheless, I pressed him. "But I do not know the way into her palace. You must know a way, for I saw you there. Cannot you at least show me that?"
"The path will find you," he assured me, and smiled. "In darkness it cannot hide itself."
Thick held up his empty bowl. "That was good!"
"More, then?"
"Please!" Thick exclaimed, and then heaved a great sigh of pleasure as the man refilled his bowl. He ate his second serving more slowly. There was no talk as the Black Man rose and set a battered old kettle full of water over the fire. He fed the fire larger, and I watched the driftwood catch and burn with occasional licks of odd colors in the flames. He went to a shelf and carefully considered three little wooden boxes there. I arose hastily and went to my pack.
"Please, allow us to contribute something to the meal. I have tea herbs here."
When he turned to me, I saw that I had guessed correctly. It was as if I had offered another man jewels and gold. Without hesitation, I opened one of the Fool's little packets and offered it to him. He leaned over it to smell it, and then closed his eyes as a smile of purest pleasure came over his face.
"A generous heart you have!" he exclaimed. "A memory of flowers grows here. Nothing brings to mind the memories so much as fragrance."
"Please. Keep it all, to enjoy," I offered him, and he beamed with delight, his black eyes shining. He made tea with a rare caution, crumbling the herbs to powder and then steeping them in a tightly covered container. When he removed the lid and the fragrance of the tea steamed up, he laughed aloud in delight, and, just as people do when a small child laughs, Thick and I joined in for sheer pleasure in his enjoyment. There was an immediacy about him that was very charming, so that it was almost impossible for me to find the focus to worry and fret. He shared out the tea, and we drank it in tiny sips, savoring both the fragrance and the flavor. By the time we were finished, Thick was yawning prodigiously, which somehow increased my own weariness. "A place to sleep," our host announced, and gestured Thick toward his own bedstead.
"Please, we have our own bedding. You need not give up your bed to us," I assured him, but he patted Thick on the shoulder and again gesticulated at the bed.
"You will be comfortable. Safe and sweet the dreaming. Rest well."
Thick needed no other invitation than that. He had already taken off his boots. He sat down on the bed and I heard the creak of a rope framework. He lifted the coverlet and crawled in and closed his eyes. I believe he went to sleep in almost that instant.
I had already begun to spread out our bedding near the fire. Some of it was the Fool's Elderling-made stuff, and the old man examined it carefully, rubbing the thin coverlet between his finger and thumb wistfully. Then, "So kind you are, so kind. Thanks you." Then he looked at me almost sadly and said, "Your path awaits. May fortune be kind, and the night gentle." Then he bowed to me in what was obviously a farewell. In some confusion, I glanced at his door. When I looked back at him, he nodded slowly. "I will keep the watch," he assured me, gesturing toward Thick.
Still I stood staring at him, confused. He took a breath and then paused. I could almost see him pushing his thoughts into words I could understand. He touched both hands to his cheeks and then held his black palms out to me. "Once, I was the White. The Prophet." He smiled to see my eyes widen, but then sadness came into his dark gaze. "I failed. With the old ones, I came here. We were the last ones and we knew it. The other cities had gone empty and still. But I had seen there was still a chance, a slight chance, that all might go back to what had been. When the dragon came, at first he gave me hope. But he was full of despair, sick with it like a disease. Into the ice he crawled. I tried. I visited him, I pleaded, I… encouraged. But he turned from me to seek death. And that left nothing for me. No hopes. There was only the waiting. For so long, I had nothing. I saw nothing. The future darkened, the chances narrowed." He put his hands together and looked through their cupped palms as if peering through a crack, to show me how limited his visions had become. He lifted his gaze back to me. I think my confusion disappointed him. He shook his head, and then with an obvious effort, pushed on. "One vision is left to me. A tiny peer… no! A tiny glimpse of what could be. It was not certain, ever, but it was a chance. Another might come. With another Catalyst." He held a hand out to me, formed a tiny aperture with his fist. "The smallest chance, maybe there is. So small, so unlikely. But there is that chance." He looked at me intently.
I forced myself to nod, though I was still not certain I understood all he told me. He had been a White Prophet who failed? Yet he had foreseen that eventually the Fool and I would come here?
He took encouragement from my nod. "She came. At first, 'She is the one!' I think. Her Catalyst she brings. Hope comes to me. She says she seeks the dragon. And I am a fool. I show her the way. Then, the betrayal. She seeks to kill Icefyre. I am angry, but she is stronger. She drove me out, and I had to flee, by a way she cannot follow. She thinks me dead and makes all here her own. But I return, and here I make a place for myself. To this side of the island, her people do not come. But I live and I know she is false. I want to throw her down. But to be the change-maker is not my role. And my Catalyst..." His voice suddenly went hoarser. He spoke with difficulty. "She is dead. Dead so many years. Who could imagine that death lasts so much longer than life? So, only I remained. And I could not make the change that was needed. All I could do was wait. Again, I waited. I hoped. Then I saw him, not white, but gold. I wondered. Then you came after him. Him I knew, at first glance. I recognized you when you left the gift for me. My heart…" He touched his chest and then lifted his hands high. He smiled beatifically. "I longed to help. But I cannot be the Changer. So limited what I may do, or down it all falls. You understand this?"
I replied slowly. "I think I do. You are not allowed to be the one who makes the changes. You were the White Prophet of your time, not the Changer."
"Yes. Yes, that it is!" He smiled at me. "And this time is not mine. But it is yours, to be the Changer, and his to see the way and guide you. You did. And the new path found is. He pays the cost." His voice sank, not in sorrow, but in acknowledgment. I bowed my head to his words.
He patted my shoulder and I looked up at him. He smiled the smile of age. "And on we go," he assured me. "Into new times! New paths, beyond all visions. This is a time I never saw, nor she, she who me deceived. This, she never seen has. Only your Prophet has seen this way! The new path, beyond the dragons rising." He gave a sudden deep sigh. "High the price was for you, but it has been paid. Go. Find what is left of him. To leave him there..." The ancient man shook his head. "That is not to be." He gestured again. "Changer, go. Even now, I dare not the change-maker be. While you live, it is only for you. Now, go." He gestured at my pack and at his door. He smiled.
Then, without any further talk, he eased himself down onto the Fool's bedding and stretched out before the fire. I felt oddly torn. I was weary and the Black Man created just such an isle of rest as the Fool would have. And yet, in that comparison, I once more felt the urgency to put it all to a final end. I wished I had known I was leaving him; I would have warned Thick what to expect. Yet somehow, I did not think he would be alarmed to awaken here and find me gone.
Leaving him felt inevitable. I put on my still chilly outer garments, and shouldered my pack again. I looked once more around the Black Man's tiny home and could not help but contrast it to the splendor of the Pale Woman's glacial domain. Then, my heart smote me that my friend's body was still discarded in that icy place. I went out quietly into the deep gray of the night, shutting the door firmly behind me.