Fools Quest by Robin Hobb
“It was almost a full day, Chade. Things can seem very strange in a Skill-passage. ” I glanced at Dutiful. He was nodding, his gaze distant. “I think they are more dangerous to use than we know. There is more to them than we understand. When we travel through them, we traverse something much more than distance. We should not use them as if they were simple doors that go from here to there. ”
“There, we agree,” Nettle said softly. She glanced at Dutiful, deferring to him.
He cleared his throat. “And how do you feel, Fitz?”
“I think I am almost myself. ”
“I fear I have to disagree with you. And Nettle shares that opinion with me. Even now, both of you ring oddly against my Skill-sense, and you have ever since you returned from the stones. We believe your journey changed something in you both. And that perhaps both of you ought to refrain from using the Skill for a time. ”
“Perhaps,” Chade agreed. He sighed heavily and then flinched.
I knew I would discuss the Skill-prohibition privately with Chade. I changed the subject. “How bad is your wound?”
“We think the blade sliced into his liver. The bleeding has stopped. The healer says we are wisest to leave well enough alone, that searching the injury may do more damage than simply letting him rest. ” Dutiful spoke. Chade rolled his eyes.
“It seems a good plan to me. ”
“It is,” Nettle asserted. “And we need another plan as well. ” She came away from the window to stand directly in front of Dutiful. She cleared her throat. “My king, invaders have dared to bring Chalcedean mercenaries into the heart of your kingdom. They have attacked my home, killing and injuring my servants. And they have stolen my sister, a child of the Farseer lineage, even if as yet unacknowledged!” Dutiful listened to her gravely. “Such an invasion is not to be tolerated, not by me or by you. The Fool has told us that they will attempt to take them to Clerres. That is a place I have never heard of, but surely it must be on some map, somewhere in Buckkeep. And whether it be north, south, east, or west of us, we can block their path! I beg you, as your subject and your cousin, send out our troops now. If we cannot find them on their road, at least we can put a watch on every kingsway, on every ferry crossing, and in every harbor. Block them, stop them, and bring my sister and Lord Chade’s daughter home safe to us. ”
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I spoke the little I knew. “Clerres is a city far, far to the south of us. Past Chalced, past the Pirate Isles, past Jamaillia, past the Spice Isles. It requires a journey by ship. The question is, will their mercenaries take them to Chalced first, and set sail from there? Or will they make for the coast and hope to find a southbound ship?”
“Chalced. ” Dutiful and Chade spoke together.
“No band of Chalcedean mercenaries would try to take ship from a Six Duchies port. They’d be singled out and questioned immediately, and once it was discovered Bee and Shun were with them against their will, they’d be arrested. ” Dutiful was absolutely certain.
I was silent, applying the Fool’s backward logic. So. The Servants would not make for Chalced. Where and how would they go, then?
Dutiful was still expounding. “They’ve a lot of territory to cross. And long before they reach Chalced they’ll have to replace the sleighs with carriages or wagons. Or carts, I suppose. Or all go on horseback … How did they come? How is it possible for them to have penetrated so deeply into the Six Duchies, without alerting us at all? Do you think they came from Chalced? Crossing all that territory?”
“Where else would they hire Chalcedean mercenaries?” Chade asked of no one.
Dutiful stood abruptly. “I need to speak with my generals immediately. Nettle, gather your Skilled ones and send out word to every outpost where they are placed. Explain as best you can the ‘fogging’ and ask them to be alert for any strange Skilling—if, indeed, they are using the Skill as we know it. We’ll send messenger birds to the lesser border outposts. Mother, you know our libraries almost as well as our scribes do. Can you direct them to search out any maps or charts we may possess of the far southern lands and look for this city Clerres? No matter the age of the map. The legend of the White Prophet is very old. I doubt the city of its origin has moved. I want to know their most likely routes, ports they may visit, any information you can find. ”
“Elliania will help me. She knows our libraries as well as I do. ”
The wisp of an idea that had drifted through my mind earlier suddenly manifested. “Web!” I said abruptly.
They all turned to look at me.
“What fogs a man’s mind may leave an animal’s untouched. Let us ask Web to send word to the Old Blood settlements, to ask if any of the partnered beasts have noticed a troop of soldiers and folk riding white horses. Those bonded to birds of prey or carrion birds might be our best hope. Such birds see for a great distance, and carrion birds often mark soldiers. Too well have they learned that soldiers on the move can mean battles, and battles mean dead flesh. ”
Kettricken lifted her brows at me. “Clever,” she said softly. “Yes. Web departed a day ago, traveling to Bearns. The crow had visited him and conveyed that she had found a companion. He wished to stay and say farewell to you, but could not. A dragon has been seen regularly over Bearns and perhaps has taken up residence there. Web goes to take counsel with the Duchess and Duke of Bearns about how best to deal with it. The folk of Bearns are not happy to think of donating tribute animals to slake a dragon’s hunger, but it may be their wisest course. It is hoped Web can have words with the dragon and persuade it to take what is offered rather than preying on their best breeding stock. ” She sighed. “Such a time we live in. I am reluctant to call him back but I suppose we must. This is too delicate a matter to entrust to anyone else. ”
I nodded to Kettricken. Another delay, with Bee and Shine moving farther and farther away. Another idea burst into my mind. “Civil Bresinga. He was here at court, for Winterfest. He sent me a note, offering to be of service to me in any way he could. ”
“That he was!” Dutiful smiled and I could see he was pleased that I had remembered his friend. “Civil has many friends among the Old Blood. He can put out the word more swiftly than a messenger can seek out Web. ”
“Even for my daughter, I still must wonder: Do we want to spread the news far and wide that we have had unseen invaders in Buck?” Chade spoke from his bed, his voice full of reluctance.
Kettricken spoke into the quiet. “I have come to know Civil well. I’ve never forgotten that as a boy he led Dutiful into danger, even danger of losing his life, but we all recall, too, the threat Civil was under. In the years since then he has proven himself a true friend to my son, and an honorable bearer of the Old Blood. I trust his intelligence. Let me speak to him. I shall tell him to be circumspect in to whom the messages go. And we need tell them only that we are looking for a troop of men on horseback, sleighs, and folk dressed in white furs. But my own tendency is to shout it from the rooftops. The more eyes looking, the better chance that someone will see something. ”
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“And sometimes people see what they are told they might see. Circumspect is my choice for now. ” The king’s word was final. My heart sank a little even as I saw the wisdom of his words.
Dutiful was already at the door. Nettle was on his heels and I sensed a stream of Skill-commands flowing as she moved to her task. Obedient to her request, I did not try to expand my Skill-sense to be aware of what she did. I did not wish to distract her by annoying her. Kettricken was last to the door. She paused and shook her head sadly at Chade. “You should have trusted us more. ” Then she closed the door softly behind her, leaving us two assassins alone.
Old habits. Left alone in the room, both of us reverted. Lord Chade and Prince FitzChivalry vanished, and two men who had long done the quiet work for the king’s justice exchanged a glance. Neither of us spoke a word until no echo of footsteps
“What else?” Chade demanded of me after a long silence.
I saw no point in mincing my words. “Ash revived the Fool by giving him dragon’s blood. ”
“What?” Chade demanded.
I said nothing. He had heard me.
After a time, he made a small noise in the back of his throat. “Ash presumes a bit too much sometimes. Well, what has it done to him?”
I wanted to ask him what he had expected it to do. Instead, I said, “The lad said the Fool was near death. He trickled it into his mouth. It revived him. It more than revived him. He is better by far than when I first brought him here, more recovered than when I left him to race to Withywoods. It seems to be healing him, but it is also changing him. Bones that were broken and then badly healed in his hands and feet appear to be straightening themselves. It’s painful for him, of course, but he can now move all of his fingers, and stand on that crumpled foot. And his eyes have turned gold. ”
“As they were before? Can he see now?”
“No, not as they were before. Not a very pale brown. Gold. Like molten metal and as shifting. ” It came to me suddenly. I’d seen Tintaglia’s eyes. So had Chade. “Like dragon eyes. And he still cannot see. But he claims to be having peculiar dreams. ”
Chade tugged at his chin. “Have Ash speak to him about how he feels, and record everything he says. Tell him he may use pages of the good parchment. ”
“I can do that. ”
“His dreams, too. Sometimes a man’s dreams tell him things he doesn’t admit to himself. Ash should write down everything the Fool dreams. ”
“He may not wish to share what he dreams, but we can ask. ”
He gave me a narrowed look. “And what else is biting you?”
“The Fool fears that our enemies may already know our every move. ”
“Spies among us? Here in Buckkeep Castle?” He sat up too suddenly, clutched his side, and gasped for a few breaths.
“No. Not spies. He fears they have harvested prophecies gleaned from enslaved White and half-White children. ” He listened intently as I explained what the Fool had shared with me.
When I finished, he mused, “Extraordinary. Breeding humans for prophetic powers … Such a concept. Study the possible futures and select the chain of events that will most profit your order. It would demand extreme dedication, for you would be acting for the good of those Servants who came long after you, rather than for immediate gain. And they send out into the world the White Prophet they choose, the one who will do their will in shaping the future. Then along comes the Fool, a trueborn prophet, outside their controlled breeding … Have you written all this down for me?”
“I haven’t had much time for scribing. ”
“Well, make time, if you can. ” He folded his lips tightly, thinking. His eyes were very bright. I knew his thoughts were outstripping mine, racing up ladders of logic. “Years ago, when the Fool isolated himself after getting Kettricken home to the Mountain Kingdom, when he thought you were dead and his plans all come to naught, folk came seeking him. Pilgrims. Seeking a White Prophet in the Mountains. How did they know where to find him?”
“I suppose from the prophecies …”
He spoke very rapidly. “Or were the so-called Servants seeking him even then? It’s fairly obvious to me that they disliked him being out of their control. Put it together, Fitz. They made the Pale Woman. She was their game-piece. They set her loose on the gaming cloth to shape the world as they wished. They kept him there intending that no one could compete with her, but he got away from them. Rolling and tumbling across their gaming cloth like a bad throw of the dice. They needed him back. What better way to find someone than to seed a search by releasing prophecies and letting others be your pack of hounds seeking him?”
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I was silent. Chade’s mind often made those sorts of leaps. He made a small sound, not quite a cough. Was the brightness of his eyes the light of fever? I could hear him breathing through his nose as his mind raced.
He held up another finger. “When they started to arrive, he refused to see any of them. Denied he was a prophet and claimed to be just a toy maker. ”
I nodded to that.
“And when you left Jhaampe, you left very quietly. ”
“We did. ”
“So they might have lost track of him there. He vanishes. He follows his vision of the future and helps you wake the dragons. He ensures that the queen returns to Buck, with a Farseer heir growing in her belly. He vanishes again, to Jamaillia, I suspect, and Bingtown.
“And years later, he reappears as Lord Golden at Buckkeep, just in time to help you assure the survival of the Farseer heir yet again. He is determined to return dragons to this world. He manages to outmaneuver both of us and get himself to Aslevjal Island. And there, at last, the Servants capture him. And they torture him nearly to death. They think they’ve killed him. ”
“They did kill him, Chade. He told me they would. ” His gaze met mine. He didn’t quite believe me, but I decided it didn’t matter if he did or not. “He went to Aslevjal believing that had to happen for Icefyre to be set free from the glacier and mate with Tintaglia. To bring dragons back to our world. ”
“Yes, and how we’ve all enjoyed that!” Chade observed sourly.
For no reason I could explain, that stung. “You’ve enjoyed it enough to obtain dragon’s blood,” I retorted.
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “It’s an ill wind that blows no good,” he observed.
I teetered on a decision. Conversations about morality were rare among assassins. We did as we were told to do. But Chade had undertaken obtaining the blood himself, not as a mission ordained by the king. I dared to question it.
“You don’t feel a bit … uncomfortable buying the blood of a creature that obviously thinks and speaks? A creature that was possibly murdered for the harvest of that blood?”
He stared at me. His green eyes narrowed and glittered like glacial ice. “That’s an odd line for you to draw, Fitz. Witted as you are, you ran with a wolf. Did not you bring down deer and rabbits and eat them? Yet those of Old Blood who bond to such creatures would tell you that they think and feel even as we do. ”
But they are prey and we are predator. It is how we are meant to be to each other. I shook my mind clear of wolfish thoughts. “That’s true. A man bonded to a buck would agree with you. But it’s how the world is structured. Wolves eat meat. We took only what we needed. My wolf needed meat and we took it. Without it, he would have died. ”
“Apparently, without the dragon’s blood, your Fool would have died. ” His tone had become acerbic. I wished I had not begun the conversation. Despite all our years together, despite how he had trained me, we had diverged in our thinking. Burrich and Verity, I thought to myself, were perhaps not the best influences for a young assassin. Like a curtain parting to reveal daylight, it came to me that perhaps neither of them had ever truly seen me as a royal assassin. King Shrewd had. But Burrich had done his best to raise me as Chivalry’s son. And perhaps Verity had always seen me as his potential heir.
It did not lessen Chade in my sight. Assassins, I believed, were different from but not inferior to gently raised men. They had their place in the world. Like wolves. But I regretted beginning a conversation that could only show us both how far we had diverged. A silence had fallen between us and it seemed a gulf. I thought of saying, I do not judge you, but it would have been a lie and only made things worse. Instead, I tried to resume an old role and asked him, “I am in awe that you were able to obtain it at all. What did you procure it for? Did you have plans for it?”
He raised his brows. “Several sources imply it’s a powerful restorative. Word came to me that the Duke of Chalced was employing every means at his command to obtain that vial. He believed it would restore him to healt
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“I had heard that he died when dragons tumbled his castle onto him. If it’s so, there’s some irony to it, isn’t there? The creatures he was hunting to preserve his life sought him out and killed him. ”
“Irony. Or fate. But you’d have to ask your White Prophet about fate. ”
He wasn’t serious. Perhaps. I answered as if he were. “After I brought him back from the dead, he lost his ability to see all the futures. He lives day-to-day now, just as we do, fumbling forward down the path to the future. ”
Chade shook his head. “There is no path to the future, Fitz. The path is now. Now is all there is, or ever will be. You can change perhaps the next ten breaths in your life. But after that, random chance seizes you in its jaws again. A tree falls on you, a spider bites your ankle, and all your grand plans for winning a battle are for naught. Now is what we have, Fitz, and now is where we act to stay alive. ”
The wolfness of the thought jolted me to quiet.
He took a breath, sighed it out fiercely, and gave me a look that was almost a glare. I waited. “There is something else you should know. I doubt it can help us regain our daughters, but you should know, in case it can. ” He sounded almost angry at having to share his secret, whatever it was. I waited.
“Shine has the Skill. And strongly. ”
“What?” My incredulous reaction pleased him.
He smiled. “Yes. Strange to say, the talent that is so thin in me, I still must fight to use it, blossomed in her at a young age. The Farseer blood runs strong in her veins. ”