Chapter Thirty-Two

Travelers

I announced my decision to the kitchen staff before breakfast. None of them seemed surprised that I was returning so soon to Buckkeep. In truth, they seemed relieved. Their recovery was slow and the presence of my guard, some of them rough fellows, had been more unnerving than reassuring to them. They would be glad when we were gone.

I did the final tasks that would finish my duties to Withywoods. I gave orders that as soon as the renovations were finished, the furniture in the Rainbow chambers and most of the east wing should be draped. I told Dixon that he would be making his reports directly to Lady Nettle and Kesir Riddle now. I gave the same directive to each of my overseers. I was pleased to see Shepherd Lin’s bent shoulders straighten a bit as I conveyed full authority for the flock to him. I made arrangements for the packed scrolls to be sent by wagon to Buckkeep with Lant’s and Shine’s things.

Before noon, all was settled. When I went out to depart, I found not only my horse and a pack animal waiting for me, but Perseverance. “You are certain you don’t wish to stay here?” I asked him, and his impassive face was my answer. Foxglove formed up my guard. I rode away from Withywoods.

We made good time, despite a wet wind that promised to bring snow by evening. We made our journey back to Buckkeep through unseasonably warmer weather that turned the snow into wet, clinging mush and promised an early spring.

As I had feared, the Fool had been found wandering the dark and damp corridors in the foundation of Buckkeep. Nettle Skilled to me that Ash had not been with him and had been extremely relieved when he was returned safely to his chambers. She was concerned for him. I thanked her for letting me know he was safe, and worried for him for the remainder of the journey home.

We had not even reached the gates of Buckkeep before I heard a shrill cawing and then, “Per! Per! Per!” and Motley came swooping in. She spooked Perseverance’s horse but still managed to land on his shoulder while he was mastering his mount. Our guard laughed among themselves, already familiar with the crow, and Per grinned to be so welcomed. As if enjoying the attention, Motley tweaked the cap from his head and he had to catch it one-handed as she attempted to fling it aside. We rode through the gates unchallenged, and as we drew in our mounts near the stable I was only mildly surprised to see Ash awaiting me.

Or so I had thought. Chade’s erstwhile serving lad went to greet Perseverance, and the crow transferred happily from one boy to the other. I gave my horse over to Patience, who delayed me to say Fleeter was prospering, and then I immediately sought out the Fool’s chambers.

At first there was no answer to my knock. I waited, knocked again, waited, and just as I was about to extract a lock pick from my collar a voice spoke from within. “Who’s there?”

“Fitz,” I said, and waited.

It still took some time for the door to be unlocked and then there was another pause before he opened it.

“Are you well?” I asked anxiously, for he looked haggard.

“As you see,” he replied dispiritedly. He attempted a smile. “I am sure I will be better now that you are home.”

“I heard of your misadventure.”

“Ah. That is what you call it.”

The chambers were chilly, his breakfast tray not yet cleared away, and the fire burning low. “Why is this room so ill kept? I saw Ash outside as I rode in. Has he become slack in his duties?”

“No, no. He has just become somewhat . . . aggravating to me. He was here this morning. I dismissed him and told him I would not need him until this evening.”

There was more to this story. I kept my silence as I built up the fire and tidied the hearth, trying to behave normally. The curtains were drawn and I pushed them back to bring light into the room. The Fool looked untidy, as if he had dressed in the dark and forgotten to comb his hair. I stacked his dishes and gave the table a swipe with his napkin. Better. Somewhat. “Well. I’ve just returned from Withywoods and I’m ravenous. Will you come down with me?”

“I . . . no. I’ve no appetite. But you should go and eat.”

“I could bring food back here and share it with you.” Even as a prince, I could still raid the guards’ mess if I chose to.

“No, but thank you. You should go and eat, Fitz.”

“Enough. What happened? Why did you vanish from your rooms, why were you in the dungeon corridors?”

He crossed the room slowly and groped his way into a chair by the fire. “I got lost,” he said. Then, as if a dammed river had suddenly broken free, he confessed, “I opened the door to the secret passages. The one inside the servant’s chamber. I am sure you remember it from your days there. I thought I could recall the way to Chade’s old rooms. I . . . there was something there I’d left behind, and Ash would not fetch it for me. So I resolved I would get it myself. But instead I got lost.”

I tried to imagine being in those chill passages, blind. I shuddered.

“I kept thinking I would find a way back into a room or a proper passage. Twice I came to dead ends and tried to work my way back. Once I came to a narrowed way where not even I could pass. And when I tried to go back from that, I came to the dead end again, and suddenly it seemed to me that I was walled up and lost and no one even knew where to being looking for me. I shouted for help then, until I was hoarse, but I doubt anyone heard me.”

“Oh, Fool.” I dashed the dregs of his morning tea onto the fire, and took the bottle of brandy from the mantelpiece. I poured some into the cup and handed it to him.

“Oh. Thank you,” he said and reflectively lifted it to his mouth. He startled when he smelled it. “Brandy?” And before I could reply, he took a healthy swallow.

“How did you get out?”

“I came to some steps and went down them. And down and down and down. The smell of damp grew stronger and the walls were moist and the steps became slippery. Almost slimy. And then they just stopped. My hands were so cold, but I stood there, tracing each brick and line of mortar. Oh, Fitz. I stood there and wept, for I did not think I had the strength to limp back up all those steps. I think I went a little mad. I pounded on the wall in front of me, and to my shock it gave way. Not much, but a little. I pushed and a brick fell out, and then I pushed and pulled at the next one and finally I had a hole I could wriggle through. I had no idea where I might be and I had to wedge my way out and I could not feel how far I would fall or what I would land on. But there was no help for it, and so I let go and then I fell onto ancient straw matted with damp and who knows what else. When I could get up and grope around, I found I was in a very small chamber. There was a wooden door, with a tiny window. I was terrified then, but the door of that cell was not fastened. I went out and down a corridor. I felt other doors, and I shouted, but no one answered.” He gave an odd laugh. “Such a king he is. Dutiful’s dungeons are full of empty cells!”

I did not speak aloud how happy I was to hear that.

“So out I went, blundering on and on. Then I smelled a torch and I turned a corner and I could sense a bit of light. Torches have to be tended. So there I stayed, and frightened the poor young guard who found me there. But she soon realized who I was and told me that Lady Nettle had had the whole castle and grounds searched for me. And she brought me back up here to my rooms, and Nettle came to see if I was all right.”

And now it was time to fill in the holes in his wondrously porous tale. I started with the obvious question. “Why are you annoyed with Ash?”

The Fool stiffened up like a prim old duchess. “He refused to obey me.”

“What did you ask him to do?”

“To fetch something for me.”

“Fool, this is already becoming tedious.”

He turned his face away from me. “Dragon’s blood,” he said quietly.

“El of the Sea, Fool! Are you mad? With all the changes it already wrought in you, changes that may still be going on, you would take more of it?”

“I wasn’t going to swallow it!”

“Then what?”

He held up his hand and rubbed his sliced fingertips together. “These.”

“Why?”

He took a deep breath. “I’ve told you that I’ve begun to dream again. And that sometimes when I dream, I am a dragon. And in those dreams, I know things. I dream of a place or perhaps a time when a river ran silver with Skill. And dragons drank it and grew strong and intelligent.”

I waited.

“And in other dreams, the silver was gone from the river and it was just water. And the dragons grieved and sought for it, and found a different source for it. Ash described dragon’s blood to me, Fitz. Dark red, with threads of silvery stuff coiling and swirling in it. I think the silver is pure Skill. I think it’s why that dose healed me, almost like a Skill-healing. And that more of it, on my fingertips, might restore them.”

“Do you not recall Verity, with his hands coated in Skill? He did that to himself, knowing he was going to give up his life. Have you forgotten having to glove that hand at all times when you did have touches of Skill on your fingers? Why would you wish for that again?”

He kept his face turned away from me but I thought I knew his motive. He needed to be able to see again. Had he thought to attempt to cure his own blindness? A wave of pity for him washed over me. He wanted his sight so badly. I wished I could give it to him. But I could not without risking losing my own. And I would need my eyes to fulfill my goal. And his.

He had left my question hanging and I let it be. I dragged a chair close to his and sat down. “I need your help,” I said bluntly. As I had known it would, it brought his full attention to me. But he knew me even better than I thought he did.

“We’re going, aren’t we?” he asked almost in wonder. “You’ve finally found your anger. And we will go to Clerres and we will kill them all.”

My anger had always been with me. It had been the fire I needed to forge myself into the proper weapon. My time in that fire had tempered me into what I needed to be. Now my steel had been quenched in grief. But I did not correct him. “Yes. But I need to plan. I need to know all that you know, of how you traveled and how long it took to get there. Details, Fool. When you were so ill and injured, I did not press you. But now you must wring every detail from your memories.”

He shifted about in his chair. “How I came back took far longer than how I went there with Prilkop. Almost as long as it took me to journey here the very first time I came. But I think you have the means to make at least the first leg of our journey as he did.”

“The Skill-pillars.”

“Yes. We came from the map-room in Aslevjal to Buckkeep, to your Witness Stones. Then we traveled to a place I did not know. Pillars on a windswept cliff. Then to the deserted marketplace . . . you remember the one, the one that was on the road to the stone dragons? And from there to Kelsingra. And then we went to an island and the city on it. I told you about that. How we landed facedown in the dirt with barely room to scrabble out from under the stone. And how unfriendly the folk were.”

“Do you recall the name of this place?”

“Furnich, I believe Prilkop called it. But . . . Fitz, we dare not go that way! They quite likely would have finished toppling the stone by now.”

“Indeed,” I said to myself, thinking: Furnich. That was a name I had not searched for. Not yet. “And after that?”

“I think I told you about the ship. We bought passage but it was more as if we paid them to kidnap us. From Furnich, we sailed to several places, a wandering voyage. They worked us like the slaves they intended us to be. Fishbones. That was the name of one place, but it was small, just a village. There was one other place, a city. It stank and the cargo we took on there was raw hides, and they stank. That place was called, what was it, something about a tree . . . Wortletree. That was it!”

“Wortletree.” The name rang oddly familiar in my mind. I’d heard it or read it somewhere. It was a place we could find. A destination. “And from there?”

“To Clerres. And then to the White Island. Where the school is also called Clerres.”

“The White Island.” More ports to rattle my sailor friends’ brains. More clues to give Kettricken and Elliania. I wanted to rush out of the room with my new information, but I looked at my friend and knew that I could not leave him so abruptly. “Fool. What can I do to make you feel better?”

He turned his face toward me. His golden eyes, so unnerving and so unseeing, seemed to bore into me. “Go with me to Clerres. And kill all of them.”

“I shall. But we need to plan now. How many people do you expect me to kill, and how shall we accomplish it? Poison? Knives? Explosives?”

My question trigged a terrible joy in his sightless gaze. “As to how, I leave that to the expert. You. How many? Forty, perhaps. Certainly no more than fifty.”

“Fifty . . . Fool, that’s a staggering number.” I had imagined six or even a dozen.

“I know. But they must be stopped. They must!”

“Who were the ones sent for the Unexpected Son? Who would have sent them?”

I could hear his breathing. I poured a bit more brandy into his teacup and he took a healthy swallow of it. “Dwalia was sent, but she would have been eager to go. She is not of the top echelon of Servants but, oh, how she longs to be! She is a Lingstra, rather like an emissary. They are sent on errands, to gather information or to tip events in the direction the Servants think they should go.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Lingstras behave as Catalysts for the Servants. Instead of supporting a true White Prophet and allowing him to find his Catalyst and change the world as his vision bids, they study all the prophecies and employ the Lingstras to set the world in a path that will best benefit them. An example. Say there is a prediction that a disease that kills sheep will sweep through an area where all depend on sheep for a livelihood. The sheep will die and the livelihood of all will be destroyed. What might one do?”

“One might study to see what cures there are for a sheep plague? Or warn the shepherds to keep their flocks from mingling.”

“Or one might seek to gain from it, by buying up wool and good-quality breeding stock, so that when disease makes wool scarce and sheep hard to find, one can sell them at a great profit.”

I was silent, shocked a bit.

“Fitz, do you remember the first time I came to you and asked you to do something?”

“Fat suffices,” I said quietly.

“A silly poem from a dream I had when I was barely seven. A dream that made you keep a lonely young woman’s lapdog alive, and give her advice to make her step up into her role as a duchess. A little tipping point. But what if someone went there and deliberately poisoned her dog, to set her at odds with her husband. What then?”

“The Six Duchies might have fallen to the Red Ships.”

“And the dragons might have been extinct forever.”

A sudden question stung me. “Why are the dragons so important? Why were the Servants so opposed to the dragons being revived?”

“I don’t have the answers to those questions, Fitz. The Servants are a secretive folk. Dragons being absent benefited them somehow. On that, I would wager my life. Yet over and over, my dreams came to me and told me that dragons must be returned to the world, dragons full of beauty and power and might. I did not even know what sort of dragons. Stone dragons? Real dragons? But together we brought them back. And, oh, how the Servants hate us for it.”

“Is that why they took my child?”

I was surprised when he reached across and put his hand on my forearm. “Fitz. It was an intersection of fates and futures, a very powerful one. If they could discover how much they have injured both of us, they would rejoice. They have struck us down, haven’t they? Dwalia came looking for the Unexpected Son. She was so certain I knew where he could be found. I didn’t, but she was willing to destroy me to find out what I did not know. And she has destroyed both of us, by taking and then losing our child. They have destroyed the hope of this world, the one that could guide us on a better course. We cannot restore that. But if we cannot give the world hope, we can remove some of its despair by killing those who serve only their own greed.”

“Tell me more about them.”

“They are tremendously wealthy. They have been corrupt for generations, and they use the prophecies to make themselves ever wealthier. They know what to buy to sell later at a much higher price. They manipulate the future, not to make the world a better place but only to add to their wealth. The White Island is their castle, their palace, and their citadel. At low tide, there is a causeway. When the tide comes in, it becomes a sea-swamp. It is called the White Island not for the White Prophets who once were sheltered and taught there, but for the fortified city, all made of bones.”

“Bones?” I exclaimed.

“Ancient bones of immense sea creatures. The island itself, some say, is a heap of bones. When they existed, they came to that area to breed and to die. The bones, Fitz . . . ah. I have never been able to imagine a creature so large as to have such bones. But the palisade that surrounds the city is made of thighbones, as tall and stout and hard as stone. Some say they are bones that turned to stone but kept their shape. And that the palisade and some of the structures are older even than the Servants and the legend of the Whites they once served.

“But if ever the Servants truly served, they have long ago forgotten that duty. There are ranks of Servants. The bottom level consists of the Servitors. We need not be overly concerned with most of them. They come hoping to rise in the ranks of Servants, but most remain humble servingfolk all their lives. When we destroy those who rule them, they will disperse.

“Some few are the children born to the Servants, the second and third offspring with ambitions. Those may present problems for us. Next come the Collators who read the dreams and sort them and make copies and keep indexes. The Collators are mostly harmless. The clever ones are used as fortune-tellers by the Servants, to fleece folk of their coins by bending prophecies to suit their wishes. Again, they would be little threat if the upper hierarchy were gone. Like ticks on a dog. If the dog is dead, the ticks starve.

“Then there are the Lingstras, like Dwalia. The Lingstras mostly do as they are told by the Manipulors. And no wickedness is beyond the Lingstras once their masters give their orders. The Manipulors are the ones who take counsel over the massed dreams of hundreds of years, to study them and to discover how best to build the wealth of the Servants. And above the Manipulors is the Council of Four. They are the root of the evil that the Servants have become. All descended from Servants, they have known no other life than wealth and privilege built on the stolen prophecies that should be employed to better the world. They would be the ones who would have decided that they must possess the Unexpected Son, at any cost.”

And I knew in that moment that they were the four I would kill. I pushed on with my questions. “There were others. Shine said Dwalia called them her luriks.”

He pinched his lips tightly together. “They can be seen as benighted children who believe too firmly in all they are told.” The set of his mouth told me he did not agree with that assessment. In a deadlier voice he added, “Or you can see them as traitors to their own kind. They are the children of the Whites who did not breed true, or showed their talent for precognition in strange ways. Vindeliar is an example of that. Some see nothing of the future but are adept at remembering every dream they have ever read. They are like walking libraries of the dream-scrolls, able to cite what they read and tell who dreamed it and when. Others are adept at interpreting an event and listing the dreams that foretold it in various forms. The ones who followed Dwalia and died deserved to die. On that, you can absolutely believe me.”

“So you have said. Do you remain certain of that?”

“I speak of the ones who held and passed the tools of my misery. The ones who pushed the needles into my back to shoot the burning colors under my skin. The ones who so meticulously incised the slices in my face. The ones who cut the Skill from my fingertips.” He took a shuddering breath. “Ones who chose to live free of inconvenience by tolerating the agony and degradation of others.”

I had begun to tremble but not as badly as he did. He shook. I went to him, drew him to his feet, and held him tightly, as much to still my own shaking as his. We had both known the torturer’s touch, and that creates a common ground that is hard for other to understand. “You killed them,” he reminded me. “The ones who tormented you in Regal’s dungeon. When you had the chance, you killed them.”

“I did.” My tongue stilled. I recalled a youngster, the last of his patrol, dying of poison. Did I regret him? Perhaps. But if I were in that situation again, I’d still do as I’d done. I squared my shoulders and renewed my promise. “And when I gain the chance, Fool, I will do the same to those who tormented you. And to those who gave you over to torture.”

“Dwalia,” he said and his voice went deep with hatred. “She was there. In the gallery, watching. Mimicking my screams.”

“Gallery?” I asked, confused.

He set his palms against my chest and pushed me suddenly away. I took no offense. I knew that sudden need not to be touched. When he spoke, his voice had gone high and he sounded as if he would laugh, but he did not. “Oh, yes, they have a gallery. It’s a much more sophisticated arena for torment than you Buckmen could ever imagine. There they might cut open the chest of a strapped-down child who shows no promise, to show the beating heart and swelling lungs to those who would later learn to be healers. Or torturers. Many come to witness torture, some to record every word that is spoken, and others to while away a tiresome afternoon. Fitz, when you can control the course of events, when you can precipitate a famine or bring wealth to a seaport and all who live near it, the suffering of one individual comes to mean less and less. We Whites are chattel to them, to be bred or slaughtered as they please. Yes, there is a gallery. And Dwalia looked down on me as I bled.”

“I wish I had been able to kill her for you, then, Fool. And for me as well.”

“So I wish also. But there are others. Those who raised and shaped her. Those who gave her power and permission.”

“Yes. So tell me of them.”

More the Fool told me that afternoon, and I listened well. The more he talked, the calmer he became. There were things he knew that might be useful. He knew of the deep spring that supplied the palace with water, and he knew of the four towers where the Council members slept. He knew of the horns that sounded when folk could cross the causeway and enter the fortified city that was the White Island, and of the bell that tolled to warn folk that they must leave or risk being caught by the rising tides. He knew of the walled garden and the great house where the Whites and part-Whites were housed, knowing no other world than that. “Raised like penned cattle thinking the pen is the world. When I first came to Clerres, the Servants kept me apart from their Whites, and I truly believed that I was the only White left in the world. The only White Prophet for this generation.” He sat silent, and then he sighed. “Then the Pale Woman, at that time little more than a girl, demanded to meet me. She hated me from the time she saw me, for I was so certain I was all she was not. She decreed that I must be tattooed as I was. And when they were done, they put me in with the others. Fitz, they hoped I would breed for them. But I was young, too young to be interested in such things, and the tales I told the others of my home and my family, of market days and cows to milk, and pressing grapes for wine . . . Oh. How they envied me those memories, and how they insisted they must only be tales. By day they mocked me and set me apart, but in the evenings they would gather round me and ask me questions and listen to my tales. They scoffed, even then, but I felt their hunger. At least for a time, I had had all that they had never known. The love of my parents. My sisters’ fond teasing. A little white cat that trotted at my heels. Ah, Fitz, I had been such a happy child.

“And telling them my tales sharpened my own hunger, until I had to take action. And so I escaped. And made my slow way to Buckkeep.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “To wait to discover you. To begin our tasks.”

And so he spoke, and I was entranced, as he shared so much I had never known of him. I sat and I listened to him, afraid to break the spell of such honesty. When he ceased speaking, I realized the day was dimming to a close. There was still so much I needed to do.

I persuaded him then to let me ring for Ash and have food brought, and perhaps ask for a bath. For I guessed now that he had neither bathed nor changed his clothes since he had returned from his misadventure. When I rose to leave, he smiled at me.

“We’re going there. We’re going to stop them.” It sounded like a promise.

“I am but one man, Fool. Your quest demands an army.”

“Or the father of a stolen and murdered child.”

So he described me, and for a moment my pain and my fury were one emotion. I did not speak but I felt that thin shiver of awareness between us. And he replied to that.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

Later that day I tapped at Chade’s door, and when no one answered, I slipped inside. He was dozing in a cushioned chair before the fire with his stocking feet up on a stool. I stepped to the door of his bedchamber, expecting to find some attendant there, Shine or Steady or a Skill-apprentice.

“We’re alone. For once.”

I startled at his words and turned to look at him. He had not opened his eyes. “Chade?”

“Fitz.”

“You sound much better than the last time I saw you. Almost like your old self.”

He drew a deeper breath and opened his eyes. Awake, he looked more aged than he had asleep. “I am not better. I cannot Skill. Nothing in my body feels right anymore. My joints ache and my stomach seems angry no matter what I eat.” He stared at his feet, propped up in front of the fire. “It’s all catching up with me, my boy. All the years.”

I do not know what made me do it. I went to his chair and sat on the floor beside it, as if I were eleven again and he my master. He set his bony hand on my head and ruffled my hair. “Oh, my boy. My Fitz. There you are. Now. When are you leaving?”

He knew. And for that moment, he was Chade as he had been always to me, knowing everything. It was a relief to speak to someone who understood me from the bones out. “As soon as I can. I’ve waited for weather, I’ve gathered my information and regained my Skill. I’ve tightened my muscles and renewed some skill with a blade. So much time I had to waste.”

“Sharpening your knife is never a waste of time. You’ve finally learned that. Not an apprentice any longer, nor even a journeyman. This makes you a master.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly and was surprised at the heart I took from his words. “I’ll have to go part of the way by the pillars, and from there I’ll have to travel overland, and then take a ship. It will be a very long journey.”

He nodded. His hand still rested on my head. “My son wants to go with you,” he said quietly.

“Lant?”

“Yes. He has spoken of it to me often, when he thought he was talking to my empty shell. He wants to go. And I want him to as well. Take him with you. Let him prove himself to himself and bring him back to me a man.”

“Chade, I can’t. He’s not . . .”

“He’s not like us. He lacks our capacity for hate. Or vengeance. He was appalled at what befell his so-called stepmother, but it had to be done. I know that, but he can’t see it. He would have gone to her and promised that he would make no claim on Vigilant’s estates. He believed he could calm her.” Chade shook his head. “He doesn’t recognize evil, even when it’s delivered a rib-cracking beating to him. He’s a good man, Fitz. Probably better than either of us. But he doesn’t feel as if he’s a man. Take him with you.”

“I don’t understand why he’d want to go.”

Chade gave a huff of laughter. “You are as close as he has to an elder brother. And who was my boy before he was? The tales I told of that nameless boy fired him with rivalry and with a desire to be like him. And be liked by him. In his early training, I made you the rival for my regard that he could never best. The one he determined he would equal. He longed to step up, to be in our company. Then he met you, and he failed. And failed again, and again. Fitz. I cannot give him what he seeks. I know you mean to go alone. That would be a mistake. Trust me in this, and take Lant. Until he wins your regard, he has none for himself. So take him. Let my son prove himself a man to you and to himself. Let both of you set aside all rivalry and jealousy.”

Jealousy? I felt no jealousy of that pup! But it was easier not to dispute that with Chade. I did not want to take Lant and I knew I could not take him, but I didn’t say no to Chade. For this moment, he was my old mentor as he had always been. I wanted no quarrel with him, not when I feared it might be my last conversation with him. I shifted our focus. “Have you been feigning illness all this time?”

“No. Only sometimes. It suits me to seem weak. Fitz, I don’t trust Rosemary. She has convinced Dutiful that he does not need assassins such as you and me. She’s been letting all my nets unravel. All my informants have gone unpaid, and unable to report to me. Everything I built, all those years. It’s falling apart.”

“Chade, I still have to go. I cannot stay here and take up your webs.”

“Heh!” He laughed and I looked up to see him smiling fondly at me. “As if you could. As if anyone could. No, Fitz. I’m failing and I know it. And no one will come after me. The time for such as me is past. No, I do not ask that you stay and take up my work. Go and do what you must.”

“Chade. Why do you pretend to be feeble, with a wandering mind?”

He laughed again. “Oh, Fitz. Because I am. Not every day and every hour. Sometimes I feel I am as sharp as ever. And then I cannot find my slippers, and I look and look, to find they were on my feet all that time.” He shook his head at himself. “Better that people think I am wandering all the time than know the truth. I don’t want Rosemary to see me as a threat to her assumption of power.”

I was incredulous. “Do you fear her?”

“Stop. I can already hear you thinking of how you will kill her for me. A slow poison, a fall down the steps. No one the wiser and the old man kept safe.”

He was right. It made me smile, and then I tried to feel ashamed of that. I couldn’t. He was right about me.

“So let her have it, my den and my bed, my tools and even my writings. She won’t find the key ones. No one will. Except perhaps you. When you come back.” He took a deep breath and sighed it out again. “I have another task now. Shine. There is so much time to make up for. They thought to punish me by killing her or marrying her off to some cloddish brute, but what they did was worse. She is vapid, Fitz. And vain. Ignorant. But she need not be. There is a bright mind there, turned to all the wrong things. Kettricken teaches her now and I do not despise what she teaches my daughter. But for all her years, Kettricken is still na"ive in some ways. She still believes that honesty and good will triumph in the end. So I must be here, for my Shine, to teach her that a little knife in her boot or a well-planned bolt-hole may be the key to a long life.

“And I want to be here to watch her bloom. They were all so astonished when I unlocked her Skill. They came on the run, they did, and helped her put up her walls and blocked her in until she can learn to master it. But she’s going to be strong, Fitz. Strong. If ever they doubted the Farseer blood ran true in me, my daughter will disprove them.”

So strange, to hear him admit that old doubt. “You are as much Farseer as I am,” I assured him.

He rumpled my hair again. “I’ve a gift for you,” he said quietly. “I sent for it some time ago. It’s from Jamaillia, by way of Bingtown, where they enlarged and corrected it. You should take it with you. It’s in the scroll case on top of the shelf in my bedroom. The case is dyed blue. It’s for you. Go get it now.”

I rose and went to his bedchamber. I found the scroll case and brought it back to him. He took it from me and directed me, “Find a chair and pull it up here.”

And by the time I had done that, he had opened the case and pulled out the rolled-up map. For such it was. The leather had been scraped thin, and it uncoiled to twice the size I had expected it to be. It was done on calfskin, and inked all in gleaming colors. The lettering was wondrous tiny but still clear to read. There were the Six Duchies, and the Mountain Kingdom. Chalced, and the Rain Wilds. And beyond them, the Cursed Shores, with Bingtown, and then on, to far Jamaillia, with the Pirate Isles. And beyond them, the Spice Isles. “It’s beautiful, Chade. But it’s so different from every other map of Chalced or the Rain Wilds or—”

“Much more accurate,” he said brusquely. “With increased traffic through that region, we now have far better charts and maps. Verity drew his maps based on what he knew himself, and the resources of the time. There were no freely available charts of the Rain Wild River, and those he bought were the work of charlatans intent only on gaining coin. The same is true for the interior of Chalced. And of course Bingtown and those regions. Charts of the Cursed Shores are notoriously bad because of the storms that change the shorelines and river mouths almost every season. But there it is. The best map that Six Duchies gold could buy. I intended to keep it, but I’m giving it to you. Along with this.”

His flick of his wrist was not as limber as it once had been. I was still impressed when a bone tube slid into his hand. He unscrewed a finely tooled stopper and shook out a small roll of paper so thin it was almost translucent. “This is my work,” he said, holding it coiled in his hand. “The work I saw fit to do, knowing the danger but deeming it necessary. Aslevjal will not stand forever. As the ice caverns have warmed and the water has run, the old halls are leaking. Green slime and moss have begun to venture through the passages. Mold grows on the map they left there.”

He proffered the rolled paper to me. I opened it carefully. My silence was awe. “Every detail,” I finally said aloud in slow amazement.

He chuckled his delight at my realization of what he had handed me. “Every Skill-portal is marked. The engraving on the Elderling map there was fading, but I copied all I could see, Fitz. It will tell you what was graven on each face of every pillar. The destinations available to you. I intended to transfer it all to my new map, but my vision is fading. And I no longer feel inclined to share my hard-won secrets with those who do not appreciate the risks I ran to get them. If they wish to think me a foolish and reckless old man, then let them.”

“Oh, Chade. This is—” His flapping hand interrupted my gratitude. He had never been good at accepting thanks.

“You take it, my boy. Finish my work.”

He went suddenly into a coughing fit and gestured wildly for water, but when I brought it to him he coughed so badly he could not drink it at first. Once he could, he seemed to choke on it, and then finally to gasp in a free breath. “I’m fine,” he wheezed. “Don’t delay here. Take it and go before Shine comes back. Curious as a cat is that one! Be away now. If she sees you carry anything out of here, she will natter me with questions until I cannot think. Go, Fitz. But bid me farewell before you leave. And come to me first when you return.”

“I will.” And moved by what impulse I do not know, I stooped and kissed his brow.

He hooked his bony hand around the back of my head and for a moment held me close. “Oh, my boy. The best mistake Chivalry ever made was you. Go on now.”

And I did. I carried the map case under my arm, but the bone cylinder had gone up my sleeve as soon as Chade had said it was mine. Back in my fine new chamber, I found the fire burning brightly, my bed spread smoothly, and my other boots polished to a sheen by the wardrobe. Someone had placed a decanter of amber brandy on my mantelpiece with two fine little glasses beside it. Servants gave one very little privacy. It took some thinking to come up with two different hiding places that might withstand scrutiny and tidying. I stitched a loop to the back of a tapestry and secured Chade’s pillar-map there. The other map case was larger, but I found a spot atop the trim that held up the bed curtains. It was reassuringly dusty and I hoped it would remain so.

That done, I sat down by myself for the first time since I’d returned from Withywoods. I toed off my boots and peeled the damp stockings from my feet. I sat and felt the heat of the fire penetrate my body. The brandy proved to be of an excellent quality and I reflected wearily that drinking it on an empty stomach was not my best idea today.

Fitz. Da? I’ve heard you are back at Buckkeep Castle. Both Dutiful and I are very anxious to sit down with you. Will you join us in my sitting room, please?

Of course. When?

Now, please. Dutiful had rather expected you would come to see him as soon as you’d returned.

Of course. I should have. I was concerned for the Fool.

And Chade, too.

I found him better than I expected, I admitted, and wondered a bit woefully how she knew so clearly of all my movements since I had returned.

He has good days, and some that are not so good. Will you come now, please? The king has taken this time for us from a very busy schedule.

Immediately.

Dry socks. I started to pull on the cleaned boots and then looked at myself. Rumpled shirt. Weather-stained trousers. I opened the wardrobe and found an array of new shirts, variously afflicted with buttons. I’d never owned so many clothes in my life and I wondered who was arranging these for me. Ash? Nettle? Some poor servant in charge of dressing bastards elevated to noble status?

They fit me well enough, though there was room for more paunch than was flattering. I’d chosen a blue shirt and I paired it with dark trousers. I added the vest that had been hung with the shirt. There was a ribbony thing with it that I didn’t know how to wear. I hoped it wasn’t important. The vest was long, hanging almost to my knees.

Neither the shirt nor the vest had any hidden pockets. As I went to my meeting with little more than the knife in my boot, I wondered how I would defend either of them if danger threatened. I felt oddly naked. I hurried down the corridors to Nettle’s chambers, stood outside her door, and hesitated. Then I knocked.

A serving boy opened it and said, “Oh! Prince FitzChivalry!” and then hit his head on the corner of the door as he dived into a low bow. I caught his elbow before he hit the floor and steadied him as he repeatedly apologized. I was still holding on to him when Nettle came to the door and demanded, “What goes on here?”

“He hit his head on the door frame,” I explained, and the boy babbled, “Yes, my lady, that was exactly what happened!” in such a panicked voice that I scarcely believed him, let alone Nettle. She gave me a horrified look and I tried to release the boy gently. He still sat down flat on the floor.

“This way, please,” she said and I followed her in silence.

“Really,” I whispered. “He bowed too fast and hit his head on the door.”

For all that Nettle was my daughter, I had visited her chambers only seldom on long-ago visits to Buckkeep. Now I entered her sitting room to find it as stuffed with royalty as a pie is with cherries. The king and the queen were both seated facing the hearth while Kettricken stood by the window, holding the curtain back to peer out at the evening. Shine was beside her. Lant and Prince Prosper stood near the mantel. Prince Integrity was poking the coals, and Dutiful’s Wit-dog gave me a piercing look as I entered. Chade was the only Farseer not present.

It was my turn to make a low bow to my king and queen. “My lord, my lady, I regret my delay in coming here today—”

“There’s no time left for formality.” Dutiful cut me off in a weary voice. “Nettle already told us that you are determined to go after the people who sent raiders into Buck to steal Bee and Lady Shine.”

Bluntness called for honesty. “Exactly,” I said.

“Your intent being?”

“Vengeance!” My queen spoke for me with a vehemence that surprised me. “Bloody and righteous vengeance on those who stole a daughter of our blood. Just as he wrought when the Pale Woman stole my mother and sister! If we had known that they had a distant den to hide in, we could have carried the war to them then! And this would never, never have happened!” Elliania lifted a shaking hand and pointed it at Integrity. “I give you my son. He will ride beside you, to avenge this grievous insult, this terrible loss to our motherhouse! I will send to my mother the Narcheska and my sister Kossi, and she will muster the men of the Narwhal Clan to join you!”

Integrity’s color was very high. “Mother, I vow . . .”

“Integrity! Vow not.” Dutiful shot me a desperate look. “It puts my lady very much in mind of the time when little Kossi was stolen. And at night, she has evil dreams of when she was tormented and forced to offer herself as bait to lure us into the Pale Woman’s trap.”

Oh. Never had I seen it that way, or considered what memories my own tragedy must wake in her. I dropped to my knees in front of Elliania and looked up into her face. Tears were streaming and by the look of her eyes, not for the first time this day. “My queen. Please. Dry your tears and have faith in me. I promise you that I go, and soon, to discover where these snakes nest. Let Integrity remain here, at your side. If I have need of him, I will send word to Nettle to summon him, and then he can come, bringing whatever force you deem necessary, following a way I will clearly chart for them. But for now, Queen Elliania, let me go alone and secretly.”

It was not an easy posture to hold, on my aching knees, my head craned down and my face twisted up to look into hers. She bit her lip, and then gave a minuscule nod.

“Alone?” I had not realized Riddle was in the room until he spoke.

“Alone,” I affirmed.

“What of me?”

Nettle opened her mouth but I was faster. “You already know the answer to that. If you do not stay, I cannot go. Nettle is heavy with child. Your place is here, guarding that which is precious to both of us.”

He bowed his head to that. “Still. You should not go alone,” he said quietly.

“He won’t be alone,” Lant interjected. “I’m going with him.”

I turned to face him but spoke to the whole room. “Lord Chade already suggested I take FitzVigilant. And I deeply appreciate his offer. But as I must make the first step of my journey via the Skill-stones, I fear I must go alone, even if it were not my preference.”

Lant set his jaw and gave me a baleful stare. I opened my hands helplessly and shrugged.

“And what of the Fool?” Dutiful demanded abruptly.

I hadn’t wanted to discuss that. “He must remain here, and for the same reasons. I have not had the heart to tell him so, but I will. I travel by the pillars, and that will be risky enough for me to do alone. Last time I attempted to bring the Fool through a stone I drained Riddle’s strength to take him with me.” I turned my head, speaking to all of them. “It’s very simple. I intend to go alone and swiftly. I will find the way to Clerres. I will study its weaknesses. And then I will send for who and what I need.” I forced a smile to my face. “Not even I would be so foolish as to imagine I could carry out a solo attack against a city.”

For a moment, a silence fell, and I wondered how many of them did imagine I would be that foolish. Then the objections erupted.

“But, FitzChivalry—”

“Fitz, you will need—”

“What is your plan?” Kettricken spoke from her post near the window. Her low voice cut through the others and silence fell.

“It’s not much of a plan.” I clambered to my feet. My knees made small noises. My body healed swiftly but it still objected to some things. “I’ve gathered some tools and supplies. I’ve consulted with the Fool about my journey. And I am ready to leave. Tomorrow.”

Kettricken was shaking her head slowly. I turned to look at Dutiful. “No,” he said succinctly. “You can’t do it that way, Fitz. There has to be a farewell dinner, and you must ride out of Buckkeep like a prince, not slink off like a—”

He fumbled for words. “Lone wolf,” Nettle supplied in a low voice.

“Exactly,” Dutiful concurred. “You have been reintroduced to the court. You can’t simply vanish.”

Dismay rose in me like a tide. “Must all know what I go to do?”

There was a moment of quiet. Dutiful spoke slowly. “There have been rumors. Rumors from Withywoods, gossip among the guard companies. Bodies found. Evidently the pale folk would rather kill themselves than be captured or face hardship surviving alone. They leapt from the sea cliffs. They were seen doing so, and later the remains washed ashore. So there have been questions. And fears. We have to offer some answers.”

Chade would have been proud of me. The perfect deception came immediately to mind. “Let us announce that I am going to ask counsel of the Elderlings, as to what I should do against such an enemy. And that is why I depart by the Skill-stone and alone.”

“The True Elderlings,” Kettricken supplied.

“True Elderlings?”

“Some of the correspondence we have received from Bingtown asserts that the Traders who settled in Kelsingra with their hatched dragons are insisting that they are now Elderlings. A claim I find both preposterous and offensive.” She had seen Verity absorbed into his stone dragon, but some part of her believed in the old legends of the wise Elderlings forever feasting in their halls of stone, their dragons sleeping but ready to wake to the call of the Six Duchies. That same legend had lured Verity to the Mountains in search of the Elderlings, the legendary allies of the Six Duchies.

“I think that will be a very acceptable tale,” I suggested and looked round at my family. They were all nodding except Riddle. He had that weary expression that I had often worn when Chade would announce one of his masquerades.

“Give me five days to make all ready,” Dutiful suggested.

“I should like to leave in two,” I said quietly. One would have been better.

“Three, then,” he compromised.

I still had a difficulty. “I must entrust the Fool to your safekeeping. He will not be pleased about this, for he believes he must go with me. He thinks he can make the journey, despite blindness and his frail health. But I do not think I can care for him and still travel by the stones as swiftly as I need to.”

Kettricken had come to stand beside me. She set her hand on my arm. “Leave our old friend in my hands, Fitz. I will see that he is neither neglected nor overwhelmed. It would be my pleasure to do so.”

“I will send word to my brothers and Hap, to let them know you are departing,” Nettle offered. She shook her head. “I do not think they will have time to journey here and wish you farewell.”

“Thank you,” I told her, and wondered why such niceties never occurred to me. Then I knew. Farewells were always hard for me. And I’d left the most difficult one for last. The Fool was not going to be pleased with my plan.

It was difficult for me to extract myself from that gathering. Suggestions and ideas and warnings from those who loved me battered me until almost the dinner hour. As we left the chamber, I informed them that I had had to visit the Fool again. Kettricken nodded grimly. Riddle, ever pragmatic, said he would see that food and wine were sent up to Mage Gray’s rooms.

I dragged my feet through the halls of Buckkeep, inventing and discarding a hundred ways of telling him that I was leaving him behind. I stood for a long time outside his door. At last I decided there was no good way to give him the news. Once more, I considered a coward’s way out: I simply would not tell him. I would just go.

But I was certain that Ash would be a party to the announcement of my departure, and what he knew, the Fool would know. I lifted my hand and knocked and waited. Spark opened the door to me. She smiled to see me, and I decided that perhaps they had made up their quarrel. “It’s Prince FitzChivalry, sir. Shall I admit him?” she called merrily over her shoulder.

“Of course!” He sounded hearty. I peered past Spark to see Lord Gray sitting at his table. Motley was there, among an assortment of small items. I guessed at the game they’d been playing. I was glad at how quickly he’d recovered his spirits and miserable that I would soon destroy his cheerfulness. But I had no choice.

No sooner was the door closed behind me than he demanded, “How soon do we leave?”

Just say it. “I leave in three days.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“I can’t take you with me.”

He cocked his head at me. Shock was replaced with a desperate smile. “And yet well you know you cannot find the way there without me.”

“I can.” I stepped around Spark and moved toward the table. I drew out the other chair and sat down opposite him. He opened his mouth. “No,” I said firmly. “Hear me out. I can’t take you, Fool. I make the first part of my journey by the stones, using the same ones that Bee did. I dare not try to take you through with me—”

“I dare!” he declared over the top of my words, but I kept speaking.

“You are still healing. It’s not just your body that needs time, as well we both know. It’s best you take that time here at Buckkeep, where you are warm, safe, and fed, among friends. It’s my hope that as your health improves, the King’s Own Coterie can attempt a fuller Skill-healing, perhaps even restore your vision. I know it must sound harsh to you, but if I try to take you with me, it will slow me down and may well kill you.”

The crow and the serving girl regarded me with hard, bright eyes. The Fool was breathing hard through his nose, as if he’d just climbed a towerful of stairs. His hands gripped the edge of the table. “You mean it,” he said in a shaking voice. “You’re leaving me here. I hear it in your voice.”

I drew a deep breath. “If I could, Fool, I would—”

“But you can. You can! Take the risk! Take all the risks! So we die in a stone, or on a ship, or at Clerres. So we die, and it ends. We die together.”

“Fool, I—”

“She wasn’t only your child! She was the hope of the world. And she was mine, and I only ever touched her for one brief moment! Why can you imagine I’d hesitate to risk my life for the chance to avenge her? To bring all Clerres crashing down around their ears! What, do you imagine I’ll sit here and drink tea and chat with Kettricken while you go off without me? Fitz! Fitz! You can’t do this to me! You can’t!”

His voice had risen and he shouted the last words at me, as if shouting would somehow change the logic of my decision. When he paused to draw breath, we all heard the knocking at the door. The cadence indicated it had been going on for some time.

“Take care of that!” the Fool snapped at Spark.

With a pale face and folded lips, she did as she was ordered. The Fool sat across from me, his chest heaving. I sat still and silent, not listening to the words at the door. Spark closed it and came to the table bearing a tray. “Someone sent food for this room.”

“I thought we might discuss this over dinner. I’d hoped to learn more that might help me.”

Spark set the tray down between us with a sharp clack. The savory fragrance of seared meat seemed to come from some other world where such pleasures mattered.

Watching the Fool’s anger build was almost terrifying. It seemed to come up from somewhere deep in his chest. I saw his chest swell and his shoulders bunch. His hands clenched and the tendons in his throat stood out. I knew what he was going to do an instant before he did it, but I made no move as he seized the sides of the tray of food and wine and upended it toward me. The gravy was hot and a wineglass bounced from my brow before dumping its contents in my lap. It fell to the floor with a soft chime of impact and then rolled in a half-circle.

Spark gasped. The crow uttered a harsh “ha, ha, ha!” before opening her wings and hopping from the table to the floor. Without hesitation, she began to sort through the food. I lifted my eyes from her to the Fool’s frozen countenance. “More that might help you? More that might help you to leave me behind here? You will hear nothing more from me. Get out. Get out!”

I rose. There had been linen napkins with the tray of food. I took one and wiped most of the food from my chest and lap. I folded the mess into it and set it quietly on the table. I spoke. I knew I should not, I knew it, and yet the words came out of my mouth. “And this is yet another reason I cannot take you with me. You have lost all control of yourself, Fool. I came to tell you that I’m going alone. I did that. Good night.”

And I left him there, with the crow eating and Spark weeping noisily enough for all of us.

The next few days passed in a whirl. Two seamstresses came to my room early the next morning and measured me thoroughly for “traveling clothes.” I told them to leave off any decorative buttons. A day later they delivered to my room sturdy shirts and trousers in subtle browns and a tightly woven cloak lined with fur. The lightweight leather armor came separately and was of a quality I had never experienced. The high-collared vest would protect my chest, belly, and throat. There were greaves and vambraces, also brown and unmarked by any insignia. I was pleased that Dutiful had known I would need to travel quietly and unremarked. But then came another delivery, of a lovely Buck-blue cloak and blue-dyed leather gloves lined with lamb’s wool, and a doublet embroidered all over with bucks and narwhals. I began to guess that there was more than one kind heart supplying me for my journey.

My worn pack was replaced by one of weatherproofed canvas with sturdy straps. The first things I put into it were Bee’s books and Molly’s candles. Those would go with me to the ends of the earth.

The word had gone out that I would be leaving, and the farewell notes, invitations, and gifts were overwhelming. And yet all must be acknowledged and politely refused. Every loose thread snipped or tied. Ash came to my room, grim-faced and silent, and every day presented me with all these missives sorted into tidy piles.

And I returned to the Fool’s room and failed at reasoning with him. I endured the Fool’s constant imprecations and pleas that I reconsider. I continued to see him and he continued to batter me with anger, sorrow, sarcasm, and silence. I held firm. “You will never penetrate those walls without me. I am your only hope of gaining entry,” he told me more than once. The more I refused to discuss it, the more he talked only about it. It did not stop my daily visits but I counted down to the last one.

Two days before my departure, Kettricken summoned me to her audience chamber. That day no one else was waiting, having been warned she was busy for the whole day. I was admitted immediately and found her busy with pen and paper. A scroll rack had been brought in, and it held perhaps a score of scrolls. She was kneeling on a cushion, pen in hand, head bent over a vellum.

“Just in time,” she said as I entered. “I’m finished.” She lifted a container and sanded her wet ink.

I opened my mouth to speak and she held up a hand. “Many years ago, I suffered as I have watched you suffer. I waited in idleness, knowing nothing of the fate of my husband. Of my love.” Her voice broke slightly on the word. “When I set out at last, I had nothing to guide me except hope and a map.” She tapped the sand from the vellum and offered it to me. “A map. With Clerres on it. And Fishbones and Wortletree and all the other places you’ve been seeking. A map based on old drawings and hearsay and tales from that old sailor.”

I stared at her incredulously. “The one from the tavern? He had little enough to tell me.”

She smiled. “Him, and a few others. More than a little I have learned from our good Chade through the years. And informants love to be paid. A few were clever enough to move up the chain and come to me with empty palms waiting. A few coins and they are mine now, Fitz, and with them all they know.” A steaming pot and two cups had been waiting on the table. She wore a little cat-smile as she poured a bit, considered the color, and then filled our cups. As she set one before me, she blushed and said, “Tell me you are proud of me.”

“Always. And astounded!”

Her hand was more delicate than Verity’s but her work as precise. She had noted that sailing into Wortletree at low tide was inadvisable, and a few other snippets of information.

We had finished our tea when she asked suddenly, “You don’t expect to come back, do you?”

I gaped at her. Then I demanded, “How did you know?”

“You’ve the look that Verity had when he was carving his dragon. He knew he’d begun something that he would not return from.”

We both fell silent for a time. Then she spoke in a husky whisper. “Thank you for my son.”

I lifted my eyes from the map. I just looked at her.

“I’ve known for years. How it was done.”

I didn’t ask how she knew. Starling had possibly told her. Perhaps Verity himself.

“Your body. Verity’s will.”

“I wasn’t there, Kettricken. I spent that night inhabiting Verity’s body.”

“He’s Verity’s son. I know.”

And we left it there, and I was not certain if I felt better for her knowing and letting me know she knew or if I felt even odder about it. I only asked her, “Are you telling me this because you don’t think I’ll come back?”

She met my gaze. “I think you left when you lost Bee, and you haven’t truly been here since. Go find out, Fitz. Come back to us if you can. But go do what you must.”

The farewell feast happened the next evening. It was interminable, with more food than anyone should possibly try to eat at a single meal, and far too much to drink. There were many toasts to me and a tableful of farewell gifts and tokens that would have required a baggage train. It was all well meant and the food I managed to eat was delicious, but ever since I had announced my departure, it had felt as if every event were an obstacle to be overcome on my way to finally leaving. Chade was there but not truly present. The Fool did not come.

It was very late when we processed away from the table. There was another round of farewells in Dutiful’s sitting room. Nettle wept and Chade dozed off and Elliania gave me a kerchief and asked me to dip it in the blood of any I slew, that she might bury it in the soil of her motherhouse so their souls would never know peace. I think she was a bit crazy, and wondered if my leaving would help her find calm again. Thick was morose. The little man had not been well since he’d returned from Withywoods, and his Skill-song that evening was almost a dirge. Both the princes promised me that if I called for them to come to my aid, they would bring the might of Buckkeep and the Narwhal Clan with them. Shine and Lant were there, flanking their father. Shine promised to take excellent care of Chade in my absence. Lant looked at me like a woeful hound. He had presented himself to me two days earlier, asking again to go with me. I’d refused him again. “What will my father say of this?” he demanded in an effort to sway me when his own demands failed. I was heartless. “I suppose you will find out when you tell him,” I’d said. From Chade’s calm demeanor, I doubted they’d had that discussion. It was not my problem. When tomorrow came and I was gone and Lant was not, then he and Chade could deal with it.

When finally I insisted I must sleep so that I could make an early departure, Riddle walked me to the door. “I’ll ride with you and your guard tomorrow,” he told me. “But for now, I want you to have this. It’s been lucky for me.” His token was a knife, not much longer than my hand, with the blade sharpened on both sides and a blood-groove down the center.

“It goes in easy and pulls out easy and it’s quiet,” he told me as he passed it to me in its well-worn sheath. And I left wondering if I knew Riddle as well as I’d believed I did.

I found Ash and Perseverance loitering in the corridor outside my door. Motley was on Ash’s shoulder. “Good night,” I told them.

“It’s not right to leave him,” Ash told me bluntly. “He’s despondent. He’s been saying wild things, and I fear what he may do if you go without him. In all his stories, you two are together. How can you leave him?”

“I should go with you. And we should take Bee’s horse. If we find her, she’ll want to ride her own horse home.”

I looked from one to the other. Both so earnest. I had grown fond of both of them.

But not that fond.

I looked at Ash. “After all of our years together, I believe I’m a better judge of what is good for us than you are. And he is in no condition to go on a long and demanding journey.”

I looked at Perseverance. “And Bee is gone. There is no finding her, and she will never need a horse again.”

Ash’s mouth was ajar. Perseverance had gone pale. I heard him trying to get his breath.

I opened the door of my room, entered, and shut them out.