The Fool took hold of my hand and led me into the tent. He pushed at me un­til I sat down, and took off my hat and mit­tens and outer coat. Without a word, he put a hot mug into my hands. That I could un­der­stand, but the rapid, wor­ried con­ver­sa­tion of the oth­ers was like the frightened squawk­ing of a coop full of chick­ens. The wolf came and lay down be­side me, to rest his big head on one of my thighs. I reached down to stroke the broad skull and fin­ger the soft ears. He pressed closer against me as if plead­ing. I scratched him be­hind the ears, think­ing that might be what he wanted. It was ter­rible not to know.

  I was not much use to any­one that even­ing. I tried to do my share of the chores, but the oth­ers kept tak­ing them out of my hands. Sev­eral times I was pinched, or poked and bid, ‘Wake up!’ by Kettle. One time I be­came so fas­cin­ated by the mo­tion of her mouth as she scol­ded me that I didn’t real­ize when she walked away from me. I don’t re­mem­ber what I was do­ing when the back of my neck was seized in her claw-like grip. She dragged my head for­ward and kept her hold while she tapped each stone in turn on her game­cloth. She put a black stone in my hand. For a time I just stared at the mark­ers. Then sud­denly I felt that shift in per­cep­tion. There was no space between me and the game. For a time I tried my pebble in vari­ous po­s­i­tions. I fi­nally found the per­fect move, and when I set my stone in place, it was as if my ears had sud­denly cleared, or like blink­ing sleep from my eyes. I lif­ted my eyes to con­sider those around me.

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered in­ad­equately. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Bet­ter now?’ Kettle asked me softly. She spoke as if I were a tod­dler.

  ‘I’m more my­self now,’ I told her. I looked up at her, sud­denly des­per­ate. ‘What happened to me?’

  ‘The Skill,’ she said simply. ‘You just aren’t strong enough in it. You nearly fol­lowed the road where it no longer goes. There is some sort of marker there, and once the road di­verged there, one track go­ing down into the val­ley and the other con­tinu­ing across the moun­tain­side. The down­hill path is sheared off, car­ried away in a cata­clysm years ago. There is noth­ing but tumbled stone at the bot­tom, but one can just see where the road emerges from the ruin and con­tin­ues. It van­ishes in an­other jumble of stone in the dis­tance. Ver­ity could not have gone there. But you nearly fol­lowed its memory to your death.’ She paused and looked at me severely. ‘In my days … you haven’t been trained enough to do what you’ve been do­ing, let alone face this chal­lenge. If this is the best you were taught … Are you cer­tain Ver­ity is alive?’ she sud­denly de­man­ded of me. ‘That he sur­vived this trial alone?’

  I de­cided one of us had to stop keep­ing secrets. ‘I saw him, in a Skill-dream. In a city, with folk such as we passed today. He laved his hands and arms in a ma­gic river, and walked away laden with power.’

  ‘God of fishes!’ Kettle swore. Some­thing of hor­ror and some­thing of awe lit in her face.

  ‘We passed no folk today,’ Starling ob­jec­ted. I had not been aware she had seated her­self by me un­til she spoke. I jumped, startled that someone could get that close to me and I had not sensed it.

  ‘All those who have ever trod­den this road have left some­thing of them­selves upon it. Your senses are muffled to those ghosts, but Fitz walks here na­ked as a new-born child. And as na­ive.’ Kettle leaned back sud­denly against her bed­roll, and all the lines in her face deepened. ‘How can such a child be the Cata­lyst?’ she asked of no one in par­tic­u­lar. ‘You don’t know how to save your­self from your­self. How are you go­ing to save the world?’

  The Fool leaned over from his bed­roll sud­denly to take my hand. Some­thing like strength flowed into me with that re­as­sur­ing touch. His tone was light, but his words sank into me. ‘Com­pet­ence was never guar­an­teed in the proph­ecies. Only per­sist­ence. What does your White Colum say? “They come like rain­drops against the stone towers of time. But in time it is al­ways the rain that pre­vails, not the tower.’” He gave my hand a squeeze.

  ‘Your fin­gers are like ice,’ I told him as he let go.

  ‘I am cold past be­lief,’ he agreed with me. He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. ‘Cold and tired. But per­sist­ent.’

  I lif­ted my eyes from him to find Starling with a know­ing smile on her face. Gods, how it irked me. ‘I have elf­bark in my pack,’ I sug­ges­ted to the Fool. ‘It gives warmth as well as strength.’

  ‘Elf­bark.’ Kettle scowled, as if it were dis­gust­ing. But after a mo­ment’s re­flec­tion, she said ex­citedly, ‘Ac­tu­ally, that might be a good idea. Yes. Elf­bark tea.’

  When I took the drug out of my pack, Kettle snatched it out of my hands as if I might cut my­self on it. She muttered to her­self as she meas­ured tiny por­tions of it into mugs for us. ‘I’ve seen what kind of doses you ex­pose your­self to,’ she chided me, and brewed the tea her­self. She put none of it in the tea she pre­pared for Kettricken, Starling and her­self.

  I sipped at my hot tea, tast­ing first the ac­rid bite of the elf­bark and then the warmth of it in my belly. Its en­er­vat­ing heat spread through me. I watched the Fool, and saw him re­lax in its em­brace, even as his eyes began to sparkle with it.

  Kettricken had her map out and was frown­ing over it. ‘FitzChiv­alry, study this with me,’ the Queen sud­denly com­man­ded. I moved around the bra­zier to sit next to her. I was scarcely settled be­fore she began. ‘I be­lieve we are here,’ she told me. Her fin­ger tapped the first junc­ture of the trail that was marked on the map. ‘Ver­ity said he would visit all three places that were marked on the map. I be­lieve that when this map was made, the road that you nearly fol­lowed to­night was in­tact. Now it is no longer there. And has not been there for some time.’ Her blue eyes met mine. ‘What do you sup­pose Ver­ity did when he reached this point?’

  I con­sidered a mo­ment. ‘He’s a prag­matic man. This other, second des­tin­a­tion looks no more than three or four days from here. I think he might go there first, seek­ing the Eld­er­lings there. And this third one is but, oh, seven days past there. I think he would de­cide it would be fast­est to visit those two places first. Then, if he had no suc­cess there, he might re­turn here, to try and find a way down to … whatever’s there.’

  She wrinkled her brow. I sud­denly re­called how smooth it had been when she was first his bride. Now I sel­dom saw her without lines of care and worry in her face. ‘He has been gone long, my hus­band. Yet it did not take us all that long to reach here. Per­haps he has not yet re­turned be­cause he is down there. Be­cause it took him so long to find a way down there to con­tinue his jour­ney.’

  ‘Per­haps,’ I agreed un­eas­ily. ‘Bear in mind that we are well sup­plied and travel to­gether. By the time Ver­ity reached this far, he would have been alone, and with few re­sources.’ I re­frained from telling Kettricken that I sus­pec­ted he had been in­jured in that last battle. There was no sense in giv­ing her more anxi­ety. Against my will, I felt a part of me grop­ing out to­ward Ver­ity. I shut my eyes and res­ol­utely sealed my­self in again. Had I ima­gined a taint upon the Skill-cur­rent, a too-fa­mil­iar feel­ing of in­si­di­ous power? I set my walls again.

  ‘… split the party?’

  ‘I beg par­don, my queen,’ I said humbly.

  I did not know if the look in her eyes were ex­as­per­a­tion or fear. She took my hand and held it firmly. ‘At­tend me,’ she com­man­ded. ‘I said, to­mor­row we shall seek a way down. If we see any­thing that looks prom­ising, we will at­tempt it. But I think we should give such a search no more than three days. If we find noth­ing, we should move on. But an al­tern­at­ive is to split the party. To send …’

  ‘I do not think we should split the party,’ I said hast­ily.

  ‘You are most likely cor­rect,’ she con­ceded. ‘But it takes so long, so very long, and I have been alone with my ques­tions too long.’

  I could think of noth­ing to say to that, so I pre­ten­ded to be busy rub­bing Nighteyes’ ears.

  My brother. It was a whis­per, no more, but I looked down at Nighteyes be­side me. I res­ted a hand on his ruff, strength­en­ing the bond with a touch. You were as empty as an or­din­ary hu­man. I could not make you even feel me.

  I know. I don’t know what happened to me.

  I do. You are mov­ing ever farther from my side to the other side. I fear you will go too far and be un­able to re­turn. I feared it had already happened today.

  What do you mean, my side, and the other side?

  ‘Can you hear the wolf again?’ Kettricken asked me wor­riedly. I was sur­prised, when I looked up, to see how anxiously she re­garded me.

  ‘Yes. We are to­gether again,’ I told her. A thought oc­curred to me. ‘How did you know we were un­able to com­mu­nic­ate?’

  She shrugged. ‘I sup­pose I as­sumed it. He seemed so anxious and you seemed so dis­tant from every­one.’

  She has the Wit. Don’t you, my queen?

  I can not say for cer­tain that some­thing passed between them. Once, long be­fore in Buck­keep, I thought I had sensed Kettricken us­ing the Wit. I sup­pose she well could have been us­ing it then, for my own sense of it was so di­min­ished I could scarce sense my own bond-an­imal. In any case Nighteyes lif­ted his head to look at her and she re­turned his gaze stead­ily. With a small frown, Kettricken ad­ded, ‘Some­times I wish I could speak to him as you do. Had I his speed and stealth at my dis­posal, I could be more cer­tain of the safety of the road, both be­fore us and be­hind. He might be able to find a path down, one not ap­par­ent to our eyes.’

  If you can keep your Wits about you enough to tell her what I see, I would not mind do­ing such a task.

  ‘Nighteyes would be most pleased to help you in such a way, my queen,’ I offered.

  She gave a weary smile. ‘Then, I sup­pose, if you can keep aware of both of us, you may serve as go-between.’

  Her eerie echo­ing of the wolf’s thought un­settled me, but I only nod­ded my as­sent. Every as­pect of con­ver­sa­tion now de­man­ded my com­plete at­ten­tion, or it slipped away from me. It was like be­ing hor­ribly tired and hav­ing to con­stantly fight off sleep. I wondered if it were this hard for Ver­ity.

  There is a way to ride it, but lightly, lightly, like mas­ter­ing an ill-tempered stal­lion who rebels against every touch of the rein or heel. But you are not ready to do so yet. So fight it, boy, and keep your head above wa­ter. Would that there were an­other way for you to come to me. But there is only the road, and you must fol­low it – No, make no reply to me. Know that there are oth­ers that listen av­ar­i­ciously if not as keenly as I. Be wary.

  Once, in de­scrib­ing my father Chiv­alry, Ver­ity had said that when he Skilled it was like be­ing trampled by a horse, that Chiv­alry would rush into his mind, dump out his mes­sages and flee. I now had a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of what my uncle had meant. I felt rather like a fish sud­denly deser­ted by a wave. There was that gap­ing sense of some­thing miss­ing in the in­stant after Ver­ity’s de­par­ture. It took me a mo­ment to re­mem­ber I was a per­son. Had I not been for­ti­fied already with the elf­bark, I think I might have fain­ted. As it was, the drug was in­creas­ing its hold on me. I had a sense of be­ing muffled in a warm soft blanket. My wear­i­ness was gone, but I felt muted. I fin­ished the little that was left in my cup and waited for the flush of en­ergy that elf­bark usu­ally gave me. It didn’t come.

  ‘I don’t think you used enough,’ I told Kettle.

  ‘You have had plenty,’ she said with as­per­ity. She soun­ded like Molly did when she thought I was drink­ing too much. I braced my­self, ex­pect­ing im­ages of Molly to fill my mind. But I stayed within my own life. I do not know if I felt re­lieved or dis­ap­poin­ted. I longed to see her and Nettle. But Ver­ity had warned me … be­latedly I an­nounced to Kettricken, ‘Ver­ity Skilled to me. Just now.’ Then I cursed my­self as a churl and a lack­wit as I saw the hope flush her face. ‘It was not really a mes­sage,’ I amended hast­ily. ‘Just a warn­ing re­minder to me that I am to avoid Skilling. He still be­lieves there may be oth­ers seek­ing me that way.’

  Her face fell. She shook her head to her­self. Then she looked up to de­mand, ‘He had no word at all for me?’

  ‘I do not know if he real­izes you are with me,’ I hast­ily sidestepped the ques­tion.

  ‘No words,’ she said dully as if she had not heard me. Her eyes were opaque as she asked, ‘Does he know how I have failed him? Does he know about … our child?’

  ‘I do not be­lieve he does, my lady. I sense no such grief in him, and well I know how it would grieve him.’

  Kettricken swal­lowed. I cursed my clumsy words, and yet, was it my place to ut­ter words of com­fort and love to his wife? She straightened up ab­ruptly, then rose. ‘I think I shall bring in a bit more fire­wood for to­night,’ she an­nounced. ‘And grain the jep­pas. There is scarcely a twig for them to browse on here.’

  I watched her leave the tent for the dark and still cold out­side. No one spoke a word. After a breath or two, I rose and fol­lowed her. ‘Don’t be long,’ Kettle warned me en­ig­mat­ic­ally. The wolf shad­owed after me.

  Out­side the night was clear and cold. The wind was no worse than usual. Fa­mil­iar dis­com­forts can al­most be ig­nored. Kettricken was neither fetch­ing wood nor grain­ing the jep­pas. I was sure both tasks had already been done earlier. In­stead she was stand­ing at the edge of the cloven road, star­ing out over the black­ness of cliff at her feet. She stood tall and stiff as a sol­dier re­port­ing to his ser­geant and made not a sound. I knew she was cry­ing.

  There is a time for courtly man­ners, a time for formal pro­tocol and a time for hu­man­ity. I went to her, took her by the shoulders and turned her to face me. She ra­di­ated misery and the wolf be­side me whined high. ‘Kettricken,’ I said simply. ‘He loves you. He will not blame you. He will grieve, yes, but what kind of a man would not? As for Regal’s deeds, they are Regal’s deeds. Do not take the blame for those to your­self. You could not have stopped him.’

  She wiped a hand across her face and did not speak. She looked past me, her face a pale mask in the star­light. She sighed heav­ily, but I could sense her strangling on her sor­row. I set my arms about my Queen and pulled her to me, press­ing her face to my shoulder. I stroked her back, feel­ing the ter­rible ten­sion there. ‘It’s all right,’ I lied to her. ‘It’s go­ing to be all right. In time, you’ll see. You’ll be to­gether again, you’ll make an­other child, both of you will sit in the Great Hall at Buck­keep and listen to the min­strels sing. There will be peace again, some­how. You’ve never seen Buck­keep at peace. There will be time for Ver­ity to hunt and fish, and you’ll ride at his side. Ver­ity will laugh and shout and roar through the halls like the north wind again. Cook used to chase him out of the kit­chen for sli­cing the meat from the roast be­fore it was cooked through, he would come home from the chase that hungry. He’d come right in and cut the leg off a cook­ing fowl, that he would, and carry it about with him, telling stor­ies in the guard­room, wav­ing it about like a sword …’

  I pat­ted her back as if she were a child and told her tales of the bluff, hearty man I re­membered from my boy­hood. For a time her fore­head res­ted on my shoulder and she was com­pletely still. Then she coughed once, as if start­ing to choke, but in­stead ter­rible sobs welled up from her. She cried sud­denly and un­abashedly as a child that has taken a bad fall and is hurt as well as frightened. I sensed these were tears that had long gone un­shed, and I did not try to help her stop. In­stead I went on talk­ing and pat­ting her, scarcely hear­ing what I was say­ing my­self, un­til her sobs began to quiet and her shak­ing to still. At last she drew away from me a little, to grope in her pocket for a ker­chief. She wiped her face and eyes and blew her nose be­fore she tried to speak.

  ‘I’m go­ing to be all right,’ she said. To hear the strength of her be­lief in those words made my heart ache. ‘It’s just … It’s hard just now. Wait­ing to tell him all these ter­rible things. Know­ing how they will hurt him. They taught me so many things about be­ing Sac­ri­fice, Fitz. From the be­gin­ning, I knew I might have ter­rible sor­rows to bear. I am strong enough … to bear these things. But no one warned me that I might come to love the man they’d choose for me. To bear my sor­row is one thing. To bring sor­row to him is an­other.’ Her throat closed on the words and she bowed her head. I feared she might be­gin to weep again. In­stead when she lif­ted her head she smiled at me. Moon­light touched the sil­ver wet­ness on her cheeks and lashes. ‘Some­times I think only you and I see the man be­neath the crown. I want him to laugh, and roar about, and leave his bottles of ink open and his maps scattered about. I want him to put his arms about me and hold me. Some­times I want those things so much, I for­get about the Red Ships and Regal and … everything else. Some­times I think that if we could only be to­gether again, all the rest would come right as well. It is not a very worthy thought to have. A Sac­ri­fice is sup­posed to be more …’

  A glint of sil­ver be­hind her caught my eyes. I saw the black column over her shoulder. It leaned at a cant over the broken edge of the road, half its stone sup­port gone. I did not hear the rest of what she said. I wondered how I had not seen it be­fore. It gleamed brighter than the moon on the spark­ling snow. It was hewn of black stone webbed with glit­ter­ing crys­tal. Like moon­light on a rip­pling river of Skill. I could de­cipher no writ­ing on its sur­face. The wind was scream­ing be­hind me as I reached out and ran a hand down that smooth stone. It wel­comed me.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The City

  There runs through the Moun­tain King­dom an old trade trail that serves none of the present-day towns of the Moun­tain King­dom. Por­tions of this old high­way ap­pear as far south and east as the shore of Blue Lake. The trail is not named, no one re­calls who con­struc­ted it, and few use it even for the stretches that re­main in­tact. In places the road has been gradu­ally des­troyed by the freez­ing swells that are com­mon to the Moun­tains. In other places flood­ing and land­slides have re­duced it to rubble. Oc­ca­sion­ally an ad­ven­tur­ous Moun­tain youth will un­der­take to trace the road to its source. Those who re­turn have tall tales of ruined cit­ies and steam­ing val­leys where sul­phur­ous ponds smoke, and they speak too, of the for­bid­ding nature of the ter­rit­ory the road spans. No game and poor hunt­ing, they say, and it is not re­cor­ded any­where that any­one has ever been im­pressed enough to make a re­turn trip to the road’s end.