Fool's Fate Part 37

When I was a few years older than Swift I had tried, at Burrich's suggestion, to draw Skill-strength from him as my father had. I had failed, and not just because I had not known what I was doing. My father had used Burrich as a King's Man, as a source of physical strength for his Skill-work. But any man so used also becomes a conduit to the user, and so Chivalry had sealed Burrich off to other Skill-users, so that no one could use him as a means to attack Chivalry or spy on him. Today, I would pit my strength and that of Dutiful's coterie against my father's ancient barricade and see if I could break past it into Burrich's soul.

I reached a hand toward the coterie and Thick took it. I set my other hand on Burrich's chest. My Wit told me that he lingered in his body reluctantly. The animal that Burrich dwelt in was hopelessly injured. If his body had been a horse, Burrich would have put it down by now. That was an unsettling thought and I pushed it aside. Instead, I tried to set my Wit aside and hone my Skill to the sharpness of a blade. I banished all other thoughts and sought for some place to pierce him with that awareness.

I found none. I sensed the rest of the coterie, sensed their anxiety and hovering readiness, but I could find no place to apply that eagerness. I could sense Burrich there, but my awareness of him skated over the surface, unable to penetrate. I did not know how my father had sealed him and had no idea how to undo it. I do not know how long I strove to break past his walls. I only know that at length, Thick dropped my hand, to wipe a sweaty palm down the front of his jerkin. "That one's too hard," he proclaimed. "Do this easy one instead."

He did not ask anyone permission, but leaned in past Burrich to set his hand on the shoulder of one of the injured Outislanders. I was not even holding Thick's hand, but in that instant I knew the Outislander. He had been the Pale Woman's slave for he knew not how many years. He wondered if his son had prospered in his mother's house, and wondered too about his sister's three sons. He had promised to teach them swordmanship, all those years ago. Had anyone stepped forward to do that duty for him?

These thoughts tormented him as much as his injury, a sweeping sword wound that Bear had dealt him. It had laid open the flesh of his chest and bitten deep into his upper arm. He'd lost a lot of blood and that weakened him. If he could find the strength to live, his body would heal. Then, without regard to that, his flesh began to knit itself up. The man gave a roar and lifted a hand to clutch at his closing wound. Just like a rent garment sewing itself up, his flesh reached for the severed ends of itself. Bits that were dead or past repair were expulsed from him. In a sort of horror, I watched the pads of flesh on the man's face melt away. Luckily for us, he was a burly man, possessed of the reserves that his body now burned.

He sat up suddenly on his pallet, and wrenched the caked bandages from his body, throwing them aside. All the witnesses gasped. His newly healed flesh shone, not with the poreless sheen of a scar but with the health of a child's body. It was a pale and hairless stripe down his swarthy body. He stared down at himself, and then, with a rough laugh of amazement, he thumped himself on the chest as if to convince himself of its soundness. A moment later, he had swung his legs over the side of the sled and hopped off it, to caper barefoot in the snow. An instant later, he was back, to sweep Thick off his stubby legs and swing him in a wide circle before setting the astonished little man back on his feet. In his own language, he thanked him, calling him Eda's Hands, an Outislander phrase I did not understand. It conveyed something to Bear, though, for he instantly went to the other wounded man on the sled and, throwing back the man's coverings, gestured at him, for Thick to come to him.

Thick didn't even glance at the rest of us. I scarcely had a thought to spare for him or what he did. My gaze was fixed on Swift, who stared at me with eyes gone blank and hopeless. I held out a useless hand to him, palm up. He swallowed and looked away from me. Then he came, not to me, but to Burrich. He took his place beside his father and picked up his darkening hand. He looked at me, a question in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said, through the exclamations of amazement as the second Outislander stood, healed of his injuries. "He is sealed. My father closed him off to other Skill-users. I cannot get in to help him."

He looked away from me, his disappointment so deep that it bordered on hatred; not necessarily hatred of me, but of the moment, of the other men who were rising, renewed, and of those who rejoiced over them. Web had moved away from Swift, to allow him his anger. I saw no sense in trying to speak any more to him just then.

Thick seemed to have mastered the knack of Skill-healing, and with moderate supervision from Dutiful he moved on to heal the two men who had burned off their Pale Woman tattoos the night before. Pale smooth skin replaced oozing and blistered flesh. From being an object of disdain, Thick was suddenly the prince of their regard and a living embodiment of Eda's Hands. I heard the Bear begging Prince Dutiful's pardon for their former disrespect of his servant. They had not realized that he possessed Eda's gift, and now they understood the great value the Prince placed on him and why he would have brought him to a battle. It hurt me to see Thick suddenly bask in their approval just as he had cringed before their disdain. I felt somehow betrayed that he could so swiftly forget how they had spurned him. Yet, I was glad that he could, even as I recognized the contradiction of it. Almost, I wished I could be as simple as he was, and accept that people truly meant the expressions they wore.

Chade came up behind me and set his hand lightly on my shoulder. I turned to him with a sigh, expecting some task. Instead, the old man put his arm around me. His grip tightened and he spoke softly by my ear. "I'm sorry, boy. We tried. And I'm sorry too for the Fool's death. We did not always agree, he and I. But he did for Shrewd what no one else could have done, and the same for Kettricken. If we opposed one another this last time, well, be a.s.sured I had not forgotten those former times. As it was, he still won." He glanced up at the sky, as if he almost expected to see dragons overhead. "Won, and left us to deal with whatever it was he won for us. I don't doubt that it will be as unpredictable as he was. And that, I am sure, would please him."

"He told me he would die here. I never completely believed him. If I had, there are things I would have said to him." I sighed, suddenly filled with the futility of such thoughts, and of all the things I had meant to do and never done. I groped within myself trying to find some meaningful thought or sentiment. But there was nothing to think or to say. The Fool's absence filled me, leaving no room for anything else.

We moved on that day, and most of us were in high spirits. Burrich rode alone on the sled now, silent and unmoving, fading more as the day pa.s.sed. Swift walked on one side of him and I on the other, and we spoke not at all. On our rest halts, I trickled a little water into Burrich's mouth. Each time, he swallowed it. Even so, I knew that he was dying, and I didn't lie to Swift about it.

Night came and we halted, and made food. Thick had no lack of friends now ready to look after him, and he loved the attention. I tried not to feel abandoned by him. All the days that I had wished to be free of his care, and now that I was, I wished I had the distraction of it again. Web came to Swift and me, bringing food for the boy and nodding to me that I should take a rest from my vigil. Yet walking apart from Burrich and Swift only made the night seem colder.

I found myself at Longwick's fire, where he shared his harvest of gossip with me. Some of the freed Outislanders had been with the Pale Woman since the Red Ship War. Once, there had been scores of them, but she had relentlessly fed them to the dragons. At first, the main settlement had been on the sh.o.r.e near the quarry site, but after the war she had begun to fear that the Outislanders would turn on her. She had also been determined, from the beginning, that she would make an end of the dragon Icefyre. Legend said that the halls and tunnels beneath the glacier had existed for generations. She had waited for the year's low tide to discover the fabled under-ice entry to it. Once within, she had put her men to chipping out the icy ceiling of the treacherous pa.s.sage, to create a hidden access that could be used at almost any low tide. When she destroyed her beach settlement, she had ordered her servants to transport the larger of the two stone dragons and rea.s.semble him in the great hall of ice. It had been a prodigious task, but she cared nothing for how many men or how much time it consumed.

In the years since the war, she had dwelt there, extracting tribute from the clans that still feared her or hoped to regain their hostages from her. She struck cruel bargains; for a shipment of food, she might return a body. Or a promise that the hostage would never be released to shame his family. When I asked Longwick if he thought that knowledge of her habitation was widespread in the Out Islands, he shook his head. "I got the sense that it was a matter of shame. No one who paid the bribes would have spoken of it." I nodded to myself at that. I doubted that many of the Narwhal Clan knew the full tale of what had become of Oerttre and Kossi, only that they were missing. Well did I know that very large secrets could still remain secrets.

So the Pale Woman's kingdom had been built, from the labor of half-Forged warriors. When one became injured, or old, or intractable, he was given to the dragon. Many lives had gone into the stone in her futile efforts to animate it. We had arrived at the waning of her power. Scores served her where once there had been hundreds. Her dragon and the forced labor had consumed them.

The Pale Woman had made efforts of her own to kill Icefyre but had never succeeded in more than tormenting him. She feared to remove the ice that held him and had never discovered a weapon that effectively pierced his overlapping scales and thick hide. Her hatred and her fear of him had been legendary among her slaves.

"I still don't understand," I said to Longwick quietly as we watched the small flames of his fire dying. "Why did they serve her? How did she get Forged Ones to obey her? The ones I saw in Buck were without loyalties of any kind."

"I do not know. I soldiered in the Red Ship War, and I know what you speak about. The men I talked to said that their memories of their time serving her are dulled. They recall only pain, no pleasure, no scent, no taste of food. Only that they did what she bade them, because it was easier than being disobedient. The disobedient were fed to the dragon. I think here we see a more sophisticated use of Forging than any we knew in the Six Duchies. One man told me that, when she took all his loyalty and love of his home and family away, it seemed to him that she was the only thing he could serve. And serve he did, though even the blunted memories of what he did for her shame him now."

When I left Longwick and went back to where Burrich rested on the sled, I caught a glimpse of Prince Dutiful and the Narcheska between the tents. They stood, their hands entwined and their heads close together. I wondered how her mother regarded their marriage to come. To her, it must seem a strange and sudden alliance with an old enemy. Would she support it when it meant her daughter must leave her mothershouse to reign in a distant land? I wondered how Elliania herself felt about it; she had only recently regained her mother and sister. Would she now wish to leave them and travel to the Six Duchies?

Web was sitting with Swift and Burrich when I returned to them. Grief had aged the boy to the edge of manhood. I sat down quietly beside them on the edge of the sled. A makeshift tent draped it to keep the night winds at bay and a single candle lit it. Despite the blankets that swathed Burrich, his hands were cold when I took one in mine.

Swift looked defeated already as he asked me quietly, "Couldn't you try again? Those others . . . they healed so quickly. And now they sit and talk and laugh with their fellows around the fire. Why can't you heal my father?"

I'd told him. I repeated it anyway. "Because Chivalry closed him to the Skill, many years ago. Did you know that your father has served Prince Chivalry? That he served him as a King's Man, a source of strength for when the King chose to do his magic?"

He shook his head, his eyes full of regret. "I know little of my father, other than as my father. He's a reserved man. He never told us tales of when he was a boy like Mother tells us stories of Buckkeep Town and her father. He taught me about horses and caring for them, but that was before-" He halted, then forced himself to go on. "Before he knew I was Witted. Like him. After that, he tried to keep me out of the stables and away from the animals as much as possible. That meant I had little time with him. But he didn't talk about the Wit much either, other than to tell me he forbade me to touch minds with any beast."

"He was much the same way with me, when I was a boy," I agreed with him. I scratched my neck, suddenly weary and uncertain. What belonged to me? What belonged to Burrich? "When I got older, he spoke to me more, and explained things more. I think that as you got older, he would have told you more about himself, too."

I took a deep breath. Burrich's hand was in mine. I wondered if he would forgive me what I was about to do, or if he would have thanked me. "I remember the first time I saw your father. I was about five years old, I think. One of Prince Verity's men took me down the hall to where the guardsmen were eating in the old quarters at Moonseye. Prince Chivalry and most of his guard were away, but your father had remained behind, still recovering from the injury to his knee. The one that makes him limp. The first time he was hurt there, it was because he jumped down between a wild boar and my father, to save my father from being gutted by the animal's tusks. So. There was Burrich, in a kitchen full of guardsmen, a young man in his fighting prime, dark and wild and hard-eyed. And there was I, suddenly thrust into his care, with no warning to either of us. Can you imagine it? Even now, I wonder what must have gone through his mind when the guardsman first set me down on the table in front of him and announced to all that I was Chivalry's little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and Burrich was to have the care of me now."

Despite himself, a very small smile crept over Swift's face. So we eased into the night, with me telling him the stories of the rash young man who had raised me. Web sat by us for some time; I am not sure when he slipped away. When the candle guttered, we lay down on either side of Burrich to keep him warm, and I talked on quietly in the darkness until Swift slept. It seemed to me that my Wit-sense of Burrich beat stronger in those hours, but perhaps it was only that I had recalled to myself all that he had been to me. Mixed in with my memories of how he had encouraged and disciplined me, of the times when he had righteously punished me and praised me, I now saw more clearly the times when a young single man had curtailed his life for the sake of a small boy. It was humbling to realize that my dependency on him had probably shaped his life as much as his had influenced me.

The next morning when I gave Burrich water, his eyelids fluttered a bit. For an instant, he looked out at me, trapped and miserable. Then, "Thanks," he wheezed, but I do not think it was for the water. "Papa?" Swift asked him eagerly, but he had already faded again.

We made good time in our travel that day, and when evening came we decided to push on and try to be off the glacier before we stopped for the night. We were full of enthusiasm for that idea. I think we were all weary of camping on ice, but the distance yet to travel proved farther than we had believed. On we went, and on, past weariness into that stubborn place where we refused to admit we had misjudged.

It was deep into the night before we approached the beach. We saw the welcome sight of watch fires, and before it sank in to my weary mind that one fire should have sufficed for two guards, we heard Churry's challenge ring out. Prince Dutiful answered it, and we heard a glad cry of several voices raised. But none of us were prepared to hear Riddle shouting a welcome to us. When I recalled how I had last seen him, it raised the hackles on the back of my neck. I knew one wild moment of irrational hope that the Fool too would somehow be there. Then I recalled what Peottre had told me and sorrow drenched me.

We were among the last to reach the beach camp. By the time we arrived, all was in an uproar of welcome and storytelling. Nearly an hour pa.s.sed before I managed to get the tale out of someone. Riddle and seventeen Outislander survivors of the Pale Woman's palace were there. They had come to themselves, probably at the moment of the dragon's slaying. Riddle and his fellow prisoners had been rescued from their dungeon by one of her guard, when his sensibilities had come back to him. They had joined forces to find a way out, and Riddle had managed to lead them back to the beach. They were all very confused as to what had led to the recovery of their senses and their liberation. It took all the rest of that night for us to splice the story together for them.

Chade summoned me to his tent the next day, to be present when Riddle made his full report to the Prince and him. I listened to his account of how the Pale Woman's soldiers had fallen upon Hest and him, capturing both of them. Their mistake had been in seeing some of her guards emerge from a hidden entrance to her realm. They could not be allowed to bear that information back to the Prince. He was not able to describe coherently how he had been Forged. It had to do with the dragon, but every time he attempted to tell about it, he began to tremble so violently that he was unable to go on. At last and to my relief, Chade gave up on attempting to wring that knowledge out of him. Truly, I thought it was information better lost than discovered.

He was astonished to know that the Fool and I had glimpsed him in the dungeon. He said he did not blame me for leaving him there; that if I had forced the door, he would certainly have attacked me for the sake of getting my warm clothing. Yet there was something in his eyes, so deep a shame that someone he knew had seen him in that state, that I doubted our fledgling friendship would survive. I did not think I could ever be comfortable again, looking at the man I had left behind to die.

I wondered if Riddle would ever again be the lighthearted man he had been. He had seen into a dark corner of himself, and ever after would have to carry those memories with him. He admitted, before us all, that he was the one who had finally killed Hest. He had used his shirt to wrap his hands against the cold. He could recall how carefully he had planned to kill the wounded man and take advantage of the spoils from his body while the other Forged Ones in the dungeon slept. He also told us that he recalled the Pale Woman telling them it was a sort of test; that those who survived the fortnight would be given the freedom to serve her, and regular meals. He grinned madly as he told it, his teeth clenched as if to hold back sickness, saying that, at that moment, he could imagine no better fate than to serve her and have regular meals.

Two of the Outislanders who had returned with Riddle were men of the Narwhal Clan, long missing and presumed dead. Peottre welcomed them with joy. The Pale Woman had preyed on their clan for over a decade, decimating their men before she finally reduced them to despair by stealing both the reigning Narcheska and her younger daughter. The restoration of these warriors to the clan only increased the Prince's status as a hero in their eyes.

When Chade had finished with his questions, I asked the three that had burned in me. The answers were all disappointing. Riddle had not seen the Fool at any time in his captivity or during his escape. He had not seen the Pale Woman, not even her body, after he was freed from the dungeon.

"But I don't think we have to be concerned about her. The man who came and freed me, Revke, saw her end. Something made her suddenly go mad. She screamed that everyone had failed her, everyone, and now only her dragon would win the day for her. She must have ordered at least a score of men dragged forward. One after another, they were forced against the stone dragon, and slaughtered there. Revke said their blood soaked into the stone. But even that didn't content her. She became furious, shouting that they were supposed to go into the dragon completely, that it would not rise unless someone went into the dragon whole."

He looked around at our transfixed faces, perplexed. "I don't speak Outislander as well as I should. I know it sounds mad, that she wanted someone to go into a stone dragon. But that was what Revke seemed to be saying to me. I could be wrong."

"No. I suspect you are exactly right. Go on," I begged him.

"She finally ordered Kebal Rawbread given to the dragon. Revke said that when they unshackled him, the guards underestimated the old warrior's strength and his hatred of the Pale Woman. The guards had hold of him and were dragging him toward the dragon, and he was fighting them all the way. Then suddenly he lunged in the other direction, toward the Pale Woman. He caught her by the wrists, and he was laughing and shouting that they'd go into the dragon together and rise in triumph for the Out Islands. That it was the only way to win. And then Rawbread dragged her toward the dragon, shrieking and kicking. And then . . ." He halted again. "I'm just telling the tale as Revke told it to me. It makes no sense, but-"

"Go on!" Chade commanded him hoa.r.s.ely.

"Rawbread walked backward into the dragon. He sort of melted into it, and he held tight to the Pale Woman and dragged her in after him."

"She went into the dragon?" I exclaimed.

"No. Not all the way. Rawbread disappeared into the dragon, and he was pulling her after, so her hands and her wrists went in. She was shrieking at her guards to help her, and finally two seized hold of her and pulled her back. But . . . but her hands were melted away. Gone into the dragon."

The Prince had his hand clamped tight over his mouth. I found I was trembling. "Is that all?" Chade asked. I wondered where he got his calm.

"Mostly. What was left of her hands was sort of burnt. Not bleeding, just charred away, Revke said. He said, she just stood there, looking at her stumps. The dragon was coming to life by then. When it started to move, it lifted its head too high, and big chunks of the ceiling came down. Revke said everyone ran, both from the falling ceiling and from the dragon. And that he was still hiding from the dragon when he suddenly got himself back." Riddle halted suddenly, and then said with difficulty, "I can't explain to you what it feels like. I was in my cell, back to the wall, trying to stay awake because if I slept the others would kill me. And then I glanced down and saw Hest dead on the floor. And suddenly I cared that he was dead, because he'd been my friend." He shook his head and his voice went to a whisper. "Then I remembered killing him."

"It wasn't your fault," the Prince said quietly.

"But I did it. It was me, I-"

I cut into his words before he could give any more thought to what he had done. "And how did you get out?" I asked quietly.

Riddle seemed almost grateful for the question. "Revke opened the door for us and led us out and through her palace. It's like a huge maze under the ice. We finally walked out of an opening that looked like a crack in an ice wall, right onto the glacier's flank. Once we were out, no one knew what to do next. The others knew no other place on the island where we could seek shelter. But I could just glimpse the sea from where we were. I told them that if we made our way to the sea and followed the beach, we'd have to eventually come to this base camp, even if we walked clear round the island first. As it was, we were lucky. We chose the shorter route and arrived here even before you did."

There was one last question, but he answered it before I spoke. "You know how the wind blows at night, Tom. Drifting snow has probably covered all our tracks by now. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could find my way back." He took a deep breath, and then added reluctantly, "Perhaps one of the Outislanders would be willing to try. But not me. Never. I don't ever want even to get close to that place again."

"No one will ask you to," Chade a.s.sured him, and he was right. I left it at that.

Dawn was breaking when I returned to Burrich and Swift. Swift slept beside Burrich's body. I noticed that he had moved, that one of his hands now lay outside his blankets. In tucking it in again, I discovered that Burrich clutched a wooden earring in his hand. I recognized it; the Fool had carved it, and I knew that inside it I would find the slave's freedom earring that Burrich's grandmother had won at such hardship to herself. That he had found the strength to take it off told me how important it was to him. I thought I knew his intentions for it.

Dutiful had released the homing pigeon that would fly back to Zylig to let the Hetgurd know that our quest was over. Nonetheless, it would take some days for the boats to reach us; in the meanwhile, we faced the prospect of short rations spread out over a larger party. It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate, yet I think most of us shrugged it off after all we had been through.

I found a quiet time with Swift, sitting beside the ever-dwindling Burrich. I told him the tale of the earring while I struggled to get it out of its wooden enclosure. In the end, the Fool's handiwork proved too sophisticated for me. I had to break it to open it. Within lay the earring, shining as blue and silver as when Patience had first presented it to me. As she had that day, I used the pin of it to pierce Swift's ear so he could wear it. I was slightly kinder to him than she had been to me; we numbed his earlobe with snow before I thrust the pin through it. "You wear this always," I told the boy. "And you remember your father. As he was."

"I will," Swift replied quietly. He touched it with cautious fingers; well did I remember its weight swinging from my raw earlobe. Then he wiped his b.l.o.o.d.y fingertips on his trouser leg and said, "I'm sorry I used it, now. If I still had it, I'd give it to you."

"What?"

"The arrow that Lord Golden gave me. I thought it was ugly when he gave it to me, but I took it to be polite. Then, when all the others bounced off the dragon, the gray one struck and sank. I never saw anything like that before."

"I doubt that anyone ever has," I replied.

"Maybe he had. He said it was an ugly bit of wood, but that it might still serve me well in time of need. He said he was a Prophet, that night. Do you think he knew the gray arrow would kill the dragon?"

I managed a smile. "Even when he was alive, I never knew when he truly knew something before it happened and when he was just cleverly reconstructing his words to make it seem that he did. In this case, however, he seems to have been right."

"Yes. But did you see my father? Did you see what he did? He dropped that dragon in his tracks. Web says he'd never felt strength like that before, strength to repel repel a dragon." He looked at me, challenging me to forbid it to him as he added, "He says that strength like that sometimes runs in Old Blood families. That perhaps I'll inherit it, if I use my magic with discipline and judgment." a dragon." He looked at me, challenging me to forbid it to him as he added, "He says that strength like that sometimes runs in Old Blood families. That perhaps I'll inherit it, if I use my magic with discipline and judgment."

I reached to cup the boy's jaw, the earring cold against my palm. "Let's hope you do. This world needs strength such as that."

Longwick thrust his head inside our shelter. "Prince Dutiful has need of you, Tom," he apologized.

"I'll be right there," I a.s.sured him, and then, to Swift, "You don't mind?"

"Go. There's nothing either of us can do here save keep watch."

"I'll be back," I promised, and then stepped from the tent to follow Longwick through our camp.

The Prince's tent was crowded. He, Chade, and Thick were there, with Peottre, Oerttre, Kossi, and the Narcheska. Thick's lip was thrust out and I sensed his upset. The Narcheska sat on the floor, a blanket clasped around her shoulders and her back to me. I made my courtesies to all and then waited.

The Prince spoke. "We are having a bit of a problem with the Narcheska's tattoos. She would like them removed, but they haven't yielded to Thick's Skill. Chade thought that, as you'd dealt with your own scars, perhaps you might be able to help."

"A scar is very different from a tattoo," I replied, "but I'm willing to try."

The Prince leaned down to her. "Elliania? May he see them?"

She made no response. Her back was very straight as she sat there, and disapproval was plain on her mother's face. Then, slowly, without a word, Elliania dropped her head forward and allowed the blanket to slide down her back. I knelt down and lifted the light to see more plainly. And then I gritted my teeth and understood why they'd thought of me.

The gleaming beauty of the serpents and dragons was gone. The tattoos were sunken into her back, the skin drawn tight as if they'd been branded in. I suspected it was the Pale Woman's last act of vengeance. "They still cause her pain, from time to time," the Prince said quietly.

"I'm speculating," I admitted. "Perhaps Thick can't heal her easily because this isn't a recent injury. It's one thing to aid the body in doing what it's already attempting to do. But these are old, and her body has accepted them."

"Your scars went away when we healed you," the Prince pointed out.

"They aren't hers," Thick observed sullenly. "I don't want to touch them."

I let Thick's cryptic remark go by. "I think the Fool restored me to how he had always seen me. Unscarred." I did not want to say more of that just then, and I think they all knew that.

Elliania's voice shook only slightly as she said, "Then burn them off, and heal the burn. I care not what it takes. I only want them gone. I will not wear her marks upon my body."

"No!" the Prince said in horror.

"Wait. Please," I said. "Let me try." I lifted a hand and then remembered to ask, "May I touch you?"

She dropped her head lower and I saw every muscle in her back go tight. Then she gave a single nod. Peottre towered over us, his arms crossed on his chest. I looked up at him and met his gaze. Then I sat down on the floor behind the Narcheska and carefully laid both my hands flat to her back. By an act of will, I kept them there. The palms of my hands felt the warm back of a young girl, but my Skill felt dragons and serpents writhing beneath my fingers. "More than ink is beneath her skin," I said, but did not know what it was that I sensed there.

Elliania spoke with an effort. "She made the inks from her own blood. So that they would always belong to her and obey her."

"She's bad," Thick said darkly.

Elliania had given us the piece of knowledge we needed. Even so, it was a grueling evening of Skill-work. I did not know Elliania well, and Thick was loath to touch her. He lent us his strength, but every intricate figure had to be separately driven out from her. Her mother and sister sat and watched silently. Peottre stayed a time, then went out and walked, came back, and then went out again. I did not blame him. I wished I did not have to witness it. Foul-smelling ink oozed reluctantly from the pores on her back. Worse, it hurt her. She clenched her teeth, and then pounded wordlessly on the earth. Her long black hair, pulled forward to be out of our way, grew heavy with perspiration. Dutiful sat facing her, his hands on her shoulders to brace her, while I painstakingly traced each ill.u.s.tration with my fingertip, calling on her skin to push out the Pale Woman's foulness. As I did so, I saw again the Fool's back, so exquisitely and cruelly marked, and thanked the fates that his had been forced on him before the Pale Woman had gained and perverted the Skill-learning. I could not understand why her tattoos so resisted us. By the time the last clawed foot had been forced from her skin, I was exhausted, but her back was smooth and clear.

"It's done," I said wearily, and lifted the blanket to drape her again. She took in a breath that was almost a sob and Dutiful gingerly gathered her into his arms.

"Thank you," he said to me quietly, and then, to Elliania, "It's all finished. She can never hurt you again."

I knew a moment's uneasiness, wondering if that were true. But before I could voice any doubts, we heard a welcome cry from outside the tent. "Sail! Sail sighted, two sails. One flies the Boar and the other is the Bear!"

chapter 27.

DOORS.

The more I delve into the affairs and a.s.sociations of Lord and Lady Grayling, the more I am convinced that your suspicions are well founded. Although they have conceded to the Queen's "invitation" for young Lady Sydel to spend time at the Buckkeep Court, they did not do so graciously or eagerly. Her father was more determined to be hard-hearted in this matter than her mother. Her mother was truly scandalized that he sent her off with no garb fit for an ordinary day at court, let alone for feasting or dancing. The allowance he allotted her is also insufficient for a milkmaid. I believe he hopes that she will embarra.s.s herself at court sufficiently to be sent home.The woman he chose as her maid is not to be trusted. I suggest that a grievance against Opal be discovered and that she be dismissed from Buckkeep as swiftly as possible. Take care that her gray housecat leaves with her.Sydel herself seems guilty of little more than being young and flighty. I do not think, for those reasons, that she even knows her parents have declared as Piebalds, let alone is privy to any of their plotting.- SPY SPY'S REPORT, UNSIGNED Favorable tides had brought the ships to us sooner than we had expected. But if we were surprised to see the ships so soon, the crews of the ship were equally shocked at the size of the party that awaited them on the sh.o.r.e. The boats they put over to come to sh.o.r.e were crowded with folk anxious to discover the news. So many of our men met them on the beach that the boats were literally picked up clear of the water and run far up the sand before the crews could disembark. The uproar sounded like a battle as every man strove to tell the tale his own way to our amazed transport. There was laughter, chest thumping, and shoulder slapping as each man strove to be the first to tell the tale. Above all was the joyous roar of Arkon Bloodblade as he shared the Narwhal triumph. His reunion with Oerttre was more restrained and formal than I had expected it to be. Father he might be to Elliania, but he had never been formally wed to Oerttre, nor had he sired Kossi. So he rejoiced in their return as a friend, not as a father and husband, and it seemed more the satisfaction that a warrior took in the triumph of an ally.

Later, I would discover that the Narcheska had promised much to her father in terms of crops, trade, and other favors. The Boar Clan lands were rocky and steep, fine lands for grazing swine but not for growing field crops. Bloodblade had eight young nieces of his own clan to provide for, and these Boar youngsters would prosper because of the Narwhal triumph.

But all I knew at the time was that once more, rejoicing and triumph surrounded young Swift and me, making our sorrow all the deeper in comparison. Worse, I had made a resolution last night, one that felt so precisely correct that I knew nothing would turn me aside from it. So, while men whooped outside and overshouted one another telling their portions of the tale, I spoke quietly to Swift as we sat in dimness under draped canvas beside his unresponsive father.

"I won't be going back with you. Can you take care of your father without me?"

"Can I . . . what do you mean, you won't be coming back with us? What else can you do?"

"Stay here. I need to go back to the glacier, Swift. I want to find a way into her underground palace. At the least, I want to find my friend's body and burn it. He hated to be cold. He would not wish to be entombed forever in ice."

"And what else do you hope to do? There is something you are not saying."