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Fool’s Quest
Fool’s Quest
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Fool’s Quest

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I was silent for a moment, wondering if he mocked me.

‘Thank you,’ he added. And then, ‘Now what?’

‘Well, you’ve eaten and we’ve changed the dressings. Perhaps you’d like to rest some more.’

‘In truth, I am tired of resting. So weary of it, in fact, that I can do nothing except seek my bed again.’

‘It must be very boring.’ I stood still and watched him haltingly totter toward me. I knew he did not want me to offer help.

‘Ah, boredom. Fitz, you have no idea how sweet boredom can be. When I think of endless days spent wondering when next they would return to take me, and what new torment they might devise and if they might see fit to give me food or water before or afterwards … well, boredom becomes more desirable than the most extravagant festival. And on my journey here, oh, how I longed for my days to be predictable. To know if the person who spoke to me was truly kind or cruel, to know if there might be food that day, or if I would find a dry place to sleep. Ah.’ He had almost reached me. He halted where he was, and the emotions that passed over his face tore me. Memories he would not share with me.

‘The bedstead is right there, to your left. There. Your hand is on it.’

He nodded to me, and patted and felt his way back to the side of the bed. I had opened the blankets to the linens for him. He turned and sat down on the bed. A smile crossed his face. ‘So soft. You’ve no idea, Fitz, how much this pleases me.’

He moved his body so carefully. It reminded me of Patience toward the end of her years. It took him time to manoeuvre so that he could lift his legs up onto the bed. The loose trousers bared his meagre calves and the distorted knobs of his ankles. I winced as I looked at his left foot. To call it a foot was a charity. How he had walked on that I did not know.

‘I had a stick to help me.’

‘I didn’t speak that aloud!’

‘I heard that little sound you made. You make it when you see anything hurt. Nosy with a scratch on his face. Or the time I had a sack put over my head and took a beating.’ He lay on his side and his hand scrabbled at the bedcovers. I pulled them up over him with no comment. He was silent for a minute and then said, ‘My back hurts less. Did you do something?’

‘I cleaned out the injuries and put dressings on them.’

‘And?’

And why should I lie? ‘When I touched you to clean the first boil that had broken, I … went into you. And encouraged your body to heal itself.’

‘That’s …’ He groped for a word, ‘interesting.’

I had expected outrage. Not his hesitant fascination. I spoke honestly. ‘It’s a bit frightening, too. Fool, my previous experiences with Skill-healings were that it took a real effort, often the effort of an entire coterie, to find a way into a man’s body and provoke his body to work harder at healing itself. So, to slip into awareness of your body so easily is unsettling. Something is strange there. Strange in the same way that it was too easy to bring you through the Skill-pillars. You took back our Skill-bond, many years ago.’ It was a struggle to keep rebuke from my voice. ‘I look back on the night when we came here and I marvel at my foolhardiness in deciding to make the attempt.’

‘Foolhardiness,’ he said softly, and laughed low. He coughed then and added, ‘I believe my life was in the balance that night.’

‘It was. I thought I had burned Riddle’s strength to bring you through. But the degree of healing you already showed when we arrived here makes me wonder if it weren’t something else.’

‘It was something else,’ he said decisively. ‘I can’t claim to know this and yet I feel certain I am right. Fitz, all those years ago when you brought me back from the dead, you found me and put me into your own flesh while you entered my dead body and forced it back into life as if you were lashing a team to pull a wagon from a swamp. You were ruthless in what you did. Much as you were when you risked all, not just you and me, but Riddle, to bring me here.’

I lowered my head. It was not praise.

‘We passed one another as we each resumed life in our own bodies. Do you remember that?’

‘Somewhat,’ I hedged.

‘Somewhat? As we passed, we merged and blended.’

‘No.’ Now he was the one who was lying. It was time to speak the truth. ‘That is not what I recall. It was not a temporary merging. What I recall is that we were one. We were not wholes blending as we passed. We were parts, finally forming a whole. You, and I, and Nighteyes. One being.’

He could not see me and yet he still averted his face from me, as if I had said a thing that was too intimate for us to witness. He bowed his head, a small affirmation. ‘It happens,’ he said softly. ‘A mingling of beings. You’ve seen the results, though you may not have recognized it. I certainly didn’t. That tapestry of the Elderlings that once hung in your room.’

I shook my head. I’d been a child the first time I’d seen it. It was enough to give anyone nightmares. There was King Wisdom of the Six Duchies, treating with the Elderlings, who were tall, thin beings with unnaturally coloured skin and hair and eyes. ‘I don’t think that has anything to do with what I’m talking about now.’

‘Oh, it does. Elderlings are what humans may become through a long association with dragons. Or more commonly, what their surviving offspring may become.’

I saw no connection. ‘I do recall, long ago, when you tried to convince me that I was part dragon.’

A smile twisted his weary mouth. ‘Your words. Not mine. But not so far from what I was theorizing, even if you’ve phrased it very poorly. There are many aspects of the Skill that put me in mind of what dragons can do. And if some distant ancestor of yours was dragon-touched, so to speak, could it be why that particular magic manifests in you?’

I sighed and surrendered. ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t even know quite what you mean by dragon-touched. So, perhaps. But I don’t see what that has to do with you and me.’

He shifted in the bed. ‘How can I be so tired, and not one bit sleepy?’

‘How can you start so many conversations and then refuse to finish any of them?’

He went off into a coughing fit. I tried to tell myself he was feigning it but went to fetch him water anyway. I helped him sit up and waited while he drank. I took the cup while he lay back down and waited. I said nothing, simply stood by the bed with the cup. After a time I sighed.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘Do you know things you aren’t telling me?’

‘Absolutely. And that will always be true.’

He sounded so much like his old self and took such obvious pleasure in the words that I felt almost no annoyance. Almost.

‘I mean about this. About what bonds us in such a way that I can take you with me through a Skill-pillar, and almost without effort enter your body to heal it?’

‘Almost?’

‘I was exhausted afterward, but that was from the healing, I think. Not from the joining.’ I would say nothing of what it had done to my back.

I thought he would detect I was holding something back. Instead he spoke slowly. ‘Because perhaps the joining already exists and always does.’

‘Our Skill-bond?’

‘No. You haven’t been listening.’ He sighed. ‘Think again about the Elderlings. A human lives long in the company of dragons, and eventually he begins to take on some of the traits of the dragon. You and I, Fitz, lived in close company for years. And in that healing that was actually a snatching back from death, we shared. We mingled. And perhaps we became, as you claim, one being. And perhaps we did not completely sort ourselves back into our own separate selves as thoroughly as you think. Perhaps there was an exchange of our very substances.’

I thought about this carefully. ‘Substances. Such as flesh? Blood?’

‘I don’t know! Perhaps. Perhaps something more essential even than blood.’

I paused to sort the sense from his words. ‘Can you tell me why it happened? Is it dangerous to us? Something we must try to undo? Fool, I need to know.’

He turned his face toward me, took a breath as if he were going to speak, then paused and let it out. I saw him thinking. Then he spoke simply, as if I were a child. ‘The human that lives too long near the dragon takes on aspects of the dragon. The white rose that is planted for years beside the red rose begins to have white blossoms threaded with red. And perhaps the human Catalyst who is companion to a White Prophet takes on some of his traits. Perhaps, as you threatened, your traits as a Catalyst have infected me as well.’

I studied his face for signs of a jest. Then I waited for him to mock me for my gullibility. Finally I begged him, ‘Can you just explain?’

He blew out a breath. ‘I’m tired, Fitz. And I’ve told you as clearly as I can what I think may be happening. You seem to think we are becoming or were “one thing” as you so gracefully put it. I think that our essences may be seeping across to the other, creating a bridge between us. Or perhaps it’s a vestige of the Skill-bond we once shared.’ He leaned his poor head back on the pillows. ‘I can’t sleep. I’m weary and tired, but not sleepy. What I am is bored. Horribly bored with pain and darkness and waiting.’

‘I thought you just said that being bored—’

‘Is lovely. Horribly lovely.’

Well, at least he was showing signs of his old self. ‘I wish I could help you. Sadly, there isn’t much I can do about your boredom.’

‘You already did something for me. The sores on my back are much better. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. And now I fear I must leave you for a time. I’m supposed to meet with Lady Kettricken, as Lord Feldspar of Spiretop. I will need to dress for that role.’

‘And you must go right now?’

‘I should, if I’m to be properly dressed and in line for a private audience with her. I’ll come back afterwards. Try to rest.’

With regret, I turned away. I knew how the time must drag for him. He had always been a lively fellow, a juggler, a tumbler, adept at sleight-of-hand, with a mind as quick and clever as his fingers. He had cavorted through King Shrewd’s court, quick with a witty retort, always a part of the gay whirl that Buckkeep society had been when I was very young. Now sight and clever fingers and agile body had all been taken from him. Darkness and pain were his companions.

‘After Prilkop’s benefactor bought me from my “owner”, at an insultingly low price I might add, we were fairly well treated. His new patron was not a noble but a fairly wealthy landowner. It was only by the greatest of good fortune that the man was well-versed in the lore of the White Prophets.’

He paused. He knew I had halted, intrigued by his words. I tried to calculate how much time had passed. It was difficult to tell in the perpetual twilight of the room. ‘I have to leave soon,’ I reminded him.

‘Do you truly?’ he asked, a mocking lilt in his voice.

‘I do.’

‘Very well.’

I turned.

‘For ten days, we rested and were well fed in his home. He arranged new garments for us, packed provisions, and then he himself drove the horse and cart to Clerres. It was a journey of nearly a month to get there. Sometimes we camped, and at other times we were able to stay at inns. Both Prilkop and I worried greatly at what the man was sacrificing of pocket and time to get us there, but he would always say he was honoured to do it. Our road led us through a mountain pass, nearly as frozen and cold as a Buckkeep winter, and then down, down we went. I began to recognize the scents of the trees and I knew the names of the wayside flowers from my boyhood. Clerres itself had grown a great deal since last I had seen it, and Prilkop was astounded that the place he remembered as the simple village of Clerres had grown to an edifice of walls and towers and gardens and gates.

‘Yet so it was. The school had prospered, and in turn the city had prospered, for there was a trade now in the searching of prophecies to give advice to merchants and would-be brides and builders of sailing ships. From far and near they came, to pay a fee in the hope of getting an audience with the Head Servant, and then to tell their tale to him. And if he judged them worthy, they could buy a licence for a day or three or twenty, and cross the causeway to the White Island. There, one of the acolyte Servants would be put to researching the prophecies to see if any pertained to that particular venture or wedding or voyage.

‘But I am getting ahead of myself.’

I clenched my teeth and then let him win. ‘Actually, you’ve gone backward in your telling, as you well know. Fool, I desperately want to hear this story, but I must not be late to my audience.’

‘As you wish.’

I had taken four steps when he added, ‘I only hope I am not too weary later to tell you the rest.’

‘Fool! Why are you being like this?’

‘Do you really want to know?’ The old lilt of mockery was back in his voice.

‘Yes.’

He spoke more softly and soberly than he had before. ‘Because I know it makes you feel better when I mock you.’

I turned to look back at him, denial on my lips. But some trick of the firelight showed him to me as he was. Not at all like my friend of old. He looked like a badly-carved puppet of himself, something as battered and ragged as a beloved old toy. The light touched the scars on his face, the grey-painted eyes and straw-thatch of hair on his skull. I couldn’t utter a word.

‘Fitz, we both know I teeter on a knife’s edge. It’s not if I will fall, but when. You are keeping me balanced there and alive. But when it happens, as I fear it must, it will not be your fault. Nor mine. Neither of us could have steered this fate.’

‘I’ll stay if you want me to.’ I threw aside all thoughts of courtesy to Kettricken and duty to Chade. Kettricken would understand, and Chade would have to live with it.

‘No. No, thank you. Suddenly I am feeling ready to sleep.’

‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ I promised him.

His eyes had closed, and perhaps he already slept. I left quietly.

SIX (#ulink_d15d4001-2cbb-5b07-972a-90b92b277b03)

The Witted (#ulink_d15d4001-2cbb-5b07-972a-90b92b277b03)

When Regal the Pretender retreated to the inland duchies, the coastal duchies were left rudderless. Strong as the dukes of Bearns, Shoaks and Rippon were, they were each too engrossed in defending their own coasts to mount any meaningful unified response to the Red Ships. The titular Duke of Buck, a cousin to the Pretender Regal, was little more than a place-holding puppet, who could do nothing to rally the nobles.

It was at this time that Lady Patience, queen of the former King-in-Waiting Chivalry, rose to prominence. What began with the selling of her jewels to keep the warships of Buck manned and active soon consumed almost all of her personal fortune as she worked to keep up the spirits of her farmers and miners as well as rallying the lesser nobility to organize their own forces to repel the invaders.

This was the situation to which Queen Kettricken returned. Pregnant with the Farseer heir, she and her minstrel, Starling Birdsong, were transported from the Elderling lands to the battlements of Buckkeep Castle, flown there by an immense dragon. King Verity escorted her to the safety of the castle before rejoining his dragon mount. With the other Elderling warriors astride their dragon steeds, he took to the air to resume the great battle he had begun against the Red Ships. Few were present to witness the king’s return to Buckkeep, and had his queen not been there to assert to the truth of his presence with the minstrel Starling Birdsong to swear truth to it, her sudden appearance would have seemed almost magical. The sparkling dragons that filled the sky had been a terrifying sight to the defenders of Buck until the queen revealed that they were no danger to the folk of Buck, but instead were at the command of their rightful king, and had come to defend them.

On that day, before nightfall, all the Red Ships were driven from the shores of Buck. The legions of dragons swiftly spread out, securing the entire coastline of the Six Duchies before the moon had waxed twice full again. Many a shoreline defender and doughty sailor can attest to how the dragons would appear as distant sparkling lights in the sky, that grew larger and larger until their power and majesty sent the raiders fleeing.

Against this backdrop, the Mountain princess turned Six Duchies queen returned to accept her crown. Lady Patience remained at her side for the remaining months of the war, advising her and putting the reins of power securely into her hands. With the birth of the heir, the succession was secured.

A Brief History of the Monarchs of the Six Duchies

I descended, shut the door, peeked out through my shuttered window and was horrified. Truly the morning had fled while I was with the Fool. I was still in my nightshirt, unwashed, unshaven, and possibly already late for my audience with Kettricken. To add to my annoyance, Ash had visited my rooms again. The fire was freshly stirred and a new outfit for Lord Feldspar had been draped on the chair. His rescued brown wig had been transferred to a fresh hat and carefully brushed. Well, growing up the son of a courtesan had at least taught Ash some useful valet skills. I knew I had latched my door. I wondered if Chade had given him a key or if he had slipped the lock. It wasn’t an easy lock to jigger. I tried not to let that question distract me as I quickly washed, shaved, staunched the bleeding from my hasty blade, and dressed in the fresh garments.

One of the scabbed wounds on my back had broken open as I took off my nightshirt. I put on Lord Feldspar’s long-sleeved tunic and a gaudy vest over it and hoped the stripes of bright colour were in honour of Winterfest. I dreaded the idea that the imaginary lord dressed this way every day. The leggings were moderately comfortable, and the vest admirably concealed no less than six tiny pockets of various nasty things. Settling the wig and the ridiculously tiny hat pinned to it consumed more minutes than I liked, and yet I knew it was the one piece that must be done perfectly. I pinched and scratched at my nose until it was the appropriate shade of red. Soot from the fire with a few drops of water made my brows heavier. The heeled shoes with the silly toes slipped onto my stockinged feet and the moment I stood up one of my feet cramped abominably. I kicked the shoes off and stamped around the room until it passed. Then, muttering curses on Chade, I put them back on and left my room, locking the door behind me.

My foot cramped again twice before I reached the bottom of the stairs, and it was all I could do to keep my steps steady and betray no sign of how badly I wanted to hop and stamp. Kettricken’s audience chamber had once served Queen Desire as a private parlour for herself and her ladies. This I knew only because I had been told of it; that woman had never tolerated me within her sight, let alone within her private chambers. I dismissed the last clinging shreds of childhood dread as I approached the tall oak doors. They were closed. Outside on several benches perched those hopeful of currying influence with the king by bestowing their attentions and gifts upon his mother. I took my place at the end of a lavishly cushioned bench and waited. Eventually, the door opened, a young noblewoman was ushered out and a rather bored page in white-and-purple livery approached the next aspirant and ushered him in. When the page returned, I made myself known to her and resumed my wait on the bench.

I had rather expected that I would not have to wait in line, but Kettricken was true to her Mountain roots. Each petitioner was invited in turn and allotted time with Lady Kettricken, and then was ushered out. I sat and waited, with my foot spasming inside the evil shoe and a pleasant and hopeful expression on my face. When finally the page beckoned to me, I rose and managed to follow her into the room without limping. As the tall doors closed behind me, I allowed myself a smile. There was a cosy hearth, several comfortable chairs, and a low table with cushions around it. A collection of curious or beautiful objects from every one of the Six Duchies was displayed on various tables about the room. Some might have seen it as a blatant display of wealth, but I divined the truth of it. Kettricken had never had any great use for possessions. These gifts, these tokens of esteem from the lords and ladies of the Six Duchies and from foreign lands and emissaries must not be discarded. And so she kept them here, in a casual and cluttered display that ran counter to her austere Mountain upbringing. I let my eyes wander over them briefly before making my obeisance to Kettricken.

‘Courage, you may go. Let the kitchen know my guests and I are ready for our refreshment. Please let Witmaster Web also know that I am ready to see him at his earliest convenience.’

I remained standing until the little page had left the room, and was grateful when Kettricken wearily gestured me to a seat. She pursed her lips as she regarded me and then asked, ‘Is this mummery yours, Fitz, or another puppet show from Chade?’

‘Lord Chade facilitated it, but I agreed that it was the prudent thing to do. As Lord Feldspar I am able to move about Buckkeep Castle as your guest for Winterfest without exciting comment.’

‘After all these years, I should be resigned to the need for such deceptions. But they only make me long for simple truth. One day, FitzChivalry Farseer, I would like you to stand before the court and be acknowledged as yourself and given credit for your many years of service to the crown. One day you should take your rightful place at Dutiful’s side, and be openly recognized as his mentor and protector.’

‘Oh, please don’t threaten me with that,’ I begged her, and she smiled tolerantly and drew her chair a bit closer to mine.

‘Very well, then. But what of your daughter. What of clever little Bee?’

‘Clever little Bee.’ I repeated her words. They numbed my mouth.

‘So I have heard, in the missives Lant has sent Nettle. She received one just two days ago. She was quite relieved to hear her sister was doing so well at her lessons. Indeed, that in some areas, such as her reading and writing, she scarcely needs his instructions.’