Fool's Quest (70 page)

I returned to my bedchamber. I went to my locked clothing chest, and from the layer beneath its false bottom I provisioned myself with poisons, unguents, powders, blades, and all that an assassin-turned-avenger might need. For Dutiful had unwittingly freed me. A royal assassin was bound to his king's word, to slay only as directed. Now I would slay where I would.

I had a heavy belt, one of doubled leather. Methodically, I filled the concealed compartments. The sheaths that fit inside a boot and hugged my ankle, the ugly bracelet that concealed a garrote, the belt-buckle that when snatched free became a short dagger. The gloves with the brass knuckles sewn into them. So many artful, deadly, nasty little tools, to sort and select and compactly pack. I had to leave room for the supplies I'd already purloined from Chade's old lair. I would go prepared.

I carried my tidy pack down to my private den. Outside, darkness still reigned. Soon enough I would rouse Perseverance and bid him ready our horses. Soon enough I would bid Withywoods farewell. I knew I should rest. I could not. I took out Bee's books and sat down by the fire.

They were hard to read. It was not her clear handwriting or painstaking illustrations. It was my reaction to the pages. There was too much of Bee in them, too much of what I had lost. I read again the first part of her journal. The references to Molly and her account of the day her mother had died were agonizing for me. I closed that book and carefully set it down. Her dream journal was little better. Here again I found the butterfly man dream. And a reference to the Wolf of the West and how he would come from the Mountains to save all. I turned a page. Here was a dream of a well brimming with silver. Another of a city where the ruler sat on a giant Skull Throne. At the bottom of each page she had carefully judged how likely each dream was to be a true dream and likely to happen. The one of the butterfly man had been extremely likely. The dream of the beggar I had to recognize.

Alone by the fire, I could admit to myself that Bee had been precognizant to some extent. Some things she had right, such as the butterfly cloak. Others were wrong. The one wearing it had been a woman. Did it mean she was truly more mine than the Fool's? The Fool, I had always felt, was adept at twisting his strange dreams into predictions that had come true. Often I had not heard about the dream until after the event that shadowed it. But Bee's seemed almost clear to me, even though each seemed to have parts that did not quite fit with what had happened. The Wolf of the West. I'd heard those words first from the Fool. The Fool and Bee had shared a vision? I recalled what Shine had said, that Bee had been feverish and then shed a layer of skin to become paler. I decided that no matter what she had taken from the Fool, it made her no less the daughter of Molly and me.

I came to her dream of a city and of standing stones with cleanly carved runes on them. That one, I felt, was obviously not a true dream, even though she had marked it as extremely possible. I had no idea of how many of my private scrolls she had read; likely my accounts were responsible for some of her dreams. I leaned closer, studying her illustration. Yes. The runes were mostly accurate. That was almost the rune for the Elderling city with the map-tower. It had a name now. Kelsingra. Yes. That she would have taken directly from one of my scrolls. She had marked it as likely to happen. So she had foreseen being snatched into a Skill-stone, although she had copied the wrong rune from my papers. The thought that she had foreseen her own end hurt my heart. I could bear to read no more. I closed her book and nestled both of them carefully into my pack.

As dawn broke, I did my final task. The hardest farewell of Withywoods.

The fire had nearly died in my private study. The scroll racks were emptied, their contents either burned or packed for shipment back to the Buckkeep libraries. The secret compartment in my desk had gone undiscovered; if anyone found it now, they would find only emptiness.

I shut the tall doors, lit a candle, and triggered the hidden door to the spy-passageways. For a long moment I debated. Then I picked up the triptych the Fool had carved of Nighteyes, him, and me. I wondered if the peculiar hinge had been discovered in the course of the repairs, but inside Bee's tiny den, all was still as she had left it. Nothing had been moved since the last time I'd been here. I smelled a faint scent of cat, but if he was about, he took care not to let me see him. I suspected he laired here now, for Bee's supply of her mother's scented candles was not nibbled by mice. I refused to wonder how he came and went. Cats, I knew, had their ways. I took the key to her bedchamber from my pocket and placed it on her shelf with her other keepsakes. Beside it I placed the carving. Here, at least, we would all be together.

I gave a final look around the hiding place my little child had created, and then left it behind me forever. The children of the keep would perhaps remember how they had hidden in a secret corridor, but they would search the walls of the pantry in vain for a way in. And I would take to my grave the trick of opening the study entry. Let her little things be safe there as long as the walls of Withywoods stood, as she had not been. I navigated the narrow corridor and shut the concealed door behind me.

Done. All was tidied and finished. I blew out my candle, picked up my pack, and left the room.

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?”