Assassin’s Fate

‘You thought he’d kill you? Tom Badgerlock?’

‘I knew who he was. Rosemary had told me. And she’d told me that he was far more dangerous than I could imagine, in more ways. Witted. And that there had always been rumours that he had … appetites.’

‘I don’t understand.’

A pause. ‘That he might desire boys as much as he liked women.’

A dead silence. Then a lad laughed. ‘Him? Not him. There was only one for him. Lady Molly. It was always a joke among the servants at Withywoods.’ He laughed again and then gasped, ‘“Knock twice,” the kitchen maids would giggle. “And then wait and knock again. Never go in until one of them invites you. You never know where they will be going at one another.” The men of the estate were proud of him. “That old stud hasn’t lost his fire,” they’d say. “In his study. In the gardens. Out in the orchards.”’

The orchard. A summer day, her sons gone off to seek their fortunes. We’d walked among the trees, looking at the swelling apples, speaking of the harvest to come. Molly, her hands sweet with the wild blossoms she’d gathered. I’d paused to tuck a sprig of baby’s breath into her hair. She had turned her face up to me, smiling. The long kiss had turned into something more.

‘When Lady Shun first came to Withywoods, one of the new housemaids said he’d gone off to find himself a willing woman. Cook Nutmeg told me of it. She told that housemaid, “Not him. It was only Lady Molly and never anyone else for him. He can’t even see another woman.” Then she told Revel what the housemaid had said. Revel called her into his study. “He’s not Lord Grabandpinch, he’s Holder Badgerlock. And we won’t have gossip here.” And then he told her to pack her things. So Cook Nutmeg told us.’

Molly had smelled like summer. Her flowers had scattered on the ground as I pulled her down to me. The deep orchard grass was a flimsy wall around us. Clothing pushed aside, a stubborn buckle on my belt, and then she was astride me, clutching my shoulders, leaning hard on her hands as she pinned me down. Leaning down, her breasts free of her blouse, putting her mouth on mine. The sun warmed her bared skin to my touch. Molly. Molly.

‘And now? Do you still fear him?’ the boy asked.

The man was slow to reply. ‘He is to be feared. Make no mistake in that, Per. Fitz is a dangerous man. But I’m not here because I have a rightful caution of him. I’m here to do my father’s bidding. He tasked me to watch over him. To keep him safe from himself. To bring him home, when all is done, if I can.’

‘That won’t be easy,’ the boy said reluctantly. ‘I heard Foxglove talking to Riddle after that battle in the forest. She said he has a mind to hurt himself. To end himself, since his wife is dead and his child gone.’

‘It won’t be easy,’ the man conceded with a sigh. ‘It won’t be easy.’

I dreamed. It was not a pleasant dream. I was not a fly, but I was caught in a web. It was a web of a peculiar sort, not of sticky threads but of defined channels that I had to follow, as if they were deep footpaths cut through an impenetrable forest of fog-enshrouded trees. And so I moved, not willingly but unable to do otherwise. I could not see where my trail led, but there was no other. Once, I looked behind me, but the track I had followed had vanished. I could only go on.

She spoke to me. You interfered with what is mine. I am surprised, human. Are you too stupid to fear provoking dragons?

Dragons don’t bother with introductions.

The fog blew slowly away and I was in a place where rounded grey stones scabbed with lichen humped out of a grassy sward. The wind was blowing as if it had never begun and would never stop. I was alone. I tried to be small and kept silent. Her thoughts still found me.

The child was mine to shape. You had no right.

Huddling small had not worked. I tried to keep my thoughts calm but I fervently wished that Nettle were here with me in this dreamscape. She had withstood the full onslaught of the dragon Tintaglia when she was still new to the Skill. I reached for my daughter, but the dragon boxed me as if I were a frog captured in a boy’s callused hands. I was in her control and alone. I hid my fear of her deep inside my chest.

I did not know which dragon this was and I knew better than to ask. A dragon guards its name lest others acquire power over it. ‘It’s only a dream’ scarcely applies to what a dragon can do to one’s sleeping mind. I needed to wake up, but she pinned me as a hawk’s talons would pin a struggling hare. I felt the cold and stony land beneath me, felt the icy wind ripping warmth from my body. And still I saw nothing of her. Perhaps logic might reach her. ‘My intent was never to interfere, but only to make the small changes that would let the children live.’

The child was mine.

‘Do you prefer a dead child to a live one?’

Mine is mine. Not yours.

The logic of a three-year-old. The pressure on my chest increased, and a translucent shape coalesced above me. She shimmered blue and silver. I recognized which child she claimed by the markings she shared with the child’s mother. The mother had been the woman who claimed to work with Silver. Thymara, the winged-and-clawed Elderling. This dragon claimed the girl-child who had been fearless in choosing the changes she would have. A child that was only marginally human. She had not hesitated to choose dragon’s feet over human ones so that she might leap higher and grip limbs better when she climbed. A brave and intelligent child.

That she is.

I sensed a grudging pride. I had not meant to share the thought but perhaps flattering the child or the dragon might win me a reprieve. The pressure of the dragon’s foot on my chest had gone past painful to the sensation of ribs flexed as far as they could bend. If she cracked my ribs into stabbing pieces that punctured my lungs, would I die or wake up? Being aware that I was dreaming did not lessen the pain or the sense of imminent disaster.

Die in your dreams, wake up insane. Or so the old Elderling saying went. Your connections to this world are strong, little human. There is something about you … yet you are not dragon touched by any dragon I know. How is that possible?

‘I don’t know.’

What is this thread I perceive in you, dragon and not-dragon? Why have you come to Kelsingra? What brought you to the dragons’ city?

‘Revenge,’ I gasped. I could feel my ribs beginning to give way. The pain was astonishing. Surely if I were asleep, this pain would awaken me. So this was real. Somehow this was real. And if it were real, I would have a knife at my belt, and if it were real, I wouldn’t die like a pinned hare. My right arm was caught under the dragon’s talon but my left was free. I reached, groped, and found it. Drew it and stabbed with all my remaining strength only to have it clash against the heavy scaling of the dragon’s foot. My blade skated and turned aside as if I had tried to stab a stone. She did not even flinch.

You seek revenge on dragons? For what?

My arm fell lifelessly away. I did not even feel my fingers lose their grip on the knife. Pain and lack of air were emptying me of will. I did not utter the words, for I had no air left. I thought them at her. Not revenge on dragons. On the Servants. I’m going to Clerres to kill all the Servants. They hurt my friend and destroyed my child.

Clerres?

Dread. A dragon could feel dread? Amazing. Even more surprising, it seemed to be dread of the unknown.

A city of bones and white stones far south of here. On an island. A city of pale folk who believe they know all the futures and which one is best to choose.

The Servants! She began to fade from my dream. I remember … something. Something very bad. Suddenly I was unimportant to her. As her attention left me, I could breathe again and I floated in a dark-grey world, either dead or alone in my sleep. No. I didn’t want to sleep and be vulnerable to her. I struggled toward wakefulness, trying to recall where my body truly was.

I opened my eyes to deep night and blinked sticky eyes. A mild wind was blowing across the hills. I could see the trees swaying in it. In the distance, I saw snow-topped mountains. The moon was big and round and the ivory of old bones. Game would be moving. Why had I been sleeping so soundly? My head felt as if it were stuffed full of wool. I lifted my face and snuffed the air.

I felt no breeze and smelled no forest, only myself. Sweat. The smell of an occupied room. The bed was too soft. I tried to sit up. Nearby, clothing rustled and someone set strong hands on my shoulders. ‘Go slow. Let’s start with water.’

The night sky was a cheat and I’d never hunt like that again. ‘Don’t touch me skin to skin,’ I reminded Lant. His hands went away and I struggled into a sitting position. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The room spun three times and settled. All was dim and twilight around me. ‘Take this,’ he said and a cool container was pushed gently into my hands. I smelled it. Water. I drank until it was gone. He took it away and came back with more. I drained it again.

‘That’s enough for now, I think.’

‘What happened?’

He sat down beside me on the edge of the bed. I looked at him carefully and was grateful I could see him. ‘What do you recall?’ he asked me after a long silence.

‘I was healing Elderling children …’

‘You touched children, one after another. Not that many. Six, I think. They all grew better and, with every healed child, the wonder of the Kelsingra Elderlings grew and you became stranger. I have no Skill, Fitz. Yet even I felt as if you were the eye of a storm of magic that flowed toward you and then blew all around us. And when there were no more children, other people began to push forward. Not just the Elderlings, but Rain Wild folk. I’d never seen people so malformed. Some had scales and some had dangling growths along their jaws. Some had claws or dragon-nostrils. But not in a lovely way, not like the Elderlings do. They were like … diseased trees. And full of sudden hope. They began to push toward you, asking you to mend them. Your eyes were blank and you didn’t answer. You just began to touch them, and they collapsed, their bodies changed. But almost immediately, you went pale and began to shake, yet still you wouldn’t stop and still they came on, pushing and begging. Lady Amber cried out to you and shook you. And still you stared, and still distorted people pushed toward you. Then Amber pulled off her glove and clutched your wrist and dragged you back from them.’

My recollection was like a tapestry unfurling. Lant was blessedly silent as I pieced my life back together. ‘And since then? Is all well?’ I recalled the pushing and the shouting crowd. ‘Were any of you hurt? Where are the others?’

‘No one was hurt seriously. Scratches and bruises.’ He gave a disbelieving snort. ‘And only Spark still bears those marks. When you touched me and Per all our hurts were healed. I have not felt this healthy since … since before I was beaten that night in Buckkeep Town.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He stared at me. ‘You’re sorry for healing me?’

‘For doing it so abruptly. Without warning. The Skill … I could not control it.’

He stared past me. ‘It felt peculiar. As if I’d been dunked in an ice-cold river, and then fished out right away, as dry and warm as I’d been.’ His voice trailed away as he recalled it.

‘Where are they now? Amber and Spark and Per?’ Was there danger? Had I slept while they were threatened?

‘Probably sleeping still. I took this watch.’

‘Watch? How long have I been here?’

He gave a small sigh. ‘This is the second night. Well. Perhaps I should say the morning of the third day. It’s nearly dawn.’

‘I think I fell asleep at the table.’

‘You did. We moved you to the bed. I feared for you, but Amber said to let you sleep and not to call in a healer. I think she worried what might happen if a healer touched your skin. She bade us all be very careful not to touch you.’

I answered his unspoken question. ‘I think I have control of my Skill again.’ I was still for a moment, investigating the flow of the magic. It was strong here in the old city, but I once more felt it as something outside myself rather than a current flowing through me. I considered my walls and found them stronger than I had expected.

‘I gave you powdered elfbark,’ Lant reminded me.

‘That I recall.’ I turned to stare at him. ‘I’m surprised you carry such a thing.’

He looked away from me. ‘You recall my father’s early hopes for me, the training I had. I brought many small things on this journey.’

For a time, we were both silent. Then I asked him, ‘What of General Rapskal? What is the current feeling toward us here in Kelsingra?’

Lant licked his lips. ‘Great respect founded on fear, I think. Amber has counselled us to caution. We have been eating in our rooms and mingling little. None of us have seen General Rapskal. But there has been one note from him, and three visits from one of his soldiers, an Elderling name Kase. He was respectful but insistent that General Rapskal needed a private meeting with you. We’ve turned him away because you were still resting, but none of us feel it would be safe for you to meet with him alone. The general seems … peculiar.’

I nodded silently, but quietly resolved that a private meeting might eventually be needed, if I were to dispel whatever threat the general presented to Amber. After such a meeting, he just might fall deathly ill if he continued to pursue his vendetta.

‘The Elderlings have respected our wish for solitude,’ Lant continued. ‘I suspect the king and queen have sheltered us from curiosity and requests. Mostly we’ve encountered the serving folk and they seem to feel kindly toward us.’ He added awkwardly, ‘Some are touched by the Rain Wilds in unpleasant ways. I fear that some may seek healing from you, despite the king’s order that you be left in peace. We did not want to leave you alone because we did not want the Elderlings to find you unguarded. At first. Then we feared you might be dying.’ As if startled by his own words, he suddenly sat up straight and said, ‘I should let the others know you are awake. Do you want food?’

‘No. Yes.’ I didn’t want it but I knew I needed it. I had not been dying but I had not been living either. My body felt like soiled clothing, stiff with dirt and smelly with sweat. I rubbed my face. Definitely a beard now. My eyes were gummy, my tongue and teeth coated.

‘I’ll see to it, then.’

He left. The room was lightening around me, mimicking dawn. The nightscape on the wall was fading. I dragged off the Elderling robe I wore as I went to the pool. As soon as I knelt by the water-spout it began to release steaming water.

I was soaking in hot water when Amber entered. Perseverance was with her, but she walked beside him, not relying on him to guide her as they came directly to the pool’s edge. I answered the basic questions before they could be asked. ‘I’m awake. Nothing hurts. I’m starting to get hungry. I have my Skill under control. I think. Please avoid touching me until I’m sure.’

‘How are you? Truly?’ Amber asked me. I liked that her eyes settled on me even as I wondered if my vision were diminished at all. If the Fool had gained a small amount of vision, had I lost some of mine? I had not noticed a difference. Yet.

‘I’m awake. Still tired but not sleepy.’

‘You slept a long time. We feared for you.’ Amber sounded hurt, as if my being unconscious had bruised her feelings.

The hot water had loosened my muscles. My body was starting to feel more familiar, as if I might belong in it. I ducked my head one more time and scrubbed my eyes clear. I waded out of the water. Still some aches. Sixty was not thirty, regardless of how I might appear. Perseverance left Amber’s side to bring me a drying cloth and then a robe. I spoke as I wiped water from my legs. ‘What is the mood of the city? Did I harm anyone?’

Amber spoke. ‘Apparently not – at least not in a permanent way. The children you touched all seem to be faring better now than before you touched them. The Rain Wilders you touched have sent you notes of thanks. And, of course, pleas that you help others. At least three have left notes under the door, begging you to help them with their changes. Exposure to dragons or even areas where dragons were long present seem to trigger their afflictions, and those deliberately changed by dragons fare much better than those who simply are born with changes or acquire them as they grow. Those changes are often deadly to children, and life-shortening for all.’

‘Five notes now,’ Perseverance said quietly. ‘Two more were outside the door when we came.’

I shook my head. ‘I dare not try to help anyone. Even with the elfbark Lant gave me, I can feel the Skill-current sweeping past me like a riptide. I won’t venture into that again.’ I poked my head out of the neck-hole of the green Elderling robe. The skin on my arms was still damp, but I wrestled my hands through the sleeves, shrugged my shoulders and felt the garment settle itself around me. Elderling magic? Was there Silver in the fabric of this robe, reminding it that it was a garment? The Elderlings had mixed Skill into their roads so that they always recalled they were roads. Moss and grass never consumed them. Was there a difference between the Skill and the magic the Elderlings had used to create this marvellous city? How did the magics intersect? There was too much I didn’t know and I was glad that Lant had dosed me and rescued me from any further experiments.

‘I want to leave here as soon as we can.’ I hadn’t thought about saying the words: they just came out of my mouth. I walked as I spoke and Per and Amber followed me through the bedroom and into the entry chamber. Lant was there.

‘I agree,’ he said instantly. ‘UnSkilled as I am, still the whispering of the city reaches me stronger with every passing day. I need to be away from here. We should be gone before the goodwill of the Elderlings fades. General Rapskal may be able to sway people against us. Or folk may begin to resent that you refuse to heal them.’

‘Indeed, I think that very wise. Yet we cannot be too hasty. Even if there were a ship heading downriver, we would still have to be sure we bid farewell to Kelsingra in a way that ruffles no feathers.’ Amber’s voice was pensive. ‘We have a long journey through their territories and the Dragon Traders have deep ties with the Rain Wild Traders. They, in turn, have deep family ties with Bingtown and the Bingtown Traders. We must travel by river from here to Trehaug in the Rain Wilds. From there, our safest transport would be on one of the liveships that move on the river. We must journey at least as far as Bingtown, and there find a vessel that will take us through the Pirate Isles and to Jamaillia. So the goodwill of the dragon-keepers may bear us far. At least as far as Bingtown, and perhaps beyond.’ He paused then added, ‘For we must journey beyond Jamaillia, and beyond the Spice Isles.’

‘And then off the edge of any proven chart I’ve ever seen.’ I said.

‘Strange waters to you will be home ports to others. We will find our way there. I found my way to Buck, many years ago. I can find my way back to my homeland again.’

His words were little comfort to me. I was already tired just from standing. What had I done to myself? I sat down in one of the chairs and it welcomed me. ‘I had expected to travel alone and light. Working my passage for some of it. I’ve made no plans for this type of journey, no provisions for taking anyone with me.’

Soft chimes sounded and the door opened. A manservant wheeled a small table into the room. Covered dishes, a stack of plates; clearly a meal for all of us. Spark slipped in through the opened door. She was dressed and groomed but her eyes told me she had only recently left sleep behind.

Lant thanked the serving man. Our silence held until the door had closed behind him. Spark began to uncover the dishes on the tray while Perseverance put out the plates. ‘There’s a scroll-tube here, a heavy one with a funny crest on it. A chicken wearing a crown.’

‘The crowned rooster is the Khuprus family crest,’ Amber told us.

A shiver went up my back. ‘That’s different to a rooster crown?’

‘It is. Though I have wondered if they have some ancient relationship.’

‘What’s a rooster crown?’ Spark asked.

‘Open the letter and read it, please,’ Amber fended off her question. Perseverance passed it to Spark, who handed it to Lant. ‘It’s addressed to the Six Duchies Emissaries. So I suppose that means all of us.’

Lant broke the wax seal and tugged out a page of excellent paper. His eyes skimmed down it. ‘Hmm. Rumours of your waking have dashed from the kitchen to the throne room. We are invited to dine tonight with the Kelsingra Dragon Keepers. “If Prince FitzChivalry’s health permits”.’ He lifted his eyes to mine. ‘The keepers, I have learned, are the original Rain Wilders who set out with the dragons to find Kelsingra, or at least a habitable area for dragons. There were not many of them, less than twenty, I believe. Others have come to live here, of course. Rain Wilders seeking a better life, former slaves, and other folk. Some of the keepers have taken wives from among the new folk. Their ambassadors to King Dutiful presented themselves as coming from a populous and prosperous city. But what I’ve seen here and heard from the serving folk tells me a different story,’ he mused. ‘They’ve had only moderate luck at building their population to a level that can sustain the city, even on a village level. The Rain Wild folk find that they change faster when they live here, and seldom in good ways. As you have seen, the children born in Kelsingra are not many and the changes that mark them are not always good ones.’

‘An excellent report,’ Spark said in a fair imitation of Chade’s voice. Perseverance snorted into his hands.

‘Truly,’ Amber agreed, and the colour rose in Lant’s cheeks.

‘He trained you well,’ I said. ‘Why do you think they convene and invite us to dine with them?’

‘To thank you?’ Perseverance seemed incredulous I would not have thought of that.

‘It will be the preliminary to bargaining with us. It’s the Trader way.’ Amber sighed. ‘We know what we need from them. Fresh supplies and passage as far south as we can get. The question is, what will they ask of us in return?’

THREE

In the Mountains

This was a very short dream. A chalk-faced man dressed in robes of green trimmed with gold walked on a beach. A grotesque creature hunched on a grassy outcrop above the beach and watched him, but the man paid it no mind. He was carrying fine chains, as if to be worn as jewellery, but much stronger. He carried them in loops on his arm. He came to a place where the sand was shaking and bulging. He watched it, smiling. Snakes began to come out of the earth. They were large snakes, as long as my arm. They were wet and their skins were bright shades of blue and red and green and yellow. The man put a looped chain around the head of a blue one, and the chain became a noose. He lifted the snake clear of the ground. It thrashed but it could not get away even though it opened wide its mouth and showed white teeth, very pointed. The pale man caught another snake in his snare, a yellow one. Next, he tried to catch a red one, but it shook free of him and slithered away very fast toward the sea. ‘I will have you!’ the man shouted, and he chased the snake and stepped on the end of its tail, trapping it near the waves’ edge. He held the leashes of his two captive snakes in one hand and in the other he shook out a fresh snare for the red snake.

He thought she would turn and dart her head at him and he would loop the chain around her neck. But it was a dragon who turned on him, for he was treading on a dragon’s tail. ‘No,’ she said to him very loudly. ‘But I will have you.’