Assassin's Quest (14 page)

Suddenly the beleaguered man lifted his head. An oddly familiar light came into his eyes. He gripped the sword in both hands and with a roar suddenly sprang at his attackers. Two went down before his first onslaught, dying with amazement still printed plain on their features. The third met his sword blade to blade, but could not overmatch his fury. Blood dripped from the townsman’s elbow and sheened his chest, but his sword rang like bells against the Raider’s, battering down his guard and then suddenly dancing in, light as a feather, to trace a line of red across the Raider’s throat. As his assailant fell, the man turned and sprang swiftly to his wife’s side. He seized the burning beam, heedless of the flames, and lifted it off his son’s body. For one last time, his eyes met those of his wife. “Run!” he told her. “Take the children and flee.” Then he crumpled into the street. He was dead.

As the stony-faced woman seized her children’s hands and raced off with them, I felt a wraith rise from the body of the man who had died. It’s me, I thought to myself, and then knew it was not. It sensed me and turned, his face so like my own. Or it had been, when he had been my age. It jolted me to think this was how Verity still perceived himself.

You, here?
He shook his head in rebuke.
This is dangerous, boy. Even I am a fool to attempt this. And yet what else can we do, when they call us to them?
He considered me, standing so mute before him.
When did you gain the strength and talent to Skill-walk?

I made no reply. I had no answers, no thoughts of my own. I felt I was a wet sheet flapping in the night wind, no more substantial than a blowing leaf.

Fitz, this is a danger to both of us. Go back. Go back now.

Is there truly a magic in the naming of a man’s name? So much of the old lore insists there is. I suddenly recalled who I was, and that I did not belong here. But I had no concept of how I had come here, let alone how to return to my body. I gazed at Verity helplessly, unable to even formulate a request for help.

He knew. He reached a ghostly hand toward me. I felt his push as if he had placed the heel of his hand on my forehead and given a gentle shove.

My head bounced off the wall of the barn, and I saw sudden sparks of light from the impact. I was sitting there, in the barn behind the Scales inn. About me was only peaceful darkness, sleeping beasts, tickling straw. Slowly I slid over onto my side as wave after wave of giddiness and nausea swept over me. The weakness that often possessed me after I had managed to use the Skill broke over me like a wave. I opened my mouth to call for help, but only a wordless caw escaped my lips. I closed my eyes and sank into oblivion.

I awoke before dawn. I crawled to my pack, pawed through it, and then managed to stagger to the back door of the inn, where I quite literally begged a mug of hot water from the cook there. She looked on in disbelief as I crumbled strips of elfbark into it.

“S’not good for you, you know that,” she warned me, and then watched in awe as I drank the scalding, bitter brew. “They give that to slaves, they do, down in Bingtown. Mix it in their food and drink, to keep them on their feet. Makes them despair as much as it gives them staying power, or so I’ve heard. Saps their will to fight back.”

I scarcely heard her. I was waiting to feel the effect. I had harvested my bark from young trees and feared it would lack potency. It did. It was some time before I felt the steeling warmth spread through me, steadying my trembling hands and clearing my vision. I rose from my seat on the kitchen’s back steps, to thank the cook and gave her back her mug.

“It’s a bad habit to take up, a young man like you,” she chided me, and went back to her cooking. I departed the inn to stroll the streets as dawn broke over the hills. For a time, I half expected to find burned storefronts and gutted cottages, and empty-eyed Forged ones roaming the streets. But the Skill nightmare was eroded by the summer morning and the river wind. By daylight, the shabbiness of the town was more apparent. It seemed to me there were more beggars than we had had in Buckkeep Town, but I did not know if that was normal for a river town. I considered briefly what had happened to me last night; then with a shudder I set it aside. I did not know how I had done it. Like as not, it would not happen to me again. It heartened me to know Verity was still alive, even as it chilled me to know how rashly still he expended his Skill-strength. I wondered where he was this morning, and if, like me, he faced the dawn with the bitterness of elfbark all through his mouth. If only I had mastered the Skill, I would not have had to wonder. It was not a thought to cheer one.

When I returned to the inn, the minstrels were already up and inside the inn breakfasting on porridge. I joined them at table, and Josh bluntly told me he had feared I had left without them. Honey had no words at all for me, but several times I caught Piper looking at me appraisingly.

It was still early when we left the inn, and if we did not march like soldiers, Harper Josh still set a respectable pace for us. I had thought he would have to be led, but he made his walking staff his guide. Sometimes he did walk with a hand on Honey’s or Piper’s shoulder, but it seemed more companionship than necessity. Nor was our journey boring, for as we walked he lectured, mostly to Piper, on the history of this region, and surprised me with the depth of his knowledge. We stopped for a bit when the sun was high and they shared with me the simple food they had. I felt uncomfortable taking it, yet there was no way I could excuse myself to go hunt with the wolf. Once the town was well behind us, I had sensed Nighteyes shadowing us. It was comforting to have him near, but I wished it were just he and I traveling together. Several times that day we were passed by other travelers, on horses or mules. Through gaps in the trees we occasionally glimpsed boats beating their way upriver against the current. As the morning passed, well-guarded carts and wagons overtook us. Each time Josh called out to ask if we might ride on the wagons. Twice we were politely refused. The others answered not at all. They moved hurriedly, and one group had several surly-looking men in a common livery who I surmised were hired guards.

We walked the afternoon away to the reciting of “Crossfire’s Sacrifice,” the long poem about Queen Vision’s coterie and how they laid down their lives that she might win a crucial battle. I had heard it before, several times, in Buckkeep. But by the end of the day, I had heard it two score times, as Josh worked with infinite patience to be sure that Piper sang it perfectly. I was grateful for the endless recitations, for it prevented talk.

But despite our steady pace, the falling of evening still found us far short of the next river town. I saw them all become uneasy as the light began to fail. Finally, I took command of the situation and told them we must leave the road at the next stream we crossed, and find a place to settle for the evening. Honey and Piper fell back behind Josh and me, and I could hear them muttering worriedly to one another. I could not reassure them, as Nighteyes had me, that there was not even a sniff of another traveler about. Instead, at the next crossing I guided them upstream and found a sheltered bank beneath a cedar tree where we might rest for the night.

I left them on the pretense of relieving myself, to spend time with Nighteyes assuring him all was well. It was time well spent, for he had discovered a place where the swirling creek water undercut the bank. He watched me intently as I lay on my belly and eased my hands into the water, and then slowly through the curtain of weeds that overhung it. I got a fine fat fish on my first try. Several minutes later, another effort yielded me a smaller fish. When I gave up, it was almost full dark, but I had three fish to take back to camp, leaving two, against my better judgment, for Nighteyes.

Fishing and ear scratching. The two reasons men were given hands,
he told me genially as he settled down with them. He had already gulped down the entrails from mine as fast as I had cleaned them.

Watch out for bones,
I warned him yet again.

My mother raised me on a salmon run,
he pointed out.
Fish bones don’t bother me.

I left him shearing through the fish with obvious relish and returned to camp. The minstrels had a small fire burning. At the sound of my footsteps, all three leaped to their feet brandishing their walking staffs. “It’s me!” I told them belatedly.

“Thank Eda.” Josh sighed as he sat down heavily, but Honey only glared at me.

“You were gone a long time,” Piper said by way of explanation. I held up the fish threaded through the gills onto a willow stick.

“I found dinner,” I told them. “Fish,” I added, for Josh’s benefit.

“Sounds wonderful,” he said.

Honey took out waybread and a small sack of salt as I found a large flat stone and wedged it into the embers of the fire. I wrapped the fish in leaves and set them on the stone to bake. The smell of the cooking fish tantalized me even as I hoped it would not draw any Forged ones to our campfire.

I’m keeping watch still,
Nighteyes reminded me, and I thanked him.

As I watched over the cooking fish, Piper muttered “Crossfire’s Sacrifice” to herself at my elbow.

“ “Hist the halt, and Cleave the blind,’ ” I corrected her distractedly as I tried to turn the fish over without breaking it.

“I had it right!” she contradicted me indignantly.

“I’m afraid you did not, my lass. Cob is correct. Hist was the clubfoot and Cleave was blind from birth. Can you name the other five, Cob?” He sounded just like Fedwren hearing a lesson.

I had burned my finger on a coal and I stuck it in my mouth before answering. “ “Burnt Crossfire led, and those around—were like him, not of body sound, but strong of heart. And true of soul. And herein let me count their roll—for you. ’Twas Hist the halt, and Cleave the blind, and Kevin of the wandering mind, hare-lipped Joiner, Sever was deaf, and Porter, who the foe men left—for dead, without his hands or eyes. And if you think you would despise such ones as these, then let me say . . .’ ”

“Whoa!” Josh exclaimed with pleasure, and then asked, “Had you bard’s training, Cob, when you were small? You’ve caught the phrasing as well as the words. Though you make your pauses a bit too plain.”

“I? No. I’ve always had a quick memory, though.” It was hard not to smile at his praise of me, even though Honey sneered and shook her head at it.

“Could you recite the whole thing, do you think?” Josh asked challengingly.

“Perhaps,” I hedged. I knew I could. Both Burrich and Chade had drilled my memory skills often. And I’d heard it so often today I could not drive it from my head.

“Try it then. But not spoken. Sing it.”

“I have no voice for singing.”

“If you can speak, you can sing. Try it. Indulge an old man.”

Perhaps obeying old men was simply too deep a habit with me for me to defy it. Perhaps it was the look on Honey’s face that told me plainly she doubted I could do it.

I cleared my throat and began it, singing softly until he gestured at me to raise my voice. He nodded his head as I worked my way through it, wincing now and then when I soured a note. I was about halfway through when Honey observed dryly, “The fish is burning.”

I dropped the song and sprang to poke stone and wrapped fish from the fire. The tails were scorched, but the rest was fine, steaming and firm. We portioned it out and I ate too rapidly. Twice as much would not have filled me, and yet I must be content with what I had. The waybread tasted surprisingly good with the fish, and afterward Piper made a kettle of tea for us. We settled on our blankets about the fire.

“Cob, do you do well as a scribe?” Josh suddenly asked me.

I made a deprecating sound. “Not as well as I’d like. But I get by.”

“Not as well as he’d like,” Honey muttered to Piper in mocking imitation.

Harper Josh ignored her. “You’re old for it, but you could be taught to sing. Your voice is not so bad; you sing like a boy, not knowing you’ve a man’s depth of voice and lungs to call on now. Your memory is excellent. Do you play any instruments?”

“The sea-pipes. But not well.”

“I could teach you to play them well. If you took up with us . . .”

“Father! We scarcely know him!” Honey objected.

“I could have said the same to you when you left the loft last night,” he observed to her mildly.

“Father, all we did was talk.” She flashed a look at me, as if I had betrayed her. My tongue had turned to leather in my mouth.

“I know,” Josh agreed. “Blindness seems to have sharpened my hearing. But if you have judged him someone safe to talk to, alone, at night, then perhaps I have judged him someone safe to offer our company to as well. What say you, Cob?”

I shook my head slowly; then, “No,” I said aloud. “Thank you all the same. I appreciate what you are offering, and to a stranger. I will travel with you as far as the next town, and I wish you well in finding other companions to travel with you from there. But . . . I have no real wish for . . .”

“You lost someone dear to you. I understand that. But total solitude is not good for any man,” Josh said quietly.

“Who did you lose?” Piper asked in her open way.

I tried to think how to explain without leaving myself open for more questions. “My grandfather,” I said at last. “And my wife.” Saying those words was like tearing a wound open.

“What happened?” Piper asked.

“My grandfather died. My wife left me.” I spoke shortly, wishing they’d let it be.

“The old die in their time,” Josh began gently, but Honey cut in brusquely with, “That was the love you lost? What can you owe to a woman who left you? Unless you gave her cause to leave you?”

“It was more that I did not give her cause to stay,” I admitted unwillingly. Then, “Please,” I said bluntly. “I do not wish to speak of these things. At all. I will see you to the next town, but then my way is my own.”

“Well. That’s clearly spoken,” Josh said regretfully. Something in his tone made me feel I had been rude, but there were no words I wished to call back.

There was little talk the rest of that evening, for which I was grateful. Piper offered to take first watch and Honey second. I did not object, as I knew Nighteyes would prowl all about us this night. Little got past that one. I slept better out in the open air, and came awake quickly when Honey stooped over me to shake me. I sat up, stretched, then nodded to her that I was awake and she could get more sleep. I got up and poked at the fire, then took a seat by it. Honey came to sit beside me.