The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (196 page)

When we crested the ridge, I could instantly see their campsite below. The snow staves were posted at intervals around it, with bright ribbons attached to the tops. Evidently Peottre had established what he considered a safe area for the party. The larger tents for the Prince and Narcheska had already sprung up like mushrooms. In the dimming light, the Fool’s colourful one was like a blossom cast on the snow. Illuminated from within, the bright panels gleamed like stained-glass windows. What had seemed random designs suddenly resolved into dragons and serpents cavorting. Well, he had declared his allegiance clearly.

There were two small campfires for the drab tents of the rest of our group. The Hetgurd men had pitched their tents a little away from ours, and kindled their own tiny fire, as it to proclaim to the gods that they were not of our party and did not deserve to share our fate.

I saw no sign of the Black Man, or any place where he might have hidden. Yet this did not dismiss my concerns but only heightened them.

As we made out way down to the camp, we encountered our first fissure in the glacier. It was a narrow, snaking crack, no more than that, and I simply stepped over it. Thick halted, staring down
at the depths that shaded from pale blue to black. ‘Come on,’ I encouraged him. ‘It’s not far to camp. I think I can smell the food they’re cooking.’

‘That’s deep.’ He lifted his eyes from his contemplation of it. ‘Peottre was right. It could swallow me and gulp me down, snap!’ He stepped back from it.

‘No, it can’t. It’s all right, Thick. It’s not something alive; it’s just a crack in the ice. Come on.’

He took a deep breath, and then coughed. When he was finished, he said, ‘No. I’m going back.’

‘You can’t, Thick. It will be dark soon. It’s only a crack. Just step over it.’

‘No.’ He shook his head on his short neck, his chin brushing his collar. ‘It’s dangerous.’

In the end, I stepped back over it and took his hand to persuade him to cross. I nearly slipped and fell when his awkward and exaggerated leap over it took me off-guard in mid-stride. As I tottered, for one breathless moment I imagined myself wedged in the crack, out of reach of helping hands and yet preserved from slipping further. Thick sensed my fear and comforted me with, ‘See, I told you it was dangerous. You nearly fell in and died.’

‘Let’s just go down to the camp,’ I suggested.

As promised, they had hot food waiting for us. Riddle and Hest had finished eating already. They were conversing quietly with Longwick as he directed a watch schedule for the night. I settled Thick on top of my pack beside the fire and fetched food that Deft ladled out for both of us. Supper was a stew made from salt meat, and it suffered from that, as well as a too-brief cooking time. I grinned briefly at myself as I pondered how swiftly I had once again become accustomed to Buckkeep’s succulent fare. Had I forgotten how to subsist on a guard’s rations? There had been times in my life when I’d had far worse to eat at the end of a long, cold day, or nothing at all. I took another bite. That thought should have made the tough meat taste better, but it didn’t. I glanced surreptitiously at Thick, expecting he would soon complain about it. But he was staring at the fire wearily, his bowl balanced precariously on his knee. ‘You should eat, Thick,’ I reminded him, and he startled as if from a
dream. I caught the bowl before it tipped enough to spill and handed it back to him. He ate, but wearily, not showing any of his usual enthusiasm for food, and stopping often to cough. It worried me. I finished my food hastily and rose, leaving Thick watching the dwindling flames of the small fire and chewing methodically.

Chade and Dutiful were at the other campfire with the rest of Dutiful’s Wit-coterie. There was talk there, and even some laughter, and for a moment I envied their companionship. It took me a moment to realize that the Fool was not there. And then I noticed the other absence. Peottre and the Narcheska were also missing from the gathering. I glanced at the tent pitched for them. It was dark and still. Did they sleep already? Well, perhaps that was the best idea. Doubtless Peottre would rouse us all early to travel on.

I think Chade noticed me standing idly at the edges of the firelight. He left the circle of light as if going to relieve himself and I followed noiselessly. I stood beside him in the blackness and spoke quietly. ‘I’m concerned about Thick. He seems oddly distracted. From one moment to the next, his temper changes from irritable to frightened to elated.’

Chade nodded slowly. ‘There is something about this island … I have no name for it, and yet it tugs at me. I feel dread and worry beyond what I should feel, and then the feelings go. This land seems to speak to me through my Skill. And if it can reach one as feeble as me in that talent, how must it speak to Thick?’

I heard bitterness in the self-deprecation of his magic. ‘You grow stronger in the Skill every day,’ I assured him. ‘But I think perhaps you are right. I’ve felt nameless worry nibbling at me all day. Such, at times, is my nature. But this does seem more formless than usual. Could it have anything to do with the memories trapped in the stone?’

He made a sound of resignation. ‘How could we possibly know? All we can do for Thick is see that he eats and sleeps well at night.’

‘He is growing stronger in the Skill.’

‘I’ve noticed that. It makes my own paltry ability seem all the more meagre.’

‘Time, Chade. It will come with time and patience. You’re doing well, for someone who began so late and has not been long in training.’

‘Time. Time is the only thing we have, when all is said and done, and yet we never have enough of it. You can be calm about it; you’ve had as much of magic as you’ve ever wanted, and more, all your life. While I’ve had to claw and scratch for a tiny shred of it at the end of my days. Where is the justice of fate, when a half-wit has in abundance and values not at all that which I so desperately lack?’ He turned on me. ‘Why did you always have so much Skill, bursts of it, and never wanted with your whole heart to master it as I have longed to do all my life?’

He was starting to frighten me. ‘Chade. I think this place preys on our minds, finding both our fears and our despairs. Set your walls against it, and trust only your logic’

‘Humph. I have never been prey to my emotions. But this time would be better spent in rest than in talk, by either of us. Care for Thick as best you can. I’ll watch over the Prince. He, too, seems prey to a darker mood than is usual for him.’ He rubbed his gloved hands together. ‘I’m old, Fitz. Old. And tired. And cold. I shall be glad when all of this is over and we are safely on our way home again.’

‘And I,’ I agreed heartily. ‘But I had another bit of news I wished to share with you. Odd, isn’t it? Once I thought Skilling was private and secretive. Yet, still I must seek you out to whisper to you. I don’t think Thick is ready for me to ask this favour of him. He still resents and blames me. It might come better from you or the Prince.’

‘What?’ Chade demanded impatiently. He shifted restlessly and I knew the cold was biting his skinny old bones.

‘Nettle has gone to Buckkeep Castle. I think our bird must have reached the Queen and she sent someone to Burrich. She’s gone to the castle for safety’s sake. And she knows that the threat to her is connected to our quest for the dragon’s head.’ I could not quite bring myself to tell Chade that she now knew I was her father. I wanted to be clear on just how much Burrich had told her before that secret ceased being a secret.

Chade grasped the implications immediately. ‘And Thick speaks
to Nettle in his dreams. We can communicate with Buckkeep and the Queen.’

‘Almost. I think we need to approach it cautiously. Thick is still not pleased with me, and might make mischief if he knew it would upset me. And Nettle is angry with me, also. I cannot reach her directly, and I don’t know how much heed she would give to messages from me that went through Thick.’

He gave a disgruntled noise. ‘Too late you fall in with my plans for her. Fitz, I do not relish rebuking you. But if you had allowed us to bring Nettle in as soon as we knew her potential, she would never have been in danger. Nor would quarrels between you and her have crippled us in this way. Either the Prince or I could reach her instead of you, if she had been properly prepared to use her magic. We could have had communication with Buckkeep Castle all this time.’

It was childish of me. I pointed it out anyway. ‘You would probably have brought her here with us, for the sake of mustering strength for the Prince.’

He sighed, as if confronting a stubborn pupil who refused to concede a point. Which he was, I suppose. ‘As you will have it, Fitz. But, I beg you, do not charge into this development like a bull harried by bees. Let her settle at Buckkeep for a few days, while the Prince and I consult on how much she should know of who she is and how best to approach her through Thick. It may require some preparation of Thick as well.’

Relief flowed through me. I had feared that Chade would be the one to charge in like a bull. ‘I will do as you say. Go slowly.’

‘There’s a good lad,’ Chade replied absently. I knew that his thoughts had already wandered afar to how these new playing pieces could be deployed on the game board.

And so we parted for the night.

Hoquin was the White Prophet and Wild-eye his Catalyst in the years that Sardus Chif held power in the Edge Lands. Famine had ruled there even longer than Sardus Chif, and some said it was a punishment on the land because Sardus Prex, mother of Sardus Chif, had burned every sacred grove in wild mourning and fury at the Leaf God when her consort, Slevm, died of pox. Since then, the rains had all but ceased, and that was because there were no sacred leaves for the rains to wash. For the rains only fall for holy duty, not to slake the thirst of men or their children.

Hoquin believed that his call as White Prophet was to restore the fertility of the Edge Lands, and he believed that to do this, water must come. So he made his Catalyst to study water and how it might be brought to the Edge Lands, from deep wells or dug canals or prayers and offerings for rainfall. Often he asked her what she would change to bring water to her people’s lands, but never did she have an answer to please him.

Wild-eye had no care for water. She had been born in the dry years and lived in the dry years and knew only the dry years and their ways. What she cared for were thippi-fruits, the little soft-fleshed many-seeded pomes that grow low to the earth in the shelter of the claw brambles in the ravines of the foothills. When she was supposed to be at her chores, she would slip away up to the foothills and go to the bramble thickets, returning with her skirts and hair thick with claw seed and her mouth purple from thippi-fruit. This angered Hoquin the White, and often he beat her for her inattention to her duties.

Then, around their cottage, where had been only dusty earth, the claw brambles began to grow. Their tangling thorns sheltered the soil from the sun and beneath them came in the thippi-fruit vines. In the season when
the thippi-fruit died back, grey grass grew, and rabbits came to live beneath the brambles and eat the greygrass. Then Wild-eye caught and cooked the rabbits for the White Prophet.

Scribe Cateren, of the White Prophet Hoquin

Despite Chade’s suggestion, I did not go immediately to my blankets. I returned to the fire, where Thick sat staring at the remaining embers and shivering as the cold of the glacier crept up into him. I rousted him from there and saw him off to bed in the tent we would share with Riddle and Hest. The tight quarters were welcome for the body warmth that would be shared. He settled in, gave a huge sigh that ended in a coughing fit, then sighed again and dropped into sleep. I wondered if he would be conversing with Nettle tonight. Perhaps in the morning I’d have the courage to ask him. For now, I’d be content knowing she was safe at Buckkeep.

I left the tent and went out under the stars. The fires had died out almost completely. Longwick would keep a few coals going in a firepot but we didn’t have enough fuel to keep them burning constantly. There was a dim light from Dutiful’s tent; probably a small lantern still burned in there. The Fool’s tent was likewise illuminated, glowing like a jewel in the night. I walked quietly over the snow to it.

I halted outside it when I heard soft voices from within. I could not make out the words, but I recognized the speakers. Swift said something, and the Fool replied teasingly. The boy chuckled. It sounded peaceful and friendly. I felt a strange twinge of exclusion, and almost retreated to my tent. Then I rebuked myself for jealousy. So the Fool had befriended the boy. Very likely, it was the best thing that could happen to Swift. As I could not knock to announce myself, I cleared my throat loudly, and then stooped to lift the tent flap. A slice of light fell on the snow. ‘May I come in?’

There was the tiniest of pauses, and then, ‘If you wish. Try to leave the snow and ice outside.’

He knew me too well. I brushed the damp snow from my leggings,
and then shook it from my feet. Crouching, I entered and let the tent flap fall closed behind me.

The Fool had always had the unique talent of creating a small world for himself when he wished to retreat. The tent was no exception. When I had visited it before, it had been charming, but empty. Now he occupied it and filled it with his presence. A small metal firepot in the centre of the floor burned near smokelessly. A smell of cooking, something spicy, lingered in the air. Swift sat cross-legged on a tasselled cushion while the Fool was half-reclined on his pallet. Two arrows, one a dull grey, the other brightly painted and obviously the Fool’s work, rested across Swift’s knees.

‘Did you require me, sir?’ Swift asked quickly. I could hear his reluctance to leave in his voice.

I shook my head. ‘I didn’t even know you were here,’ I replied.

As the Fool sat up, I saw what had made Swift laugh. A tiny marionette dangled from his hand, with five fine black threads going to each of the Fool’s fingertips. I had to smile. He had carved a tiny jester, done in black and white. The pallid face was his own, as it had been when he was a boy. White down hair floated around the little face. A twitch of one long finger set the creature’s head to nodding at me. ‘So what brings you here, Tom Badgerlock?’ the Fool and his puppet asked me. A shift of his finger made the little jester cock his head inquiringly at me.