The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (210 page)

The Fool was not as pleased to leave the digging as I was. ‘But
what if they reach the dragon while we are gone? What if I am not here to defend him?’

‘The Hetgurd guardians and the Witted coterie oppose killing him as much as you do. Don’t you think they’ll be enough?’

We were bedded down together, sleeping back to back for the body warmth just as we had in the Mountains so many years ago. Truth to tell, I gained little from it, for the Fool’s body had always felt cool to the touch. It was rather like sleeping alongside a lizard, I thought. Yet if he did not give off much warmth, the solid feel of his back against mine was a reassurance of camaraderie that I had not felt since Nighteyes had died. There is security in knowing that a friend has your back, even if he is sound asleep.

‘I don’t know. I’m too close to where all my visions stopped.’ He paused, as if he expected me to ask a question, but that was a topic I did not wish to explore. Then, ‘Do you think we ought to go?’ he asked cautiously.

I shifted in the bed, groaning as my aching muscles complained. ‘I don’t think I thought much about it. Chade has been telling me what to do for so long that I simply accepted I should go. But I would like to know what has happened to Riddle and Hest. And I’d like to see if Thick recovers himself when he’s moved away from the dragon’s influence. And –’ I shifted and groaned again, ‘I wouldn’t mind a few days of doing anything other than shovelling.’

He was quiet. I was too, pondering his silence. I wondered what was making him take so long to make up his mind. Then I laughed aloud. ‘Ah, yes. I nearly forgot. I am the Catalyst, the one who makes changes. And this would be a change in what you think you should do. So, you cannot decide whether to oppose it or not.’

The silence stretched so long I thought he had fallen asleep. The day had been the warmest we had had so far, making sodden work of our task. I listened to the wind, and hoped the night’s cold would crust the surface of the glacier and keep the wind from blowing snow into our excavation. I had almost dropped off to sleep myself when he said, ‘You frighten me, sometimes, when you give voice to my thoughts. We will go, tomorrow. We’ll take this tent for shelter, shall we?’

‘That sounds fine to me,’ I said as I drowsed off.

And so the next morning we set off. Longwick issued us three days of supplies which, he told us, should be ample for us to reach the beach. We struck the Fool’s elegant tent and packed it on the sled while Longwick gave us last-minute directives. If we reached the beach without encountering the others, we should warn the guard there of our sightings of the Black Man. If we encountered evidence that the others had met with foul play, we should return to the camp immediately and report. If we met the others coming back, we should simply turn around and come back with them. Web’s bird would check on us, from time to time. I nodded as I arranged the Fool’s tent and bedding for three onto the sled. As predicted, we had to load Thick onto the sled. He could not be persuaded to walk. It was not that he resisted; he simply didn’t co-operate. He would take a few steps, and then become lost once more in his musings. Dutiful and Chade both came to bid us farewell. Dutiful snugged Thick’s cap down around his ears. I know that he tried desperately to stir Thick with the Skill. I could not feel it, but I saw the intensity in Dutiful’s face. Thick turned his head slowly to look at the Prince. ‘I’m fine,’ he said sluggishly. And then he stared off in the distance again.

‘Take care of him, Tom,’ Dutiful told me gruffly.

‘I will, my lord. We’ll try to make a quick trip of it.’ And so saying, with Thick sitting on the great sled bundled up like a cocoon, I took up the lines and began to pull.

The heavily-waxed runners moved easily over the snow. Almost too easily, for we were now going downhill rather than up. I had to stop and set the drag to keep the sled from running over the top of me. The Fool went ahead of us, his pack riding high on his shoulders, prodding the snow to make sure our path was sound, even though we were following the line of stakes that Peottre had set up to mark our path for us.

The day was warm, and snow collected, heavy, on my boots. When our path levelled for a time, the runners of the sled began to stick. The sled was cutting a deeper path upon our old one, and as the runners sank into the snow, heavy damp snow began to ride on the tops of the runners. But the day was pleasant and pulling Thick on the sled was still less strenuous than shovelling ice out of
a pit. The gaudy sword the Fool had given me tapped against my leg as I strode along, for Longwick had insisted that I, at least, should go armed. We were traversing the trail much more swiftly than we had before, for the path was clearly marked with Peottre’s stakes, and there was at least a slight downhill slope for all of it. Thick’s humming, the squeak of the runners and the crunch of our footsteps on the softened crust of the glacier were not the only sounds. The warmth had wakened the glacier. We heard one distant fall of ice, a thunder that went on for some time. It was followed by lesser creakings and crashes, but always at a distance.

The Fool began to whistle, and I was much cheered when I saw Thick sit up and take notice of the music. He still hummed breathlessly to himself, but I began to make comments on the scenery, uniformly white as it was, and occasionally elicited a response from him. That cheered me unreasonably, but also left me pondering. The Skill was not a magic bounded by distance, and yet Thick seemed to be recovering more of his own awareness of the world the farther we got from the buried dragon. I had no answer to why that might be so, and wished I could discuss it with Dutiful and Chade.

Several times I attempted in vain to reach out with the Skill. A legless man trying to jump would have had more success. The magic was simply gone. If I dwelt on that, I felt a cold pit in the bottom of my belly. I pushed the thought aside. There was nothing I could do about it now.

The daily cycle of warmth and chill combined with the nightly wind had smoothed all the edges of our previous passage’s trail. I made a few vain attempts to read it, trying to discern if Riddle and Hest and their sled had passed this way, with no success. We had a wide view of the snowy lands below us. Nothing moved on them, certainly nothing so large as a sled and two men. It was possible that they had lingered at the beach, I told myself, or that some mishap had delayed their return. I tried not to stack their disappearance with the theft of my Skill and the sightings of the Black Man. I had too few facts to make them add up to anything. Instead, I tried to enjoy the freshness of the day. At one point, I heard the high cry of a seabird, and looked up to see a gull describe a wide circle
over us. I lifted a hand and waved a greeting at Risk, wondering if that acknowledgement would be relayed to Web. We passed our previous campsite while we still had plenty of daylight and energy to continue, so we did. That night, we pitched the tent on the trail behind the sled. Thick still periodically hummed to himself, but also expressed both an interest in and then dismay at the simple dinner I prepared. The little tent was a bit more crowded with the three of us, but also warmed more quickly. The Fool told simple children’s stories that night until we were all more than ready for sleep. With every passing tale, Thick hummed less and asked more questions. At one time the constant interruptions to the story would have annoyed me. Now they filled me with relief.

‘Would you tell Chade and Dutiful goodnight for me?’ I asked Thick as he settled into his blankets.

‘Do it yourself,’ he suggested grumpily.

‘I can’t. I ate some bad food, and now I can’t find them in my mind.’

He sat up on one elbow and stared at me. ‘Oh. Yes. Now I remember. You’re gone. That’s too bad.’ He was silent for a time, then said, ‘They say, “goodnight, and thanks for letting us know. And maybe I should stay at the beach, but they’ll decide later.”’ He drew a deep, satisfied breath and dropped back into his blankets.

It was my turn to sit up. ‘Thick. You aren’t coughing any more. Or wheezing.’

‘No.’ He rolled over, managing to kick me in the process. I nearly complained but then he said, ‘He told me, “mend yourself. Don’t be stupid, mend yourself, don’t be annoying.” So I did.’

‘Who told you that?’ I asked, even as I was stricken with guilt. Why hadn’t Chade and Dutiful and I thought of trying to heal Thick? It now seemed obvious. I was ashamed we hadn’t done it.

‘Huh,’ Thick sighed out consideringly. ‘His name is a story, too long to tell. I’m sleepy. Stop talking to me.’

And that was that. He went off into a deep sleep. I wondered if Icefyre had another name, a dragon name.

I woke once in the night, thinking I heard cautious footsteps outside our tent. I crept to the doorflap, and then reluctantly
stepped outside into the clear cold. I saw nothing and no one, even when I had made a full circuit of the tent.

When morning came, I made a wider circuit of the camp while the Fool tried to heat water for tea for us. I brought my news back to them. ‘Someone came to see us last night,’ I said, trying to keep my voice light. ‘He walked all around our camp in a big circle. Then he lay down in the snow over there for a while. Then he went away, that way, the same way he came. Do you think I should go see where he went?’

‘Why?’ Thick asked, even as the Fool said thoughtfully, ‘I think Lord Chade and Prince Dutiful might want to know about that.’

‘I think they would, too.’ I looked at Thick. He sighed wearily, and then turned his gaze inward.

A few moments later, he said, ‘They said, “Go to the beach.” Dutiful says he thinks he left maple candy in a bag there. They say we should hurry there, and come back with the stuff, and tell the guards there to come back with us. “Don’t go looking for where the footprints go right now.”’

‘Then that is what we’ll do.’ How I wished to be able to hear Chade’s thoughts on this for myself.

We packed up the tent and loaded it on the sled. Thick matter-of-factly climbed onto it. I thought it over and decided it was the simplest solution to travelling with him. Dragging him was easier than matching his slow pace. As before, the Fool went on before us, testing the trail while I pulled. The day was fine, a warm wind blowing across the snowy face of the world. I expected that we might reach the beach by the next afternoon if we held our present progress. Thick suddenly spoke.

‘Nettle said she missed you. She asked if you hated her.’

‘I hated – When? When did she say that?’

‘At night.’ Thick waved his hand vaguely. ‘She said you just went away and never came back at all.’

‘But that’s because I ate the bad food. And I couldn’t reach her.’

‘Ya.’ Thick dismissed this casually. ‘I told her you can’t talk to her any more. She was glad to hear it.’

‘She was glad?’

‘She thought you were dead. Or something. She has a friend now, a new girl. Will we stop and eat soon?’

‘Not until tonight. We don’t have much food, so we have to be careful. Thick, did she –’

My words were interrupted by a whoop of dismay from the Fool. His sounding post had suddenly plunged deep in the snow. He picked it up, took two steps to the left and shoved it in again. Again it sank deep.

‘Sit still,’ I told Thick. I took one of the extra poles from the sled and walked forward to stand beside the perplexed Fool. ‘Soft snow?’ I asked him.

He shook his head. ‘It’s as if there’s only a crust, and then nothing. If I hadn’t held tight to the pole, it would have dropped right through.’

‘Let’s be very careful.’ I took hold of his sleeve. ‘Thick, stay on the sled!’ I reminded him again.

‘I’m hungry!’

‘The food is in the sack behind you. Sit still and eat something.’ It seemed the easiest way to keep him busy. Tugging the Fool to move with me, we took three steps to the right. This time, I plunged in my pole. I felt what he had told me I would. The crust of snow resisted the pole, and then it shot through into nothingness.

‘Peottre’s stakes go right across it,’ the Fool pointed out.

‘It wouldn’t be that hard to move the stakes,’ I pointed out.

‘Whoever moved them would have had to walk right across, though.’

‘The crust would be more solid at night. I think.’ I couldn’t decide if we confronted the natural danger of the glacier or if we had followed the line of stakes into a trap. ‘Let’s move back to the sled,’ I suggested.

‘Seems like a very good idea,’ the Fool agreed.

So it was that as I led him back from the hidden chasm, we plunged downward through the crust. We sank, me to my knees, the Fool to his hips, both yelling in terror. Then, as we stuck there, I laughed out loud at our fright. It was no more than a soft spot in the snow. ‘Give me your hand,’ I said as he floundered, trying to get back onto the top of the crust. He took my proffered grasp,
and then, as he floundered toward me, we both broke through the second crust below us and went down.

I had a single glimpse of Thick’s face contorted in terror. Then his wail of dismay was drowned in the downpour of snow and ice that fell with and after us. I clung to the Fool’s hand as I floundered for any sort of solidity anywhere else in the world. There was none. All was white and wet and cold, and we fell in a terrible unending slide of loose snow and ice chunks.

Snow seems a light and fluffy thing when it is falling on a sunlit day. But when it thickens the air to porridge, you cannot breathe it. It flowed inside my clothes like a living thing craving my warmth. It became heavy and relentless. I fought my free hand up to crook my elbow uselessly over my face. We fell still, a slow sliding, and in some part of my mind, I knew that more snow slid down after us. Yet through it all, I held fast to the Fool’s hand, and knew that his free hand did not protect his face but clung in a death grip to the shoulder of my coat. There was no free air to breathe.

And then, as if we had passed through the neck of a funnel, we were suddenly falling and sliding more swiftly and freely. I kicked my feet, making vague swimming motions, and felt the Fool likewise struggling alongside me. I felt us sliding to a halt, in cold wet darkness. It terrified me, and I made the final struggle that our bodies demand we make when death clutches us. Then, somehow, against all odds, I was breaking free of the snow. I gasped a breath of almost clear air and floundered toward it, dragging the Fool with me. He came limply and I feared he had already smothered.