it was spring, the cloaks we’d been given were of thick wool against the expected cold of the Out Islands. The Fool’s gift sword laid out atop my colours seemed like a rebuke. I left it there, safe as anything was safe in a barracks where a man’s honour was most of what he possessed in the world.
In my tower workroom, it was much the same. If Chade had noticed that Chivalry’s sword now hung over the mantelpiece, he’d chosen not to comment on it. I moved ineffectually around the room, putting away the things that Chade had left scattered from his packing. The charts of the Out Islands and all other writings that Chade thought might be needed had already been packed. For lack of anything else to do, I lay on the bed and teased the ferret. But soon even Gilly tired of that. He went off to hunt rats. I took myself off to the steams, scrubbed myself raw, and then shaved twice. Afterwards, I went to my barracks and got into the narrow bed there. The rest of the long room was quiet and nearly deserted. Only a few old hands had chosen an early bed as I had. The others were out and about Buckkeep Town, bidding the taverns and whores farewell. I pulled the blankets up around me and stared up at the shadowed ceiling.
I wondered how hard the Fool would try to follow us. Chade had assured me that he wouldn’t be able to get passage out of Buckkeep Town. He’d have to travel to a different port, and pay a lot of money to persuade a ship’s captain to sail after us. Lord Golden wouldn’t have that money. After his recent escapades, I doubted he’d find any friends willing to loan him any. He’d be stuck.
And furious with me, I decided. He had a keen mind. He’d soon deduce who had been behind his abandonment. He would know that I had chosen his life over what he perceived as his destiny. He’d feel no gratitude. His Catalyst was supposed to aid him in changing the course of the world, not thwart him.
I closed my eyes and sighed. It took me several tries to compose myself. When finally I floated just beneath the surface of sleep, I reached out for Nettle. This time, she was sitting in an oak tree, wearing a gown of butterfly wings. I looked up at her from the knoll beneath the tree. I was the man-wolf, as I always was in her dreams. ‘All those dead butterflies,’ I said sorrowfully, shaking my head at her.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s only a dream.’ She stood up on the branch and leapt. I reared onto my hind legs and opened my arms to catch her, but the butterflies of her gown all fluttered simultaneously, and she floated, light as thistledown, and landed on her feet beside me. She wore one large yellow butterfly in her hair like a hair ribbon. It slowly fanned its wings. The colour of her gown shifted in waves as the butterflies wafted their wings lazily.
‘Ew. Don’t all the little legs tickle?’
‘No. It’s a dream, remember? You don’t have to keep the unpleasant parts.’
‘You never have nightmares, do you?’ I asked in admiration.
‘I think that I used to, when I was very small. But I don’t any more. Why would anyone stay in a dream that didn’t please her?’
‘Not all of us can control our dreams the way you can, child. You should count it as a blessing.’
‘Do you have nightmares?’
‘Sometimes. Don’t you recall where you found me last time, crossing that talus slope?’
‘Oh. Yes, I remember that. But I thought it was something you liked to do. Some men like doing dangerous things, you know.’
‘Perhaps. But some of us have had our fill of that, and would avoid nightmares if we could.’
She nodded slowly. ‘My mother has terrible nightmares sometimes. Even when I go into them and tell her to come out, she won’t. She either won’t or can’t see me. And my father … I know he has bad dreams, because sometimes he shouts aloud. But I can’t find my way into his dreams at all.’ She stopped for a moment’s thought. ‘I think that’s why he started drinking again. When he’s drunk, he passes out instead of falling asleep. Do you think he could be hiding from his nightmares?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, and wished she had not told me such things. ‘I bring you news that may ease both of them, however. Swift is on his way back home.’
She clasped her hands together and took a deep breath. ‘Oh, thank you, Shadow Wolf. I knew you could help me.’
I tried to be stern. ‘I wouldn’t have to help you if you’d used common sense. Swift is far too young to be out and about on his own. You shouldn’t have helped him run away.’
‘I know that, now. But I didn’t then. Why can’t real life be like dreams? In a dream, if something starts to go wrong, you can simply change it.’ She lifted her hands to her shoulders and smoothed them down the front of her gown. Suddenly, she was wearing a dress of poppy petals. ‘See? No tickly legs now. You just have to tell the parts you don’t like to go away.’
‘Like you send away the dragon?’
‘The dragon?’
‘You know who I mean. Tintaglia. She appears small at first, as a lizard or a bee and then becomes larger until you vanquish her.’
‘Oh. Her.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘She only comes when you do. I thought she was a part of your dream.’
‘No. She’s not a part of anyone’s dream. She’s as real as you and me.’ It suddenly disturbed me that Nettle had not perceived that. Had our dream conversations exposed her to a greater danger than I knew?
‘Who is she, then, when she is awake?’
‘I told you. She’s a dragon.’
‘There’s no such thing as dragons,’ she declared with a laugh, shocking me into momentary silence.
‘You don’t believe in dragons? Then who saved the Six Duchies from the Red Ship raiders?’
‘Soldiers and sailors, mostly, I suppose. It hardly matters anyway, does it? It happened so long ago.’
‘It matters a great deal to some of us,’ I muttered. ‘Especially to the ones who were there.’
‘I’m sure it does. Yet I’ve noticed that few if any can tell a straight tale of exactly what happened to save the Six Duchies. Just that they saw the dragons in the distance and that the next thing they knew, the Red Ships were sinking or broken. And the dragons were almost out of sight.’
‘Dragons have a strange effect upon people’s memories,’ I explained to her. ‘They … they seem to absorb them as they pass over people. Like a cloth wiping up spilled beer.’
She grinned up at me. ‘So, if that’s true, why doesn’t Tintaglia have that effect on us? How is it we can remember her being in our dreams?’
I held up a warning hand. ‘Let’s not use her name any more. I’ve no wish to encounter her again. As to why we can remember her, well, I think it is because she comes to us as a dream creature rather than in the flesh. Or it could be that she does not take our memories because she is a creature of flesh and blood, instead of …’
I recalled to whom I was speaking and halted. I was telling her too much. If I did not guard my tongue, soon I’d be telling her about Skill-carving dragons from memory stone, and how those creatures were the Elderlings of tale and song.
‘Go on.’ She urged
