This would be a cold, and carefully calculated, vengeance. When I struck, I would do so with thoroughness. It would be sweet, I thought, if they died knowing for what crime they suffered. But if they did not, they would still be just as dead.
Perforce, my plans were simplistic, my strategy sparse. I arranged my supplies and pondered possibilities. Five of Chade’s exploding pots had survived the bear’s attack. One was cracked and leaking a coarse black powder. I softened candle wax and repaired it. I had knives, and my old sling, an axe too large to carry in a peaceful city; I doubted those weapons would be useful. I had powdered poisons for mixing with food and some for dusting a surface, oils that could go on a doorknob or the lip of a mug, tasteless liquids and pellets, every form of poison I knew. The bear attack had robbed me of the ones I had carried in quantity; I had no hope of poisoning the castle’s water supply or dosing a large kettle of food. I had enough poison to deploy if I could get the Four to sit down and play dice with me. I doubted such an opportunity would exist. But if I could gain access to their personal lodgings, I could make an end of them.
On the bedside table, in the little cups that represented the towers, I arranged four black stones. I was holding the fifth in my hand, pondering, when Per and Spark came in with Lady Amber and Lant. ‘Is it a game?’ Per asked, staring in consternation at the cluttered tables, and my murder kit arrayed neatly on the floor.
‘If assassination is a game,’ Spark said quietly. She came to stand at my elbow. ‘What do the black stones represent?’
‘Chade’s pots.’
‘What do they do?’ Per asked.
‘They blast things. Like trapped sap popping in a firewood log.’ I gestured at the five little pots.
‘Only more powerful,’ the Fool said.
‘Much more,’ Spark said quietly. ‘I tested some with Chade. When he was healthy. We blew a great hole in a stone cliff near the beach. Rock chips flew everywhere.’ She touched her cheek as if remembering a stinging splinter.
‘Good,’ the Fool said. He took a seat at the table. Amber was long gone as his fingers danced over the carefully-arranged items. ‘A firepot for each tower?’
‘It might work. The placement of the pots and the strength of the tower walls are key. The pots must be high enough in the tower to make the tower collapse while the Four are abed. The pots have to explode simultaneously, so I need fuses of different lengths, so I can place and light a pot, and then go on to the next until all four are burning.’
‘And still give you time to escape,’ Lant suggested.
‘That would be very nice, yes.’ I didn’t consider it likely that the pots would explode simultaneously. ‘I need something to make fuses from.’
Spark frowned. ‘Are not the fuses still in the top of the pots?’
I stared at her. ‘What?’
‘Give me one. Please.’
With reluctance, I lifted the repaired pot and handed it to her. She scowled at that. ‘I’m not sure you should even try to use this one.’ She tugged the cap off the pot, and I saw that it had been held on with a thick resin. Inside were two coiled strings. One was blue and the other white. She teased them out. The blue was twice the length of the white. ‘The blue is longer and burns more slowly. The white burns fast.’
‘How fast?’
She shrugged. ‘The white one, set fire to it and run. It is good if you are being chased. The blue one you can conceal, and then finish your wine and bid your host farewell and be safely out the door.’
Lant leaned over my shoulder. I heard the smile in his voice. ‘Far easier to use those with two of us. One man can never set all four and still be away before they explode.’
‘Three of us,’ Spark insisted. I stared at her. Her expression became indignant. ‘I’ve more experience with them than anyone here!’
‘Four,’ Per said. I wondered if he understood we were talking about murder. It was my fault they included themselves at all. A younger and more energetic Fitz would have kept his plans concealed. I was older and weary and they already knew too much. Dangerously too much, for them and for me. I wondered if I’d have any secrets left when I died.
‘When the time comes, we will see,’ I told them, knowing they would argue if I simply said ‘no’.
‘I won’t see,’ the Fool interjected into the silence. For a moment, there was discomfort, and then Per laughed awkwardly. We joined in, more bitter than merry. But still alive and still moving toward our murderous goal.
Even before King Shrewd rather unwisely chose to strictly limit Skill-instruction to the members of the royal family only, the magic was falling into disuse. When I was in my 22nd year, a blood-cough swept through all the coastal duchies. The young and the old were carried off in droves. Many aged Skill-users died in that plague, and with them died their knowledge of the magic.
When Prince Regal found that scrolls about Skill-magic commanded a high price from foreign traders, he began secretly to deplete the libraries of Buckkeep. Did he know that those precious scrolls would ultimately fall into the hands of the Pale Woman and the Red-Ship Raiders? That is a matter that has long been debated among Buck nobility, and as Regal has been dead and gone for many years, it is likely we shall never know the truth about that.
On the decline of knowledge of Skill during the reign of King Shrewd,
Chade Fallstar
We trooped down together to the dock to watch the Tarman arrive in Kelsingra. I had grown up in Buckkeep Town where the docks were of heavy black timbers redolent of tar. Those docks seemed to have stood since El brought the sea to our shores. This dock was recently built, of pale planks with some pilings of stone and some of raw timber. New construction had been fastened to the ancient remains of an Elderling dock. I pondered that, for I did not judge this the best location for a dock. The half-devoured buildings at the river’s edge told me that the river often shifted in its bed. The new Elderlings of Kelsingra needed to lift their eyes from what had been and consider the river and the city as it was now.
Above the broken cliffs that backed the city, on the highest hills, the snow had slumped into thin random fingers. In the distance, I could see the birches blushing pink and the willows gone red at the tips of their branches. The wind off the river was wet and cold, but the knife’s edge of winter was gone from it. The year was turning and with it the direction of my life.
A sprinkling rain fell as the Tarman approached. Motley clung to Perseverance’s shoulder, her head tucked tight against the rain. Lant stood behind him. Spark stood next to Amber. We clustered near enough to watch and far enough back that we were not in the way. Amber’s gloved hand rested on the back of my wrist. I spoke to her in a low voice. ‘The river runs swift and deep and doubtless cold. It is pale grey with silt, and smells sour. Once there was more shore here. Over decades, the river has eaten its way into Kelsingra. There are two other ships docked here. They both appear idle.
‘The
