warnings and dire predictions—faugh! The world will go on without us just as well as it did with us. Just let go.
Was it true? His words were soaked in conviction. I relaxed in his grip as the Skill-current roared past us. We aren’t tattering.
I’m holding you tight. Keeping you part of me. It’s like learning to swim. You can’t find out how until you’re all the way into the water. Stop clinging to the bank, boy. You only tear apart when you try to hold onto the shore.
He had always been wiser than me. Chade had always advised me, educated me and commanded me. He seemed calm and content. Happy, even. Had I ever before seen Chade content and happy? I moved toward him and he embraced me more warmly. Or did the Skill seize me? Where did Chade stop and the Skill begin? Had he already drowned in the Skill? Was he dragging me down to join him?
Chade! Chade Fallstar! Come back to us! Dutiful, help me. He’s fighting me.
Nettle gripped him and attempted to peel him away from me. I held to him fiercely, struggling to make her aware of me, but she was focused on separating us. Nettle! I roared my thought, trying to make it stand out from the rip and rush of thoughts around us. Thoughts? No. Not thoughts. Being. Beings.
I pushed all wondering aside. Instead of clinging to Chade, I thrust him toward her. I’ve got him! She told a Dutiful I barely sensed. And then, in sudden awe, Da? Are you here? Are you alive?
Yes. We are all fine. Will send you a bird from Bingtown. Then, divorced from Chade, the surge of the Skill began to tear at me. I tried to draw back, but the Skill gripped me like a bog. As I struggled, it sucked at me, pulling me deeper. Beings. The current was a flow of beings, all plucking at me. I gathered my strength and flung myself against its current as I resolutely put up my walls. I opened my eyes to the blessedly cramped and smelly little cabin. I folded forward over my knees, gasping and shaking.
‘What?’ the Fool demanded.
‘I nearly lost myself. Chade was there. He tried to pull me in with him.’
‘What?’
‘He told me that everything I learned about the Skill was wrong. That I should give myself over to the Skill. “Just let go,” he said. And I nearly did. I nearly let go.’
His gloved hand closed on my shoulder and shook me lightly. ‘Fitz, I did not think you had even begun to try. I told you to stop agonizing about it and you fell silent. I thought you were sulking.’ He cocked his head. ‘Only moments have passed since we last spoke.’
‘Only moments?’ I rested my forehead on my knees. I felt sick with fear and dazed with longing. It had been so easy. I could drop my walls and be gone. Just … gone. I’d merge with those other rushing entities and wash away with them. My hopeless quest would be abandoned along with the loss I felt whenever I thought of Bee. Gone would be the deep shame. Gone the humiliation that everyone knew how badly I had failed as a father. I could stop feeling and thinking.
‘Don’t go,’ the Fool said softly.
‘What?’ I sat up slowly.
His grip tightened slowly on my shoulder. ‘Don’t go where I can’t follow you. Don’t leave me behind. I’d still have to go on. I’d still have to return to Clerres and try to kill them all. Even though I would fail. Even though they would have me in their power again.’ He let go of me and crossed his arms as if to contain himself. I wasn’t aware of the connection I’d felt from his touch until he removed it. ‘Some day we must part. It’s inevitable. One of us will have to go on without the other. We both know that. But Fitz, please. Not yet. Not until after this hard thing is done.’
‘I won’t leave you.’ I wondered if I lied. I’d tried to leave him. This insane mission would be easier if I were working alone. Probably still impossible but my failure would be less horrific. Less shameful to me.
He was silent for a time, looking into the distance. His voice was hard and desperate as he demanded, ‘Promise me.’
‘What?’
‘Promise me that you won’t give in to Chade’s lure. That I won’t find you somewhere sitting like an empty sack with your mind gone. Promise me you won’t try to abandon me like useless baggage. That you won’t leave me behind so I’m “safe”. Out of your way.’
I reached for the right words, but it took me too long to find them. He did not hide his hurt and bitterness as he said, ‘You can’t, can you? Very well. At least I know my standing. Well, my old friend, here is something I can promise you. No matter what you do, Fitz—no matter if you stand or fall, run or die—I must go back to Clerres and do my best to pull it all down around their ears. As I told you before. With you or without you.’
I made a final effort. ‘Fool. You know I am the best man for this task. I know that I work best alone. You should let me do this my way.’
He was motionless. Then he asked, ‘If I said that to you, and if it were true, would you allow me to go alone into that place? Would you sit idly by and wait for me to rescue Bee?’
An easy lie. ‘I would,’ I said heartily.
He said nothing. Did he know I lied? Probably. But we had to recognize what was real. He could not do this. His shaking terror had created serious doubt in me. If he succumbed to it in Clerres … I simply could not take him with me. I knew his threat was real. He would find his way there, with or without me. But if I could get there before him and do my task, if the deed was done, he’d have no quest.
But would he ever forgive me?
While I’d been silent, he’d stored the pouch of elfbark in his pack. He sipped from his cup. ‘My tea’s gone cold,’ he announced. He stood, cup and saucer in hand. He smoothed his hair and flounced his skirts into order, and the Fool was gone. Amber trailed her fingers along the wall until she found the door and then left me sitting alone on the narrow bunk.
The Fool and I had one serious quarrel on that journey. I came to Amber’s cabin one evening at our agreed-upon time as Spark was leaving. Her face was pale and strained, and she gave me a tragic look as she left. I wondered if Amber had rebuked her. I dreaded finding him in a dark and irrational mood. Slowly, I closed the door behind me.
Inside the room, yellow candles burned in glass and the Fool perched on the lower bunk. His grey woollen night robe had seen much wear, probably purloined from Chade’s clothing stash. The shadows under his eyes and the resigned droop of his mouth made him older. I sat down on the bunk opposite him and waited. Then I saw my hastily stitched pack beside him. ‘What’s that doing here?’ I asked. For one moment I thought that some accident had brought it to his room.
He set a possessive hand on it and spoke hoarsely. ‘I have promised to take all blame for this. Even so, I fear I may have broken Spark’s friendship to do this. She brought it to me.’
Cold spread out of my belly and through my veins. I made a conscious and difficult choice. No anger. Fury surged against my wilful blocking. I knew but still I asked, ‘And why would you ask her to do that?’
‘Because Perseverance mentioned to her that you had books that belonged to Bee. Sometimes he saw you read what she had written there. Two books, one with a bright embossed cover, and the other plain. He recognized her hand on the page when he climbed past you to his bunk.’
He
