Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Ver­ity was broader of shoulder than I but not quite of my height. My uncle shared with me the dark eyes and hair of the Farseer fam­ily, but his eyes were set more deeply than mine, and his un­ruly hair and beard were shot through with grey. When I was a boy, he had been well-muscled and hard, a stocky man who wiel­ded a sword as eas­ily as a pen. These later years had wasted him. He had been forced to spend too much time phys­ic­ally idle as he used his Skill-strength to de­fend our coast­line from the Raid­ers. But even as his muscle had dwindled, his Skill-aura had in­creased, un­til to stand be­fore him now was like stand­ing be­fore a blaz­ing hearth. When I was in his pres­ence, I was much more aware of his Skill now than his body. For his scent, I called to mind the pi­quancy of the col­oured inks he used when he made his maps, the smell of fine vel­lum, and, too, the edge of elf­bark that was of­ten on his breath. ‘Ver­ity,’ I said softly aloud, and felt the word echo within me, boun­cing off my walls.

  I opened my eyes. I could not reach out of my­self un­til I lowered my walls. Visu­al­iz­ing Ver­ity would do noth­ing for me un­til I opened a way for my Skill to go forth, and his to enter my mind. Very well. That was easy enough. Just re­lax. Stare into the fire and watch the tiny sparks that rode up­ward on the heat. Dan­cing float­ing sparks. Re­lax the vi­gil­ance. For­get how Will had slammed his Skill-strength against that wall and nearly made it give way. For­get that hold­ing the wall was all that had kept my mind my own while they hammered away at my flesh. For­get that sick­en­ing sense of vi­ol­a­tion the time that Justin had forced his way into me. The way Ga­len had scarred and crippled my Skill abil­ity the time he had ab­used his po­s­i­tion as Skill­mas­ter to force his con­trol on my mind.

  As clearly as if Ver­ity were be­side me, I heard again my prince’s words. ‘Ga­len has scarred you. You’ve walls I can’t be­gin to pen­et­rate, and I am strong. You’d have to learn to drop them. That’s a hard thing.’ And those words to me had been years ago, be­fore Justin’s in­va­sion, be­fore Will’s at­tacks. I smiled bit­terly. Did they know they had suc­ceeded at un-Skilling me? They’d prob­ably never even given it thought. Someone, some­where, should make a re­cord of that. Someday a Skilled king might find it handy, to know that if you hurt a Skilled one badly enough with the Skill, you could seal him up in­side him­self and render him power­less in that area.

  Ver­ity had never had the time to teach me how to drop those walls. Iron­ic­ally, he had found a way to show me how to re­in­force them, so I could seal my private thoughts from him when I did not wish to share them. Per­haps that was a thing I had learned too well. I wondered if I would ever have time to un­learn it.

  Time, no time, Nighteyes in­ter­rup­ted wear­ily. Time is a thing that men made up to bother them­selves with. You think on it un­til I am dizzy. Why do you fol­low these old trails at all? Snuff out a new one that may have some meat at the end of it. If you want the game, you must stalk it. That is all. You can­not say, to stalk this takes too long, I wish to simply eat. It is all one. The stalk­ing is the be­gin­ning of the eat­ing.

  You do not un­der­stand, I told him wear­ily. There are only so many hours in a day, and only so many days in which I can do this thing.

  Why do you chop your life into bits and give the bits names? Hours, days. It is like a rab­bit. If I kill a rab­bit, I eat a rab­bit. A sleepy snort of dis­dain. When you have a rab­bit, you chop it up and call it bones and meat and fur and guts. And so you never have enough.

  So what should I do, oh wise mas­ter?

  Stop whin­ing about it and just do it. So I can sleep.

  He gave me a slight mind-nudge, like an el­bow in the ribs when a com­pan­ion crowds too close to you on the tav­ern bench. I sud­denly real­ized how closely I had been hold­ing our con­tact these past few weeks. Had been a time when I had re­buked him for al­ways be­ing in my mind. I had not wanted his com­pany when I was with Molly, and I had tried to ex­plain to him then that such times must be­long to me alone. Now his nudge made it plain to me that I had been cling­ing as close to him as he had to me when he was a cub. I firmly res­is­ted my first im­pulse to clutch at him. In­stead I settled back in my chair and looked at the fire.

  I took the walls down. I sat for a time, with my mouth dry, wait­ing for an at­tack. When noth­ing came, I thought care­fully, and again lowered my walls. They be­lieve me dead, I re­minded my­self. They will not be ly­ing in wait to am­bush a dead man. It was still not easy to will my walls down. Far easier to un­squint my eyes on a day of bright sun­light on the wa­ter, or to stand un­flinch­ing be­fore a com­ing blow. But when fi­nally I did it, I could sense the Skill flow­ing all about me, part­ing around me as if I were a stone in the cur­rent of a river. I had but to plunge into it and I could find Ver­ity. Or Will, or Burl, or Car­rod. I shuddered and the river re­treated. I steeled my­self and re­turned to it. A long time I stood tee­ter­ing on that bank, dar­ing my­self to plunge in. No such thing as test­ing the wa­ter with the Skill. In or out. In.

  In, and I was spin­ning and tum­bling, and I felt my self fray­ing apart like a piece of rot­ten hemp rope. Strands peel­ing and twist­ing away from me, all the over­lays that made me my­self, memor­ies, emo­tions, the deep thoughts that mattered, the flashes of po­etry that one ex­per­i­en­ces that strike deeper than un­der­stand­ing, the ran­dom memor­ies of or­din­ary days, all of it tat­ter­ing away. It felt so good. All I had to do was let go.

  But that would have made Ga­len right about me.

  Ver­ity?

  There was no reply. Noth­ing. He wasn’t there.

  I drew back into my­self and pulled my en­tire self about my mind. I could do it, I found, I could hold my­self in the Skill stream and yet main­tain my iden­tity. Why had it al­ways been so hard be­fore? I set that ques­tion aside and con­sidered the worst. The worst was that Ver­ity had been alive and spoken to me, a few short months ago. ‘Tell them Ver­ity’s alive. That’s all.’ And I had, but they had not un­der­stood, and no one had taken any ac­tion. Yet what could that mes­sage have been, if not a plea for help? A call for help from my king had gone un­answered.

  Sud­denly that was not a thing to be borne, and the Skill cry that went out from me was some­thing I felt, as if my very life sprang out of my chest in a quest­ing reach.

  VER­ITY!

  … Chiv­alry?

  No more than a whis­per brush­ing against my con­scious­ness, as slight as a moth bat­ter­ing at a win­dow-cur­tain. It was my turn, this time, to reach and grasp and steady. I flung my­self out to­ward him and found him. His pres­ence flickered like a candle-flame gut­ter­ing out in the pool of its own wax. I knew he would soon be gone. I had a thou­sand ques­tions. I asked the only im­port­ant one.

  Ver­ity. Can you take strength from me, without touch­ing me?

  Fitz? The ques­tion more feeble, more hes­it­ant. I thought Chiv­alry had come back … He teetered on the edge of dark­ness … to take this bur­den from me …

  Ver­ity, pay at­ten­tion. Think. Can you take strength from me? Can you do it now?

  I don’t … I can’t reach. Fitz?

  I re­membered Shrewd, draw­ing strength from me to Skill a farewell to his son. And how Justin and Se­rene had at­tacked him and leeched all his strength away and killed him. How he had died, like a bubble pop­ping. Like a spark wink­ing out.

  VER­ITY! I flung my­self at him, wrapped my­self around him, stead­ied him as he had so of­ten stead­ied me in our Skill con­tacts. Take from me, I com­man­ded him, and opened my­self to him. I willed my­self to be­lieve in the real­ity of his hand on my shoulder, tried to re­call what it had felt like the times when he or Shrewd had drawn strength from me. The flame that was Ver­ity leapt up sud­denly, and after a mo­ment burned strong and clean again.

  Enough, he cau­tioned me, and then more strongly, Be care­ful, boy!

  No, I’m all right, I can
do this, I as­sured him, and willed my strength to him.

  Enough! he in­sis­ted, and drew back from me. It was al­most as if we stepped slightly apart and con­sidered one an­other. I could not see his body, but I could sense the ter­rible wear­i­ness in him. It was not the healthy wear­i­ness that comes at the end of a day’s la­bour, but the bone wear­i­ness of one grind­ing day piled upon an­other, with never food enough nor rest enough in between them. I had given him strength, but not health, and he would quickly burn the vi­tal­ity he had bor­rowed from me, for it was not true strength any more than elf­bark tea was a sus­tain­ing meal.

  Where are you? I de­man­ded of him.

  In the Moun­tains, he said un­will­ingly, and ad­ded, it is not safe to say more. We should not Skill at all. There are those who would try to hear us.

  But he did not end the con­tact, and I knew he was as hungry to ask ques­tions as I was. I tried to think what I could tell him. I could sense no one save ourselves but I was not cer­tain I would know if we were spied upon. For long mo­ments our con­tact held simply as an aware­ness of one an­other. Then Ver­ity warned me sternly, You must be more care­ful. You will draw down trouble on your­self. Yet I take heart from this. I have gone long without the touch of a friend.

  Then it is worth any risk to my­self. I hes­it­ated, then found I could not con­fine the thought within my­self. My king. There is some­thing I must do. But when it is done, I will come to you.

  I sensed some­thing from him them. A grat­it­ude hum­bling in its in­tens­ity. I hope I shall still be here if you ar­rive. Then, more sternly, Speak no names, Skill only if you must. More softly, then, Be care­ful of your­self, boy. Be very care­ful. They are ruth­less.

  And then he was gone.

  He had broken the Skill con­tact off cleanly. I hoped that wherever he was, he would use the strength I had loaned him to find some food or a safe place to rest. I had sensed him liv­ing as a hunted thing, al­ways wary, ever hungry. Prey, much as I was. And some­thing else. An in­jury, a fever? I leaned back in my chair, trem­bling lightly. I knew bet­ter than to try to stand. Simply Skilling took strength out of me, and I had opened my­self to Ver­ity and let him draw off even more. In a few mo­ments, when the shak­ing lessened, I would make some elf­bark tea and re­store my­self. For now I sat and stared into the fire and thought of Ver­ity.

  Ver­ity had left Buck­keep last au­tumn. It seemed an etern­ity ago. When Ver­ity had de­par­ted, King Shrewd had lived yet, and Ver­ity’s wife Kettricken had been preg­nant. He had set him­self a quest. The Red Ship Raid­ers from the Out Is­lands had as­sailed our shores for three full years, and all our ef­forts to drive them away had failed. So Ver­ity, King-in-Wait­ing for the throne of the Six Duch­ies, had set out to go to the Moun­tains, there to find our near le­gendary al­lies, the Eld­er­lings. Tra­di­tion had it that gen­er­a­tions ago King Wis­dom had sought them out and they had aided the Six Duch­ies against sim­ilar raid­ers. They had also prom­ised to re­turn if ever we needed them. And so Ver­ity had left throne and wife and king­dom be­hind to seek them out and re­mind them of their prom­ise. His aged father, King Shrewd, had re­mained be­hind, and also his younger brother, Prince Regal.

  Al­most the mo­ment Ver­ity was gone, Regal began to move against him. He cour­ted the In­land Dukes and ig­nored the needs of the Coastal Duch­ies. I sus­pec­ted he was the source of the whispered ru­mours that made mock of Ver­ity’s quest and painted him as an ir­re­spons­ible fool if not a mad­man. The co­terie of Skill users who should have been sworn to Ver­ity had long been cor­rup­ted to Regal’s ser­vice. He used them to an­nounce that Ver­ity had died while en route to the Moun­tains, and then pro­claimed him­self King-in-Wait­ing. His con­trol over the ail­ing King Shrewd be­came ab­so­lute; Regal had de­clared he would move his court in­land, aban­don­ing Buck­keep in every way that mattered to the mer­cies of the Red Ships. When he an­nounced that King Shrewd and Ver­ity’s Queen Kettricken must go with him, Chade had de­cided we must act. We knew Regal would suf­fer neither of them to stand between him and the throne. So we had made our plans to spirit them both away, on the very even­ing he de­clared him­self King-in-Wait­ing.

  Noth­ing went as planned. The Coastal Dukes had been close to rising up against Regal; they had tried to re­cruit me to their re­bel­lion. I had agreed to aid their cause, in the hope of keep­ing Buck­keep as a po­s­i­tion of power for Ver­ity. Be­fore we could spirit the King away, two co­terie mem­bers had killed him. Only Kettricken had fled, and al­though I had killed those who had killed King Shrewd, I my­self was cap­tured, tor­tured, and found guilty of the Wit ma­gic. Lady Pa­tience, my father’s wife, had in­ter­ceded on my be­half to no avail. Had Burrich not man­aged to smuggle poison to me, I would have been hung over wa­ter and burned. But the poison had been enough to coun­ter­feit death con­vin­cingly. While my soul rode with Nighteyes in his body, Pa­tience had claimed my body from the prison cell and bur­ied it. Un­be­knownst to her, Burrich and Chade had dis­in­terred me as soon as they safely could.

  I blinked my eyes and looked away from the flames. The fire had burned low. My life was like that now, all in ashes be­hind me. There was no way to re­claim the wo­man I had loved. Molly be­lieved me dead now, and doubt­less viewed my use of Wit ma­gic with dis­gust. And any­way she had left me days be­fore the rest of my life had fallen apart. I had known her since we were chil­dren and had played to­gether on the streets and docks of Buck­keep Town. She had called me New­boy, and as­sumed I was just one of the chil­dren from the keep, a stable-boy or a scribe’s lad. She had fallen in love with me be­fore she dis­covered that I was the Bas­tard, the il­le­git­im­ate son that had forced Chiv­alry to ab­dic­ate the throne. When she found out, I very nearly lost her. But I had per­suaded her to trust me, to be­lieve in me, and for al­most a year, we had clung to one an­other, des­pite every obstacle. Time and again, I had been forced to put my duty to the King ahead of what we wished to do. The King had re­fused me per­mis­sion to marry; she had ac­cep­ted that. He had pledged me to an­other wo­man. Even that, she had tol­er­ated. She had been threatened and mocked, as the ‘bas­tard’s whore’. I had been un­able to pro­tect her. But she had been so stead­fast through it all … un­til one day she simply told me there was someone else for her, someone she could love, and put above all else in her life, just as I did my king. And she had left me. I could not blame her. I could only miss her.

  I closed my eyes. I was tired, nearly ex­hausted. And Ver­ity had warned me to Skill no more un­less I must. But surely it could not hurt to at­tempt a glimpse of Molly. Just to see her, for a mo­ment, to see that she was well … I prob­ably wouldn’t even suc­ceed at see­ing her. But what could I hurt by try­ing, just for a mo­ment?

  It should have been easy. It was ef­fort­less to re­call everything about her. I had so of­ten breathed her scent, com­poun­ded of the herbs she used to scent her candles, and the warmth of her own sweet skin. I knew every nu­ance of her voice, and how it went deeper when she laughed. I could re­call the pre­cise line of her jaw, and how she set her chin when she was an­noyed with me. I knew the glossy tex­ture of her rich brown hair and the dart­ing glance of her dark eyes. She had had a way of put­ting her hands to the sides of my face and hold­ing me firmly while she kissed me … I lif­ted my own hand to my face, wish­ing I could find her hand there, that I could trap it and hold it forever. In­stead I felt the seam of a scar. The fool­ish tears rose warm in my eyes. I blinked them away, see­ing the flames of my fire swim for a mo­ment be­fore my vis­ion stead­ied. I was tired, I told my­self. Too tired to try and find Molly with my Skill. I should try to get some sleep. I tried to set my­self apart from these too-hu­man emo­tions. Yet this was what I chose when I chose to be a man again. Maybe it was wiser to be a wolf. Surely an an­imal never had to feel these things.

  Out in the night, a sin
gle wolf lif­ted his nose and howled sud­denly up to the sky, pier­cing the night with his loneli­ness and des­pair.

  FOUR

  The River Road

  Buck, the old­est Duchy of the Six Duch­ies, has a coast­line that stretches from just be­low the High­downs south­wards to in­clude the mouth of the Buck River and Bay of Buck. Antler Is­land is in­cluded in the Duchy of Buck. Buck’s wealth has two ma­jor sources: the rich fish­ing grounds that the coastal folk have al­ways en­joyed, and the ship­ping trade cre­ated by sup­ply­ing the In­land Duch­ies with all they lack via the Buck River. The Buck River is a wide river, me­an­der­ing freely in its bed, and of­ten flood­ing the low­lands of Buck dur­ing the spring. The cur­rent is such that an ice-free chan­nel has al­ways re­mained open in the river year round, save for the four severest win­ters in Buck’s his­tory. Not only Buck goods travel up the river to the In­land Duch­ies, but trade goods from Rip­pon and Shoaks Duch­ies, not to men­tion the more exotic items from the Chalced States and those of the Bing­town Traders. Down the river comes all that the In­land Duch­ies have to of­fer, as well as the fine furs and am­bers from the Moun­tain King­dom trade.

  I awoke when Nighteyes nudged my cheek with a cold nose. Even then I did not startle awake, but be­came sod­denly aware of my sur­round­ings. My head poun­ded and my face felt stiff. The empty bottle from the eld­er­berry wine rolled away from me as I pushed my­self to a sit­ting po­s­i­tion on the floor.