by Robin Hobb
For a time, I puzzled about the crow. It seemed so random. She came, she spoke of Per, she said he couldn’t come. Then she flew away.
A red dragon was coming.
Had I dreamed it?
Wolf Father? Why did you make me say ‘a way out is a way in’?
To tell them there is a way to reach us. He seemed smaller in my thoughts.
Tell who? Per?
No. Your father. If the Fool is near, your father cannot be far away. I reach for him, but your walls are strong.
My father? Are you sure? I can lower my walls.
No! Do not!
I had begun to tremble. Was it possible? After all these months, after he had pushed me away? He has come to find me? Are you certain? Are you sure my father is near?
His reply was faint. No.
His presence faded like my hopes.
I carefully pondered what I knew.
I knew Beloved had come. That had been real. If he had come to rescue me, he’d made a poor task of it. He had only made things worse. They would whip him to death, and Prilkop, too. And we’d had no food because he had killed the guard who tended us, and Fellowdy had not thought to assign a new one. I wondered if Capra had died. I wondered if Coultrie and Vindeliar would convince Fellowdy that I had to be killed. I thought that Capra might have stood against them to keep me alive. But if she was gone, or badly hurt, they might come and get me. And kill me.
Was Prilkop already dead? They would kill him slowly, he’d said. Would they kill me slowly? I considered that very likely and the thought frightened me. I stood up, my heart pounding, my hand clasped over my mouth. Then I forced myself to sit back down. Not yet. It didn’t feel right yet.
I tried to put my thoughts in order. The crow had been real, because Wolf Father made me talk to him.
If Wolf Father was real.
I pushed all of that away. What did I know with absolute certainty? Coultrie and Vindeliar wanted to kill me. If they could convince Fellowdy, they’d do it.
That left only my path. The path that Prilkop had told me might not be a good one.
It was the only one I had. My only certainty. I could not depend on a talking crow or the dangled hope that my father might be near by. Me. I was what I could depend on. I was my only resource, and the path I had glimpsed was suddenly my true Path.
I felt regret for how my life had gone. I knew it was all over now. I would never sit at the kitchen table in Withywoods and watch flour and water become bread. Never steal scrolls from my father again, never argue with him. I would never sit in my little hidey-hole with a cat that didn’t belong to me. That part of my life had been very short. If I’d known how good it truly was, I would have enjoyed it more. But Prilkop was wrong. There had been no choice for me. Dwalia had taken all choices from me when she stole me and brought me here. There was still no choice.
It was silly, but I longed to tell him why he was wrong. To talk with him again. But I suspected he was already dead. I still whispered the words aloud. ‘You were wrong, Prilkop. The problem is not that we forget the past. It is that we recall it too well. Children recall wrongs that enemies did to their grandfathers, and blame the granddaughters of the old enemies. Children are not born with memories of who insulted their mother or slew their grandfather or stole their land. Those hates are bequeathed to them, taught them, breathed into them. If adults didn’t tell children of their hereditary hates, perhaps we would do better. Perhaps the Six Duchies would not hate Chalced. Would the Red Ships have come to the Six Duchies if the OutIslanders did not recall what we had done to their grandparents?’
I listened to the silence that followed my question.
Now it was past the turn of the night and venturing toward morning. Now it was time for my plan to be real. Time for me to set the world on my better Path.
I found the little tear in my mattress seam and winkled out my knife and the tethered four keys. I separated the keys. It was awkward to reach through the bars to insert each one in the proper hole and then turn it in the correct order. I was glad I only had to use two of them. It was still a slow process to find which two. Very carefully and quietly, I worked each key in the lock and then slid the metal latch. I opened the barred door just enough to put out my head. I saw no one in the open corridor.
Carefully, I closed the door behind me. I took the time to lock it with all four keys. Done.
For so long on the ship with Vindeliar, I had practised not thinking. And now as I moved silently down the walkway between the cells, I kept my mind as empty as I possibly could. I looked only at ordinary things. The tiles of the floor. The door. The handle. Not locked. Quietly, quietly. I stepped in something. Oh. The guard’s blood. Keep going. The stairs. The future I walked toward loomed ever larger, clearer and brighter. With every step I took, my certainty grew. But I pushed my certainty down, folded my Path small and private. Instead, I recalled the fragrance of my mother’s candle. I thought of my father, writing in his study every night, and almost every night burning what he had written.
Softly I paced down the steps. One set of steps, and then onto the wider stairway, down to the level of the scrolls and libraries. I edged my way along the wall and peered around the corner. The wide hallways were lit by fat burning pots of oil. No! Not that memory. I thought instead of the forest fragrance of the oil, how sweetly it smelled as it burned. No one moved in the corridors. I moved softly along the panelled walls. I did not look up at the framed portraits and landscapes. I reached the door of the first scroll-room. I entered cautiously lest any luriks or lingstras or collators still be at work, but all was silent and dark. The lamps in here had been extinguished for the night. I waited for my eyes to adjust. The high windows along the back wall let in starlight and moonlight. It would have to be enough to guide me.
I had a careful sequence of tasks to follow. I walked among the shelves and racks, weaving in and out of them, my arms outstretched. I tumbled scrolls and papers and books to the floor. I carpeted the floor with them, weaving among the garden of stored dreams as if I were a bee moving in a meadow of nectar-laden flowers. Old cracked scrolls and fresh sheets of paper, calfskin vellum and leatherbound books. To the floor with them, until I had created a path of fallen dreams through the maze of racks and shelves.
I had to stand on a chair to reach the fat pot of oil on the shelf. The lamp was very heavy and I spilled some of it as I got it down. Fragrance of forest. I thought of rich earth and called to mind memories of my mother. ‘If you weed, you must do it well. Take it all out, down to the deepest root. Otherwise, it will just come back. It will be stronger than ever, and you will have that work to do over again. Or someone else must take on your unfinished task.’
The pot was heavy. I set it on the floor, tipped it like a teapot, and poured the oil in a long, meandering thread as I dragged it up and down the rows of shelves of books and scrolls and vellums. I watered my trail of fallen dreams. When the oil was gone, I walked it again, pulling more scrolls and papers from the shelves and letting them fall and soak in the oil. I saw another shelf with an oil-lamp. Again, I used a chair and again I poured the oil and then tumbled more predictions into it. The shelves were fine wooden ones and I was pleased to see the oils seep under them. A third pot of oil soaked all these possible futures, and I judged my task in this chamber was done.
I thought of my mother’s garden as I half-carried and half-dragged a chair into the main hall. Oh, honeysuckle, how well I recalled your fragrance. I took a battered half of my mother’s candle. I remembered it as pristine, the rich, sleek amber of bees’ wax. It was chipped and dented now, the wax embedded with dirt and clothing fibres. But it would burn.
The lamp shelves in the hallway were higher. I could barely reach the flame with my candle. I lit it, and cupped my hand to protect the flame as I carried it back to the scroll-room. I felt I said farewell to a friend as I let wax from it drip onto the floor. I secured it so that it would burn as it lay there and not roll away. When a thumb’s w
idth of candle had burned, the flame would reach the oil. I would have to hurry.
What are you doing?
Vindeliar was confused. Clumsy to let his wondering brush my thoughts. I reached out to him as if I didn’t fear him. I let my thoughts soften at the edges as if I were sleepy. My mother’s garden. Honeysuckle, so fragrant in the hot summer sun. The pine forest nearby, breathing sweetly. I sighed out a long, slow breath and imagined rolling over on the thin straw mattress in my cell. I let my thoughts overflow with sleepiness as I slipped my awareness into his senses.
He was no longer in a cell but a comfortable room. Fellowdy’s room. His tongue had tasted fine brandy but did not enjoy it. His injuries had been salved and bandaged. His mouth held the remembrance of sweet, rich foods. His belly was tight with them. But there was something more to come. He simmered with anticipation.
Fear seeped into my belly like cold water. I knew that eagerness. I knew what he awaited. But I had believed it was all gone.
I’d been careless.
It isn’t! Capra had concealed four vials of it! But she can no longer hold it back from us. And when I have it, I will blast your little mind with my magic. You will do whatever you are told to do! I will be so strong that no one can disobey me! I will tell you to die as you told Dwalia! No, no I won’t. I know something better I can do! The traitor’s death for you! The worms will eat you until your eyes bleed and you plead with me to kill you!
He trumpeted it out, not caring if he awoke me. I slammed my walls shut and his bragging and threats clawed and racketed against them. Oh, how he hated me now. How he hated everyone! Everyone had hurt him, everyone had betrayed him, but he would have his revenge soon. Soon!
Honeysuckle and bees. Bees humming so loud in the fairy rose bush that I could hear nothing else. Only bees. In a deep corner of myself, I was glad I was no longer locked in that cell. I had made the right choice.
Coultrie! Coultrie, heed me! The little bitch is out of her cell! Search the gardens and cottages for her. She thinks she is clever, but she smells flowers and I know it! Quickly! Prepare the traitor’s death for her! Hunt her down and deliver it to her!
Vindeliar, I am with the healer and Capra in her tower. She has given me the serpent’s potion. I will bring it to you.
Yes, excellent, good! But send out the guards to search for her. Tell them she has escaped and I know it! Begin with the gardens, but find her, find Bee. She is more dangerous than you can imagine!
I stood still. I built my walls, and made them stouter and stronger. If Vindeliar received the potion, could I withstand him? I did not know.
My time was going swiftly. There was still so much I had to do.
I ran light-footed down the hall to the next door that I knew contained a scroll library. I entered the second chamber as cautiously as the first, but it was also deserted and dark. I repeated my serpentine trail of fallen scrolls. I was better at it this time, not struggling to push heavy books to the floor. Let them burn when the reaching flames climbed to them. I made a heap of scrolls and papers under a heavy wooden table that rested on a thick rug. Again, I moved a chair to reach a slumbering lamp. I let the fragrance of the oil fill my mind as I left a trickling trail, in and out and around each towering shelf of scrolls. This was the larger room. I should have come here first. The second lamp was heavy. I watered the tables and chairs as best I could, trying not to spill oil on my clothing. But the pot was heavy and sometimes oil spattered on my feet.
Vindeliar was aware of me now. I thought of my flat little mattress in my cell. I thought of the straw that filled it, and how it crushed under me. It smelled of straw and dust. I filled my mind with the scent of straw and dust. How the broken straws in the coarse fabric poked me. I leaked a tiny bit of that to him. That thought pleased him and I let him savour it. In a distant shout to Coultrie, he demanded more guards sent to the rooftop cells. I slipped away from his thoughts.
The third heavy pot was hard to manage. I staggered as I took it down, and it leapt in my arms. Oil soaked the front of my clothing and made my hands slippery. It was hard to grip it, and hard to think of honeysuckle or pine logs on a fire as I dragged it through the scroll-room. As before, I retraced my steps, tumbling and jumbling scrolls and books and papers from the shelves. They were eager to soak up the oil. I saw ink darken and then spread as the oil took it.
Vindeliar cackled wildly outside my walls. I did not like the note of triumph in his howling, but I dared not give him a thought. A way out is a way in. I would not let my mind focus on his clamour. I thought only of honeysuckle, and pulling weeds out to the last bit of root. How one had to destroy it all or it would all spring up again. I was weeding in my mother’s garden. I gathered the leaves into my hands, pulled slowly and steadily to draw the long yellow root from the ground.
My hands slipped on the door latch, and it was hard to keep a tight grip on the heavy wooden chair I dragged into the hall. The dragging legs made a sound. I could not help that. I clambered up. This half of a candle was shorter. I had to stand on tiptoe for its tattered wick to reach the flame. I stood, my hand stretched high over my head, waiting, waiting, until finally the flame moved from the lamp to my candle.
They will find you. They are coming for you now! You will die the traitor’s death! I have burned it into their minds, as I burned Coultrie! They will not stop until they find you!
You are too late.
I should not have let that thought escape me, but oh the sweet satisfaction. I showed him the flame, let him smell the fragrance of honeysuckle that my mother and I had gathered and stored in it. Then I pushed him, as hard as I could, with the terrible smell of Symphe burning.
I slipped as I got off the chair. My candle fell and rolled. I pounced on it, and the flame leapt as it licked my oily hand. It did not quite catch. There was oil on my bare feet, and I struggled to get the purchase to open the door to the second scroll-room. I did not leave my candle this time. I walked deep into the room and crouched to set fire to the mounded paper under the tables. I moved past four tiers of shelves, crouched again, and set a tumble of papers ablaze. I lit a third one and was startled when it caught well and the flames darted away from me, following the trail of tumbled scrolls. I ran back to the door, racing the devouring fire. At the door I turned. ‘Goodbye, Mother,’ I said softly and set her last candle down on an oily scroll.
The flames leapt high, licking the wooden shelves and racks, racing down the narrow walkways between the shelves. They were high enough and hot enough that scrolls on the second, third, even the fourth shelves began to brown and crisp and then ignite. I looked up to see coiling clouds of smoke crawling along the ceiling, like drowned serpents tugged by a tide.
I stood for a time, my back to the door, watching, smelling the smoke and fumes, feeling the heat waft toward me. Burning bits of paper were carried on the waves of heat from the fires. They lifted high, to settle on the topmost shelves like homing pigeons, bringing glowing embers to the papers stored there.
I had to push hard to get the door open. As it did, the air moved and the flames suddenly roared. I leapt out of the room, fearful that the oil on my hands and clothes might catch. The candle in the first scroll-room had done its task. The doors to that chamber shuddered as if the flames were pounding to get out. Thin tendrils of smoke were wafting out with every thud of the doors against their frames. It reminded me of a dog’s breath streaming fog on a cold winter day.
I stood still, feeling as if I balanced in that instant. This was my perfect moment. I was where I was born to be, and the task I had been born to do was now being performed. Once I moved, the futures would again swirl and change. But in this perfect moment, I fulfilled my fate. Perhaps I would live. I wanted to live, but only if that path led toward my escaping the Servants. If living meant I was recaptured, if they gave me the traitor’s death, if I lived to see Vindeliar’s face … no. I knew what they meant by a traitor’s death. I had seen the poor messenger, tears of blood flowing from her ey
es, eaten from within by parasites. If I had to choose between death and capture, I would choose death. My heart beat faster at that thought, and with every beat, I was aware that I was making a decision. Move, don’t move. Run back into the scroll-room, and the flames would seize me. It would still be a faster death than that the Servants would give me. Weep, don’t weep. Run left, run right. Flee back to my cell and lock myself in, hide in the gardens. All choices I could make, and from each of those choices, an infinite number of futures sprang.
My fire was hot. I could smell the wooden doors charring, and even see the darkening of the wood. The corridor was warmer than it had been. How much damage could I do?
The chairs I had pushed out into the corridor still waited under the lamp shelves where I had kindled my candles. My two candles that had come so far from my mother’s hand to help me pull this evil from the world, right down to its roots, were used now. But I could do more, I thought. No time to pause or to wonder. I climbed up on the nearest chair.
The base of the pot-lamp was fat and heavy. And just slightly warm to the touch. I already had oil on my shirt and trousers. One touch of the flame and I could dance and scream just as Symphe had done. Do it. But do it carefully. Then flee. Wolf Father’s suggestion was a whisper. It made me realize I’d been careless with my walls. I could taste the foul serpent-potion in Vindeliar’s mouth.
Do not think of him. Walls.
I could only reach the pot with one hand, and only if I stood on my toes. I pushed at it. Nothing. Push again. I heard the baked clay base of the pot grind against its wooden shelf. I pushed again. It didn’t move. I felt a wave of dizziness and lifted my eyes from my task to look down the hall. It was hazy. I more fell than jumped from my chair.
My fires were humming behind the doors now. The doors thudded rhythmically in their frames. The wood was blackening. Soon the flames would break through. I wondered if I could pick up the chair and throw it at the pot, to break it or knock it down. Then a little tongue of flame licked from the top of the first door, making a stripe of brown on the wood panelling above the door.
