by Robin Hobb
‘She was not a bad person,’ the Fool observed softly. ‘Bee destroyed her life. Everything she had ever known, the only task she knew how to do, all gone.’
‘I don’t regret it. Bee sprang like a hunting cat.’
Like a wolf.
‘More like a wolf, I am sure,’ the Fool said, and his echoing of Nighteyes put a shiver up my back. It was a shiver that made me smile.
Lant looked up and motioned us away from the work area. ‘I didn’t mean you. No room,’ he said. As he spoke, Per and Spark rotated a heavy block of stone. It moved but did not come free. They went back to scraping. Working tools into the crevices to cut the mortar was slow work, as was dragging the freed block out. Above us, we heard something fall. I looked up at the ceiling.
‘Do you think they’re dead?’ the Fool asked.
I didn’t need to ask who. ‘Dwalia and Vindeliar, yes. Bee killed Symphe. Fellowdy is a dead man, sooner or later, if he touched anything in his chambers. And I think Bee stabbed him, at least once, in the corridor. Per cut Coultrie’s throat. And Capra was still bleeding from your knife when last we saw her.’ I said nothing of all the nameless people who would be dead in the fire.
He was silent for a moment. ‘Two for Per: Vindeliar and Coultrie. Two for Bee: Symphe and Dwalia. Perhaps three, unless I claim Fellowdy. She only knifed him, but if they take him back to his chambers, he’s sure to die.’ His laugh was shaky. ‘None for you, Fitz. My fine assassin.’
‘And Spark set off the firepot that killed the guard troop. And Bee scared off the others.’ I didn’t mention the guardsmen I’d taken down in the melee. ‘I’ve lost my edge, Fool. As I feared I had. Perhaps it’s time to admit that. I should find a different line of work.’
‘Nothing to be ashamed of in that,’ he said, but it did not make me feel better. ‘Later,’ he added.
‘Later, what?’
‘Later, perhaps, when Bee is somewhere safe, we shall come back and be sure of all of them.’
‘If a dragon does not do them first.’
A smile of pure pleasure broke over his face. ‘The dragons may have them, if we have Bee.’
I nodded to that. I was so tired, and I had feared that his hunger for vengeance would still be unsated. But as he watched Bee scraping at mortar he seemed only pleased. As if having her with us had driven all other ambitions away from him.
I had seldom felt so useless as I did then. My hunger grew, and my thirst, but I tried to leave our scanty supply of water for those who laboured. When Lant dragged another stone out, I called to him, ‘Can you see anything beyond the opening?’
‘Lots of darkness,’ he replied and went back to work.
At one point, the Fool helped me hobble over to the seats near the torture table. From there, I could better watch the work.
As soon as we moved, the three remaining Whites came to claim Cora’s body. They carried her back to her cell and composed her on the straw mattress. Prilkop joined them and they spent a few silent moments standing by her body.
When I quietly commented on it to the Fool, he sighed. ‘Our Bee is the Destroyer to them. They mourn the dead, here and above in the fire. Even more, they mourn the loss of generations of knowledge. So much destroyed. So much history gone.’
I looked over at him and thought him blind in so many ways. ‘So many weapons destroyed,’ I said quietly.
He did not reply to that. We listened to the others scraping mortar and muttering to one another. Lant pushed a poker under one end of a stone and put his weight on it. It did not move. ‘Not yet,’ he sighed and they went on with their scraping. But the next time he leaned on the lever, a stone broke free. The Fool helped me hobble closer to the work.
Lant reached into the opening, and the muscles stood out in his arms and chest as he gripped the block and pulled it toward him. It scraped, sawed and got stuck, then grated out toward us. It reached the tipping point and he jumped back as it slid out of the opening. With the Fool’s help, I hop-limped over to join them.
‘One more, and Per can slip through with a torch.’
Per nodded eagerly. He darted away and a short time later returned. He’d wrapped rags from one of the cell mattresses around a torture poker and drenched them with oil from a lamp. Lant stepped back from the opening as Per kindled it and poked it through the hole. ‘Not much to see. Ow!’ he cried as the flames licked up toward his hand, and he dropped the torch.
Bee leaned in to peer into the darkness. ‘She dragged her small body up and half into the hole. ‘What do you see?’ I asked her.
‘Steps going down. Not much else.’ She wriggled deeper into the hole and then abruptly dropped down on the other side.
‘Bee!’ I cried in alarm.
She stood up, torch in hand, and peered back at us. ‘I’m fine.’ She lifted the torch higher and I leaned into the opening. Broad steps led down into darkness. I smelled the sea, and soaked stone. I suspected standing water at the bottom of the steps. I had a glimpse of cut-stone walls and ceiling. The lower parts of the walls were speckled. ‘I’m going down the steps, to see what I can see,’ Bee announced.
‘No,’ I forbade her. I tried to seize her but could not reach her.
‘Da,’ she said, and the hollow beyond echoed her laughter strangely. Her voice was merry as she said, ‘No one can tell me “no” any more. Not even you.’ She started down the steps. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised.
My eyes met Lant’s. He looked as stricken as I felt.
‘I can fit through that hole. I’m sure of it,’ Per declared, and pushed past Lant and me to thrust his head and shoulders into the gap. He withdrew, then tried again, leading with his clasped hands this time. ‘Lift me and push!’ he commanded in a muffled voice, and Lant obeyed. I heard Per’s grunts and the scraping of fabric on stone. I dreaded that he would wedge, but after some struggle, Lant seized his kicking feet and pushed him through. I heard him tumble down a step or two. He stood and cried breathlessly, ‘Bee, Bee, wait for me!’
‘Take a sword!’ Lant commanded him, and thrust one through the gap. Per took it and hastened away from us, his body blocking most of the dancing light that was Bee and her torch. ‘Don’t go far!’
He called something back to us, and was gone.
‘They’re brave,’ Spark said, and I saw her measuring her body against the opening.
Lant caught her by the shoulder. ‘Help us free one more stone. At most two. Then I think all of us can escape, if indeed it leads to freedom.’
‘I wouldn’t go without you,’ she promised him and immediately began to dig at the next seam of mortar. After a moment, Lant knelt to pursue the seam adjacent to hers. I stood and stared into blackness. Shadows that were Per and Bee moved with the descending light. It grew smaller and then vanished. I waited, eyes straining, to see it again, but saw only darkness.
‘Their torch has failed. We have to send Spark after them.’ I hoped my voice did not shake too badly. I imagined a hundred evil things awaiting Bee.
‘One more stone, and we can,’ Lant promised me.
Time dragged and no one spoke. There was only the endless scraping of tools on mortar to mark the passing moments. Only darkness inside the hole. I wanted to pace. I could not. They worked in shifts, Lant and Spark, then two of the prisoners, then back to Lant and Spark. The ground away mortar sifted down the wall. Behind and above us, the fire muttered to itself.
‘Stop!’ Lant said suddenly. He leaned past the Whites who had been scraping away to peer into the opening. ‘I see light! They’re coming back.’
I pushed up beside him. The light danced toward us slowly, barely an ember in the darkness. Lant fashioned another torch and thrust it toward the hole. Now we could see more, but it was still some time before we saw Bee coming up the steps. ‘Where’s Per?’ I called, dreading some disaster.
‘He’s trying to break an old wooden door,’ she called, breathless as she climbed the steps. ‘It’s partly rotten, but we couldn’t get past it. He poke
d the sword through between the planks and a tiny bit of light came in. So we think it’s the way out! The tunnel steps go down, and then the floor slopes down. We had to wade through water for a long way. I cut my feet on some barnacles, but then Per cut one of his sleeves away so I could bind my feet. Then we came to steps going up. A lot of them, going up and up and finally the door. Per said it might have been a guard post once. He said he didn’t mind the dark, but I’ll want light for going back. We need pokers for levers. Or an axe. We will work on the door while you work on the bricks here.’
It was a sensible plan. I hated it.
We passed the smallest pot-lamp through to her and I surrendered the ship’s hatchet. Bee hugged the lamp to her chest, the hatchet and a poker tucked awkwardly under her arm. I watched her carry it away as if I were watching her leave the world.
‘The ceiling is burning through,’ the Fool said quietly. ‘I smell it. And it’s getting warmer in here.’
‘Work faster,’ Lant suggested, and they all did. When Lant judged there was enough purchase for the poker, he pushed it under the stone. ‘A moment,’ Prilkop suggested, and inserted a bar of his own. ‘Now,’ he said, and both men leaned on their levers. The stone was adamant.
Behind me, a small piece of the ceiling fell, landing on the torture table and the steps where I had rested. Flames were dancing on it as it came down. The floors here were of stone, as were the walls, but that would be small comfort to us if burning rubble fell on us. I had gained a fearful respect for smoke and heat. We stared wide-eyed at one another.
‘Let me help!’ Spark cried. She stepped up and balanced on one of the pokers like a bird perching on a twig. ‘Now push down,’ she told Lant. He and Prilkop leaned on their bars. With a slow crackling sound, the stone moved upward slightly. Prilkop shoved his bar deeper and leaned on it, groaning. The stone grated as it rose out of its bed. It tipped then lodged, making the opening even smaller than it had been. The prisoner who had first come to help pushed the stone deeper into the opening with all his skeletal weight. The stone slid into the maw of the tunnel. It almost but not completely cleared the opening.
Lant threw down his bar and eeled into the darkness. One of the prisoners squirmed in beside him, contributing his feeble strength to move the stone. ‘Help me,’ the skinny White gasped, and a second crawled through to join him. I heard Lant grunt, then groan and the grinding noise as the stone grudgingly moved. Slowly an escape opened before us. The two prisoners quickly wriggled through and out of the way. Lant joined them on the other side and then turned around.
Lant’s face appeared in the opening. ‘Quick. Come through,’ he commanded Spark, and stepped back to make room for her. But as she stepped forward, the last prisoner suddenly threw herself at the opening. Fast as a startled rat, she was through. I heard Lant’s exclamation of surprise and then he cursed. ‘They’ve run ahead,’ he complained. That alarmed me; I did not trust any of them.
‘Lant. Go after them!’ I begged him.
‘Sword,’ he demanded, and Spark stooped, seized one, and passed it to him.
‘I’m going, too,’ she declared, and slid into the gap, her sword leading the way.
‘Bring my pack!’ she called over her shoulder and then raced down the steps and into darkness. Lant was already out of sight. I had to go after her.
I tried to stand and my leg folded under me. The Fool caught my arm and pulled me upright. It simply would not take my weight. Fury welled in me and for a moment I could not even speak. When I had control of myself, I lifted my eyes to Prilkop. ‘Will they hurt Bee? Do they mean her harm?’ I demanded of him.
Prilkop had picked up the last pot-lamp in his arms. He looked from me to the Fool and chewed his lip. ‘I hope not,’ he offered me. ‘But they are very frightened. And angry. It’s hard to say what people will do when they are scared.’
‘Can you go after them and stop them?’ the Fool asked.
‘I don’t know if they’ll listen to …’ he began.
‘Try!’ the Fool cried, and Prilkop nodded brusquely. He pushed the lamp to one side and squeezed stiffly through the opening. On the other side, he laboriously took up the lamp and went down the steps, far more slowly than I wished him to.
‘Go,’ I told the Fool.
‘I can see nothing in there except the flame of the lamp,’ he complained. He groped to find the tunnel’s mouth and then clambered spryly over the wall. ‘I’m handing you a sword,’ I told him. I did a slow bend to pick it up and passed it through to him. The blade had not been improved by the use we’d made of it. The ceiling groaned behind me. I spared a backwards glance. A large section of it was sagging.
‘Don’t wait for me. Touch the wall and go down the steps to the bottom. I’ll be right behind you.’ The Fool nodded grimly and turned away from me to venture off into a darkness he could not see.
We’d need a torch. I began my limping circuit of the wall, passing Spark’s pack, next to my firepot harness on the steps. I’d get them on my way back. I edged on, gimping from wall to table. At last, I seized a chair and used it as a bulky cane. The deeper I went into the room, the more my eyes stung. By the time I reached the cells and the crude mattress there I knew I’d made a bad decision. Bits of ceiling were flaking and floating in the air.
I dragged the thin mattress onto the chair. Scraping the chair over the floor, I began my journey back. My eyes were closed to slits, and to take a deep breath invited a coughing fit. A piece of ceiling the size of a pony collapsed onto the upper stairs. I looked up at it in time to see another section giving way. As it came down, I threw up my arm to shield my face from the wash of heat. The smoke in the room billowed toward me. I pushed the chair frantically toward the opening in the wall, all thoughts of a torch abandoned. With a groan, a beam fell almost beside me, charred and glowing along its length. A flame leapt up as if rejoicing in its freedom and ran along the fallen timber. Another followed. Paragon’s words came back to me. In water and fire, in wind and darkness. Not swiftly. Was this my time to die? As if to confirm that thought, a big piece of ceiling fell. The gust of hot wind knocked me over, chair and all. I sprawled on the floor, temporarily blinded and disoriented. I rubbed my sleeve over my eyes. Which way was the opening to the tunnel?
‘Fitz? Where are you? Fitz?’
The Fool? I closed my stinging eyes and dragged myself over the cinder-littered floor toward his voice. I bumped into the table, and called, ‘Fool?’
‘Here! This way!’
I reached the wall. I felt his hands plucking at the back of my shirt and hauled myself up and into the opening. With him pulling and me clawing, I tumbled through into cooler air. He followed me more gracefully. ‘What were you doing?’ he demanded.
‘I wanted a torch.’
‘You nearly became one.’
I opened my eyes, wiped them on my sleeve, rubbed them, and opened them again. The scarlet light from the fire in the dungeons behind us gave an unearthly illumination to the worked stone walls and the arched ceiling above us.
‘Up you go,’ the Fool said. He dragged my arm across his shoulder and stood up. Together we stumbled to where I could put one hand on the wall. I lurched down a step, then two.
‘Your legs are wet.’
‘There’s water at the bottom of the steps. And barnacles on the walls, too. And the tide’s coming in, Fitz.’
We both knew what that meant. I let the cold dread creep into me and then asked him, ‘Do you think they’ll hurt Bee? The Whites who ran ahead.’
He was panting with the effort of helping me descend another step. ‘I don’t think they can. They’re no match for Spark or Lant. For that matter, I don’t think Per would let any harm befall her.’
‘A moment,’ I said, and leaned on the wall to cough smoke from my lungs. When I could draw a full breath, I straightened up. ‘Let’s go,’ I told him. With every step we lurched down, the red light from the burning dungeon room offered less illumination.
‘Da?’ Bee�
��s small voice floated up to me from the darkness. Both the Fool and I startled. I peered down the steps into a well of increasing darkness. A feeble light glimmered down there.
‘Bee? I’m here, with the Fool.’ To him, I said, ‘Leave me. Go to her,’ and he started down the steps.
The light became a dying torch. It bobbed as she reached the bottom of the steps. The light was reflected in standing water around her ankles. She raised her voice in an anxious shout. ‘Da, Per broke through the door! Per said we would wait for everyone else. But the prisoners ran up to us, all wet from the tunnel. They were angry. If Per had not been there with his sword— I tried to turn their minds, but I could not.’ She paused for breath.
‘Per threatened them with the sword, and they ran away. Then Spark came, and Lant. Per told them what happened, and Spark ran after them to kill them. Lant told us to stay where we were and went after Spark. Da, those Whites will run right back to Clerres and tell where we are. I came to warn you: they will come in force and kill us all! Per stayed to guard the door. He’ll stop them there if he can.’
Her voice did not shake until the end of her report. As she started up the steps I saw she was wet to her hips. She had come to us through deeper water? How high would it reach? Did we dare attempt to escape that way? As she climbed the steps toward us, her torch revealed old watermarks and barnacles on the wall. How high could it reach? I didn’t like my conclusion. A high tide could come halfway up the steps, completely filling the tunnel below.
Behind us, fire. Below us, rising water. No good choices.
Then the chamber behind me exploded and I flew through darkness.
THIRTY-SEVEN
* * *
Touch
The appearance of the Pocked Man is always a harbinger of disaster to come. He was seen not only in Buckkeep Town, but in Grimsbyford and Sandsedge in the weeks before the Blood Plague reached the Six Duchies and devastated our folk. He was seen standing on the balcony of the doomed Fins Tower two days before the earthquake that brought it down on the town. Some have claimed to have seen him immediately before the first Forging at Forge. On the night that King Shrewd was assassinated, the Pocked Man was seen in the washing court and by the castle well in Buckkeep Castle. He always appears as a cadaverous man, pale of countenance, his face marked with red pox.
