by Robin Hobb
Eventually, I found her bedchamber, her frozen braziers draped with icicles. The lights burned brightly there and I could see the whole chamber, the carved wardrobes of rich wood, and the elegant table that held her mirror and brushes, her sparkling jewelry gleaming on a silvery tree. Someone, perhaps, had plundered as he fled, for one of the wardrobes stood open, and garments trailed from it across the floor. I wondered how they had missed taking the jewels. The sleek furs of her bed were hoared with frost. I did not linger there. I did not want to gaze at the empty shackles affixed to the wall across from her bed, or on the bloody stains they framed on the icy wall.
Beyond her bedchamber, another door gaped. I glanced in as I passed, then halted and went back to it. There was a table in the middle of the room, and scroll racks lined the walls. They were neatly filled, the scrolls rolled and tied in the Six Duchies fashion. I walked over to them, knowing what I had found, but feeling oddly emotionless about it. I pulled out a scroll at random and opened it. Yes. It was by Master Treeknee. This one had to do with rules of conduct for candidates-in-training. It strictly forbade the playing of pranks that involved the use of Skill. I let it fall to the icy floor and chose another at random. This was newer, and I recognized Solicity's rounded hand and sloping letters. The words squirmed before my tearing eyes, and I let it fall to join its fellow. I lifted my gaze to look around the room. Here was the missing Skill library of Buckkeep Castle, surreptitiously sold away by Regal to finance his lush lifestyle at Tradeford. Traders who were agents for the Pale Woman and Kebal Rawbread had bought from the youngest Prince the knowledge of the Farseer magic. Our inheritance had come north, to the Outislanders and eventually to this room. Here the Pale Woman had learned how to turn our own magic against us, and here she had studied how to make a stone dragon. Chade would have given his eyeteeth for a single afternoon in this room. It was a treasure trove of lost knowledge. It would not buy what I most desired, a chance to do things differently. I shook my head and turned and left it there.
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Eventually, I found the dungeons that had held the Narcheska's mother and sister. Peottre had left those doors ajar when he had snatched his women free of them. The next dungeon showed me a more grisly sight. Three dead men sprawled within it. I wondered if they had died as Forged Ones, fighting amongst themselves, or if the death of the dragon had restored them to themselves, so that they perished of cold and hunger while in full possession of their sensibilities.
The door of the cell that had held Riddle and Hest stood open. Hest's plundered body lay face up on the floor. I forced myself to look down into his face. Cold and death had blackened his countenance, but I saw there still the young man I had known. After a moment's hesitation, I stooped and seized his shoulders. It was hard work, but I pried his body from the floor. It was not a pleasant task, for he was well frozen to it. I dragged him back to the room that had held the Narcheska's mother and placed him on the wooden bed. I gathered from that room and her daughter's cell anything that I thought might burn, old bedding and straw from the floor. I heaped it around his body, and then sacrificed half of the flask of oil that I had brought with me for burning the Fool's body. It took some little time to get a bit of the straw to light, but once it did, the flames licked eagerly at the oil and clambered over the wood and straw. I waited until a curtain of flames had risen around his body. Then I cut a lock of my hair and added it to his funeral pyre, the traditional Six Duchies sacrifice to say farewell to a comrade. “Not in vain, Hest. Not in vain,” I told him, but as I left him burning, I wondered what we had truly accomplished. Only the years to come would tell us, and I was not yet ready to say that the freeing of the dragon was a trumph for humanity.
And that left the last chamber. Of course. It would have been her final degradation of him, her final mockery and triumphant discarding of him. In a chamber spattered with human waste and garbage, by a heap of offal and filth, I found my friend.
He had been alive when they dumped him here. She would have wanted him to be aware of this final indignity offered him. He had crawled to the corner of the room that was least soiled. There, huddled in a piece of dirty sacking, he had died. My Fool had been such a clean man in his life that I did not doubt that dying among filth had been an additional torment for him. I do not know if someone had flung the old sacking over him or if he had sought it himself in the time before he finally died, curled in a tight ball on the icy floor. Perhaps whoever had disposed of him here had bundled him in it to make his body easier to drag. Blood and fluids had soaked the coarse and crusty weave of the fabric, freezing it tight to his diminished body. He had drawn up his knees and tucked his chin tight to his chest, and his face was locked in an expression of pain. His gleaming hair was loose and tattered, with mats of blood in it.
I set my hand on his cold clenched brow. I had not known I was going to do it until I did it. With all the Skill I could muster, I reached and sought for him. I found only stillness. I set both my hands to his cheeks and forced my way in. I explored his corpse, pushing my way through the passages where life had once flowed effortlessly. I tried to heal it, to awaken it again to life. Go! I commanded his blood and Live! I commanded his flesh.
But his body had been still too long. Reluctantly, I learned too well what all hunters know. At the instant of death, the decay begins. The tiny bits that make up the flesh begin the slide into carrion, letting go of one another so that they can find the freedom to become other things. His blood was thick, the skin that once held out the world had become a sack that held in the separating flesh. Breathless, I pushed at it, willing life into it, but it was like pushing on a hinge rusted closed. The pieces that used to move separately had become a single unmoving entity. Function had become stillness. Other forces were at work here now, disassembling the tiniest pieces, breaking them down like grinding grain into flour. All the little links that bound them were coming undone. Nevertheless, I tried. I tried to move his arm; I tried to force his body to take a breath.
What are you doing?
It was Thick, mildly annoyed that I had broken into his sleep. I was suddenly frantically glad to feel him with me. Thick, I have found him, the Fool, my friend, Lord Golden. I have found him. Help me heal him. Please, lend me your strength.
He was sleepily tolerant of my request. All right. Thick will try. I felt the wide yawn he did not disguise. Where is he?
Here! Right here! With my Skill, I indicated the still body before me.
Where?
Right here! Here, Thick. Under my hands.
There's no one there.
Yes there is. I'm touching him, right here. Please, Thick. Then, in my despair, I threw my plea wider. Dutiful, Chade. Please. Lend me strength and Skill for a healing. Please.
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Who is hurt? Not Thick! Chade was with me abruptly, full of panic.
No, I am fine. He wants to heal someone who isn't there.
He is here. I've found the Fool's body, Chade. Please. You all brought me back. Please. Help me heal him, help me bring him back!
Dutiful spoke, calmingly. Fitz, we are all here, and you know we will do this for you. It may be harder, as we are separated, but we will try. Show him to us.
He is here! Right here, I'm touching him. I was suddenly furiously impatient with them. Why were they being so stupid? Why wouldn't they help me?
I don't sense him, Dutiful said after a long pause. Touch him.
But I am! I bent over him and put my arms around his curled body. I'm holding him. Please. Help me heal him.
That? That isn't a person. Thick was obviously puzzled. You can't heal dirt!
Rage filled me. He isn't dirt!
Dutiful spoke gently. It's all right, Thick. Don't be upset. You said nothing wrong. I know you didn't mean it that way. Then, to me, Oh, Fitz, I am so sorry. But he's dead. And Thick is right, in his own blunt way. His body is becoming . . . somethi
ng else. I cannot sense it as a body. Only as . . . He halted, unable to say the words. Carrion. Rot. Degenerating meat. Dirt.
Chade spoke as calmly as if he were reminding me of an obvious lesson. Healing is a function of the living body, Fitz. The Skill can urge it, but the body does it. When it is alive. That is not the Fool you hold, Fitz. It is his empty shell. You cannot make it live any more than you could make a rock live. There is no calling him back into it.
Thick spoke pragmatically. Even if you made it work again, there's no one to put in it.
I think it finally became real then. The corpse that was no longer his body. The absence of his spirit.
A long, long time seemed to pass. Then Chade spoke again softly. Fitz. What are you doing now?
Nothing. Just sitting here. Failing. Again. Just as I did with Burrich. He died, didn't he?
I could almost see the resignation on the old man's face. I knew how he would draw a breath and sigh that I insisted on stacking all my pain in one pile, facing it all at once. Yes. He did. With his son beside him. And Web. All of us honored him. We halted the ships, to be together when they slid him over the side and let him go. Just as you must let the Fool go.
I did not want to agree with that or to answer it at all. The habits of a lifetime are strong. I diverted Chade's attention. I found the Skill scrolls. The stolen library. It is here, in the Pale Woman's stronghold. Only I do not think this place was truly hers. I have seen things here that make me think it was a place where Elderlings abided.
Chade surprised me. Later, Fitz. Later is plenty of time to consider recovering the scrolls. For now, listen to me. Honor your friend's body, however you see fit. Release it. Then both you and Thick hurry back to the beach. I will come back on the ship that I send for you. I misjudged what you intended to do. I do not think you should be alone with this sort of grief.
But he was wrong. Grief makes its own solitude, and I knew that I must endure it. I compromised, knowing it was the only way to make him leave me alone. Thick and I will be on the beach when the ship arrives. You don't need to come back for us. I won't let any harm come to us. But for now, I would be alone. If you don't mind.
No boats! Thick said decisively. Not ever. No. I'll stay right here where I am before I go on a boat. Forever.
Thick isn't with you now? Chade sounded anxious.
No. He will explain. I still have a task to do, Chade. Thank you. All of you. Thank you for trying. I pulled up my walls, closing myself off from them. I felt Dutiful try to reach for me, but I could not tolerate even his gentle touch right then. I walled them out, even as Thick sleepily told them that the Black Man made wonderful food. Before my walls closed, I felt a tenuous touch that might have been Nettle, trying to send me comfort.
There was no comfort for me and I would not expose her to my pain. She would have enough of her own, soon enough. I closed my walls. It was time to deal with death.
I peeled the Fool's corpse from the floor, leaving an outline of his coiled body and a handful of golden strands of his hair to mark where he had died. He was a solid, cold weight in my arms. In death, he seemed to weigh less than he had in life, as if the departure of his spirit had taken most of him with it.
I held him curled against my chest, the soiled mat of his golden hair under my chin, the coarse sacking against my fingers. I walked empty through the ice halls. We passed the chamber where Hest still burned. The smoke of his flesh crawled along the ceiling above us, tainting the still air with the aroma of cooking meat. I could have put the Fool's body with his, but it did not feel right. My friend should burn alone, in a private farewell between us. I walked on, past the other cell doors.
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After a time I became aware that I was speaking aloud to him. “Where? Where would you want me to do this thing? I could place you on her bed and burn you in the midst of all her heaped wealth . . . would you want that? Or would you think that contact with anything of hers would soil you? Where would I want to be burned? Under the night sky, I think, sending my own sparks up to the stars. Would you like that, Fool? Or would you prefer to be within the Elderling tent, with your own things around you, closed in with the privacy you always cherished? Why didn't we ever talk about these things? It seems something a man should know about his best friend. But in the end, does it matter at all? Gone is gone, ash is ash . . . but I think I would prefer to loose your smoke to the night wind. Would you laugh at me for that? Gods. Would that you could laugh at me for anything again. ”
“How touching. ”
The lilt of mockery, the knife's edge of sarcasm, and the voice so like his made my heart stop and then lurch on. I slammed my Skill-walls tight, but felt no assault against them. I turned, teeth bared, to confront her. She stood in the door of her bedchamber. She was mantled in ermine, white fur with tiny black tails interrupting it in a scattered pattern. It hung from her shoulders to the floor, draping her entire body. Despite the richness of her garb, she looked haggard. The perfect sculpting of her face had sunken to her bones and her pale hair, ungroomed, lagged and wisped like dry straw around her face. Her colorless eyes seemed almost dull, the eyes of a beached fish.
I stood before her, clutching the Fool's corpse to my breast. I knew he was dead and she could no longer hurt him, and yet I backed away from her, as if I still needed to protect him from her. As if I had ever been able to protect him from her!
She lifted her chin, baring the white column of her throat. “Drop that,” she suggested, “and come and kill me. ”
Was it because she had suggested it that my first thought now seemed like such a bad idea? “No,” I replied, and suddenly I wanted only to be left completely alone. This was an intimate death I held. She, of all people, should not witness or take satisfaction in my grief. “Go away,” I said, and did not know the low growl of my own voice.
She laughed, icicles shattering on stone. “Go away? Is that all? Go away? Such a keen vengeance for FitzChivalry Farseer to take upon me! Ah, that shall go down in tales and songs! ‘And then he stood, holding his beloved and said to their enemy, ‘Go away!' ” She laughed, but there was no music in it. It was like rocks rattling down a hillside, and when I made no response to it, her laughter trailed away into silence. She stared at me, and for a moment she looked confused. She had truly believed that she could make me drop him and attack her. She tipped her head, staring at me, and after a moment, spoke again. Her voice was lower now.
“Wait. I see. You have not yet unwrapped my little gift to you. You have not yet seen all that I did to him. Wait until you see his hands, and those clever, graceful fingers of his! Oh, and his tongue and teeth, which spoke so wittily for your amusement! I did that for you, FitzChivalry, that you might fully regret your disdainful rejection of me. ” She paused very briefly and then said, as if reminding me, “Now, Fitz. This is when you promise to kill me if I follow you. ”
I had been about to utter those words. I bit down on them. She had made them empty and childish. Perhaps those words were always empty and childish. I shifted my burden in my arms and then turned and walked away from her. My Skill-walls were up and tight, but if she made any assault against them, it was too subtle for me to feel. My back felt exposed and I'll admit that I wanted to run. I asked myself why I did not kill her. The answer seemed too simple to be true. I did not want to put his body down on her floor while I did it. Even more, I did not want to do anything that she expected me to do.
“He called out for you!” She sang the words after me. “He thought he was close to dying, I imagine. Of course, he was not. I am more adept than that! But he thought the pain would kill him, and he cried out for you. ‘Beloved! Beloved!' ” Her mockery of his agonized voice was perfect. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as if he had spoken to me from beyond the grave. Despite my resolve, my steps slowed. I held his body closer and bowed my head more tightly over his. I hated that her words could bring tears to my eyes. I
should kill her. Why didn't I kill her?
“He did mean you, did he not? Well, of course he did, though you may not know it. I doubt you know the custom of the people he came from; how they exchange names to denote the lifelong bonds they form? Did you ever call him by your name, to show him that he was as dear to you as your own life? Did you? Or were you too much of a coward to let him know?”
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I wanted to kill her then. But I would have had to set his body down and I would not do that. She could not make me abandon him again. I would not set him down and I would not look back at her. I hunched my back against her pelted words and trudged away.
“Did you? Did you? Did you?”
I had expected to hear her voice fade as I walked away. Instead, she lifted it, and her tone became even angrier as she flung the hateful question at me. After a time, I knew she was following me. The words were a hoarse shriek now, the cawing of crows as they summon one another to the rich pickings of a battlefield. “Did you? Did you? Did you?”
Even when I heard her running footsteps behind me and knew that she would attack me, I could not bring myself to drop the Fool's body. I held him and turned, hunching a shoulder to her maddened onslaught. I do not think it was what she expected. Perhaps she had hoped I would face her with a drawn blade. She tried to stop but the icy floor betrayed her. She slid into me. I kept my grip on the Fool's body as I slammed against the wall, and somehow managed to stay on my feet. She did not. She sprawled on her side, gasping hoarsely in her pain. I looked at her dumbly, wondering how a fall could have caused her that much agony. Then, as she tried to rise, I saw what she had concealed from me.
Riddle's telling had been true. I stared at the blackened and shriveled forearms that she struggled to use. She could neither rise nor cover them again beneath the robe. I met her colorless eyes and spoke my words coldly. “You are the coward. At the last minute, you could not give up yourself, not even to complete your vision of what the world should be. You lacked his courage. He accepted the price fate decreed for him. He took his pain and his death and he won. He triumphed. You failed. ”
