by Robin Hobb
“Yes! Go!” she cried. Still, he took three steps into the room, set the book down on a side table, and then turned and hurried off.
I had considered using Caulder. That glimpse of him decided me. No. Father was right. Yaril must do what he was no longer strong enough to do. The old man was looking directly at me. His lips moved. “Thank you, son. Thank you.” His head sagged to one side on his neck.
The magic squirmed against me, flailing and then wrapping around my ghost fists as it sought to escape. I danced harder, caught in the magic and yet battling with it. My heart rattled in my chest like an empty wagon hitched to a runaway team. I was the magic and I fought the magic, trying to master it, trying to force it into a channel that would not destroy all of the Burvelle family. I clenched it tightly, looked at my helpless little sister as she knelt by my father’s failing body, and then doubled the magic into a loop. I pressed it to my brow, imprinting it with an old memory, searing an image into it, and adding to it a message. “This is where the stone came from. But do not give this knowledge to Stiet. Use it for the good of the Burvelle family. Gift whatever it is to the King and Queen. It is the only way.”
I froze my heart. “I am sorry,” I said to Yaril. “Sorry to make you serve us so. But there is no one else.” And then I took my coronet of magic and knowledge and crammed it onto my sister’s bowed head.
At the touch of it, she flung her head back, like a horse refusing a bridle. But the magic was there, and the knowledge, and yes, my memory of telling her all that had befallen me that summer my father had given me over to the Kidona warrior Dewara. The magic brought it back to her vividly. And she knew now, as clearly as I did, how to get to the place where Dewara had built his fire and conducted me over to his spirit world. There, I believed, was the source of the rock that I had carried with me as a reminder of that encounter, the same rock that Caulder had stolen from me during my year at the Academy.
I felt the magic, felt its anger that I had torn it from its chosen course and set it into mine. I knew, in a way that defied explanation, that my path would work. It would be more convoluted, but it would serve just as well. Even the magic accepted that, but it accepted it coldly, with an angry promise of vengeance to come. And I acceded to that. I would pay, as I had paid before. But this time it would be worth the price.
Yaril had been crouched by my father. Now she sat down ungracefully, flat on the floor, her legs bent awkwardly under her. She swayed. My father’s eyes, opened to slits, looked down at her. Then he leaned his head back on his chair. He took a deeper breath and sighed it out, as if a heavy harness had been taken from him. His eyes traveled to meet mine. His pale lips parted; it could have been a smile. “Lord Burvelle,” he sighed. He reached out a shaking hand and set it on my sister’s fair head. “Protect her,” he murmured. He leaned back and closed his eyes.
“He’s dead,” Stiet said.
“No.” My father drew a deep, slow breath. “I’m not.” He breathed again, more raggedly.
With difficulty, he shifted until he was looking down at Yaril. She still sat on the floor, dazed. She was very pale, save for a bright spot of blood on her lower lip where she had bitten herself. She lifted her hands to her head and pressed them to her skull, as if holding her head together.
“Are you quite all right, my dear?” he asked her.
“I—I am.” Her eyes were clearing. Stiet held out a hand to her. Instead, she planted her own hands on the floor, pushed herself to her feet, and then swayed toward my father’s chair. She caught hold of the back of it, stood up, and set her hands on his shoulders. She leaned to say quietly by his ear, “I think that everything will be fine now for both of us. I know what I need to do.”
And with her words, suddenly the magic was finished with me. I watched the nimbus that had been playing about Yaril’s head suddenly fade, leaving only the necessary knowledge behind. It was over. I’d done all the magic wished me to do. I’d served its purpose and it was done with me. I danced still, but more slowly.
I lifted my head and turned my vision to the east. I could still feel my body, dancing its plodding dance, but it seemed very far away from me. I wondered if I could get back to it before it failed completely. I knew there was an important thing to do, but suddenly it seemed an onerous task, one at the very edges of my ability. I turned back to the room. Some time must have passed. There was a doctor there, fussing about my father, mixing a foaming powder into some water for him. Professor Stiet was gone, but Caulder was there now, very red in the cheeks from his recent exertion, and looking at my father with what seemed like genuine concern. Yaril sat in a chair to one side of my father, and a housemaid was just setting down a tray with a teapot and several cups on it. To me, Yaril looked more physically worn than my father. I felt my distant body tug at me faintly, a failing puppet trying to call its strings back to it. I went to my father.
“Good-bye,” I said. He did not look at me or give me any sign of response. I bent down and kissed his brow, as he had occasionally done when I was a little lad going off to bed. “Good-bye, Lord Burvelle. I hope you keep your title for many years to come.”
My body pulled at me more strongly now. I ignored it to go to Yaril, to bow and dance a final time with her. “Farewell, little sister. Be strong. I’ve given you the key. You must deduce how to turn it and unlock what is there in a way that will benefit the family. I leave it in your very capable hands.” I bent again and kissed her on the top of her head. She smelled of flowers.
Then I surrendered to the pulling of the magic. It drew me out of the house and down the long King’s Road. It was a quick-walk of the spirit. I knew the long road, recognized the growing towns and was startled by the mushrooming farms and homes along the way. Time rushed with us, it seemed, as it swept me along at a heady pace. The magic pulled me back into evening, but when I recognized Sergeant Duril camped alongside his high-wheeled cart, I dragged my feet to a halt. He was sleeping already, in a cramped bed made upon his cart’s load, with his long gun ready under his hand. His hobbled team shifted and one horse lifted his head and whickered softly as I drew near. The sergeant’s hat had slipped away; he was nearly bald now. I thought of trying to find my way into his dreams and decided not to. As soft as a breeze, I danced once around his cart. Then I put my hand over his. “No matter what they tell you, try not to think badly of me,” I asked of him. “I remembered all you taught me. It took me a long way, Sergeant. You did your task well.”
He didn’t twitch. But it was not for him that I said my farewell, but for myself. I knew that. And the pulling string of magic tugged me again and I was off, down a long stretch of moonlit road, past Dead Town, and Amzil’s old house swayed to one side from last year’s snowload, and on until I saw the lights and smelled the smoke of Gettys. Again I slowed my pace. It was hard to do. The failing magic pulled at me like a hook in my chest.
My body was using up the last of its resources. I needed to get there while it still lived, but even more, I needed to see the faces of those I loved. I found their house and I danced up to their door. Silent as a wraith, I flowed through plank walls and into a room where Spink and Epiny shared a bed, their child nestled between them. Epiny looked almost corpselike, her face waxy with dark circles under her eyes. Spink’s hair looked dried and brittle, like a starved dog’s fur. Even the baby looked thin; her little cheeks were flat rather than fat. “Don’t give up,” I begged them. “Help is coming. Sergeant Duril is on his way here.” I dragged my fading fingertips across their sleeping faces, softening the lines there, but I lacked the strength to break into Epiny’s dreams.
The pull of the fading magic was pain now. Somewhere, my abused heart was flopping unevenly in my chest. Still, I stayed for a last indulgence. I dared myself to find the woman who once had saved me. My lips brushed Amzil’s bony cheek; she slept huddled with her children in the same bed, and all their faces were as thin as when first I had met them. “Farewell,” I breathed at her, softer than a whisper. “Know you
were loved.” I tried to believe I had not failed them as I was swept away from them yet again.
Then, in the blink of an eye, I was back in the wreckage of my body. It was full dark, but a blazing fire lit the night. I still danced, but no sane person would have known it for a dance. I stood upright, my hands shaking loosely at the end of my arms. I could no longer feel those hands or the purpling fingers that hung from them. I leaned forward, unable to straighten myself. Below, I could see the shuffling of my feet. They were bare and bloody where they were not blackened. A thought came to me. My overburdened and abused heart could no longer pump my blood to my extremities. Experimentally, I tried to lift one foot. I could do it, if I lifted from the hip. I managed a lurching step forward. Then another. And another. I could only step with my left foot. The right I had to drag behind me.
“What is he doing?” someone cried out. The voice had the sound of a shout but the shape of a whisper to me.
“Let him go.” Kinrove’s voice I recognized. “Follow him, but do not interfere. It is his time and he knows it.”
I wanted to tell him I knew nothing. But there was no strength for that. The only thing I must give strength to now, I knew, was to this shuffling, dragging walk. Something pulled at me, something stronger than the magic of Kinrove’s dance. Something that was mine. After what seemed a very long time, I reached the edge of the circle of firelight. “Follow him!” Kinrove commanded again. Someone came to stand at my side with a torch. I was grateful. The person was small and weeping. Someone else came to join him. Olikea and Likari. They stood at my side and held the torches that lit my way. My vision was fading, but I followed some other sight. I could not see far enough ahead to know for sure where I was going, but I was certain I was supposed to go there. A step and a drag, a step and a drag. I followed a path for a long way, but when it no longer went in the direction I must go, I left it. A step and a drag, a step and a drag.
As the last hours of the night dissipated, my shuffle grew slower, my step ever smaller, and the drag of my other foot ever heavier. The ground began to rise. At some point, I went to my knees and then my hands and knees. I crawled on. More than once, I heard them call for fresh torches, and torches were brought, for them to kindle from the stubs, but they never left my side. Their weeping died away to hoarse breathing. By the time I was dragging myself on my belly, they were silent. “The torch is nearly gone,” I heard Likari say and, “No matter,” Olikea replied. “The sun is rising. And he cannot see anymore anyway.”
She was right.
I knew the place by the smell, and the angle of the dawn’s light, and the familiarity of the terrain. I felt Lisana watching me as I drew nearer. I had no strength to speak to her, but she called to me. “I cannot help you with this, Nevare. This you finish on your own. And it must be finished.”
I crawled past her broken stump. It was hard. Her fallen branches littered the ground all along her old trunk. I did not think I could drag my bulk past their tangle, but I did. And then I had to drag my body up, up to where the small tree sprouted at the end of the fallen trunk.
“It’s too small!” someone objected.
“Let him choose. Don’t argue with him.” That was Kinrove’s voice.
I dragged myself the last bit of distance and reached out to seize the sapling. I fell facedown, my hand clinging tight to its bark. That was all it took. My decision was clear to all of them. Kinrove spoke again.
“He has chosen his tree. Bind him to it!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE TREE
I had chosen a tree that was much younger than one a Great One would usually choose. Worse, it was not one that was rooted directly into the earth, but instead was a surviving offshoot of Lisana’s fallen trunk. I gripped it as tightly as I could. It had been less than two full years since I had felled Lisana’s tree. Kaembra trees grew with unnatural swiftness, but even so, this tree was spindly compared to what a Great One would ordinarily have chosen. I heard the feeders debating my wisdom with one another. One of them even had the temerity to suggest that they move me. I knew an instant of absolute terror as I felt their hands close on my wrists and ankles.
“Do not tamper with what a Great Man has chosen. Let him have his will.” Kinrove’s voice was full of authority. In a softer, more pensive tone, he added, “The magic lets us have so little will when we are men in this world; let him have what he can of it now.”
As they tugged, hauled, and pushed me into position, I was a sentient spark in a hulk of dead meat. Pain was gone; too much pain had assaulted me. I was no longer capable of feeling it. Instead, I had a profound sense of wrongness, of so many things broken in my body that it could never be repaired, not by a healer, not by time, not even by my applying the magic to myself. My body had become foreign territory. Organs inside felt torn as the feeders moved me. I could no longer move my fingers or my feet; I had a vague recollection of them swelling, but it was a physical rather than a mental memory. I stopped trying to inventory all that was wrong; this body could no longer function, and soon I would be leaving it.
I wondered if Dasie had hovered like this, a spark of awareness inside a carcass. As they had done with her, they centered my spine on the tree’s slender trunk and then bound me there. They put my legs straight out in front of me, though it felt an unnatural posture to assume. They wrapped them at knee and ankle, and then bound my chest, my neck, and my head to my tree. I felt them stand back to look at their work and wait.
I could no longer see. I could hear, but it was difficult to focus on the words. I was aware that Olikea urged Likari to the place of honor. He spoke first, as my primary feeder. It was hard to listen to him, and not just because my ears were ringing with death. His voice seemed older, as if his months of dancing had made him grow up, but not in the normal way. The memories he had of me seemed both childishly idyllic and humorously callow. He detailed how he had come into my service, how he had brought me food and guarded me in the caverns during my fever. He spoke of how we had fished together and how I had shared food with him. He spoke of how much warmth I gave off when he slept against my back, but also of the foul stench of my breaking wind at night, something he’d never made me aware of.
Olikea was the next to speak. Perhaps she had taken time to organize her thoughts on my pathetically slow journey to this place. She had put all her memories and images of me in chronological order. For the first time, I heard of how she had watched me, from the very first day of my arrival at the graveyard. She spoke of how she had educated me in the foods that would feed my magic, and took great pride in speaking of how she had taught me the ways in which a Great One should make love. She regretted she had never been able to catch a child from me. As I listened to her words, I thought that we had shared a child. Then I was suddenly aware of Lisana. She crept through our shared roots to reach me, her flowing thoughts finally touching mine with no barriers. She eyed Olikea, and perhaps there was a touch of jealousy in her words.
“I was never able to bear a child either. She has my sympathy. But sometimes I think, ‘You have one son. Why are you so greedy?’”
“I’m glad she has her son again. I hope she will keep him.”
“She will.” Lisana was slowly coming closer to me. Now I could see her. She appeared to me as a young woman, plump and healthy. She walked barefoot along the mossy trunk of her fallen tree, balancing carefully as she approached me. She was smiling, but the curve of her lips was the least of it. Her joy made her glow. She moved toward me so diffidently, her words so casual. I understood her attitude. We were moving toward a crescendo of joy. No words, no greeting could describe it. Even to try to do so would mar it. I tried to open my arms to her, but could not move. Oh, yes. They had bound me to the tree.
“Soon,” she said comfortingly. “Soon.” Almost unwillingly she added, “There will be some pain. But fix your mind on the thought that, no matter how bad it is, it does not last. But we will. Our trees are young. And I can feel the magic, flowing l
ike a wild river, no longer dammed.”
“I did it, then?”
I could hear the voices of others, speaking of me, of what they had known of me. Olikea’s voice was gone; it was Kinrove who chanted now. I paid little attention to his words. I cared for nothing they might say, while Lisana, she who knew me best, stood before me, waiting. I felt a shiver up my back when I thought of the pain to come and then reined my thoughts away from it. Anticipating pain was like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead?
Lisana’s smile widened. “Could not you tell that you’d done it? I could feel it, even at this distance. I think all of us who have served the magic knew; it was like a fresh wind blowing in the evening after a long hot day. Change is coming.”
“Then you are safe. And all will be well.”
Her smile became more tenuous. “It is to be hoped. And in the meanwhile, we shall have what we shall have.”
A second chill down my spine. “To be hoped?”
“It is as you have seen. Magic is not a single event, a snap of the fingers. It is not a matter of ‘do this and that will always happen.’ It is a cascade of actions, teetering on coincidences and luck, rattling to a conclusion that always astonishes us all. Yet there is a linked chain that goes back. When one follows it, if one is cynical, one says, ‘Oh, that was not magic at all, but merely happenstance.’” She smiled. “But to those who hold the magic, the truth is plain. Magic happens.”
“But you said, ‘to be hoped.’ Does that mean it isn’t certain?” The tingle down my spine became an itch and then something even more unpleasant. Don’t think about it. Don’t imagine the tiny rootlets growing suddenly against the sweaty skin of my back. Don’t imagine them spreading, probing, seeking for the easiest place to penetrate. A scratch, a bruise. It wasn’t an itch anymore. It stung. It would pass, it would end, soon, but I suddenly feared that this was only the beginning.
