by Robin Hobb
"Now we ride," I warned the Fool in a low voice. I leaned forward, spoke a word to Myblack as my knees urged her on. When she was sluggish to respond, I suggested with my predator's Wit, Pursuit is just behind us. They come swiftly.
Her ears flicked back once. I think she was a bit skeptical, but she gathered herself. As Malta threatened to pass us, I felt her powerful muscles bunch and then she stretched under me and we galloped. Encumbered by our double weight and weary from her day's work, she ran heavily. Malta gamely kept the pace, her presence pushing Myblack on. The Prince's horse was left behind. The wolf ran before us, and I fastened my eyes to him as to my final hope. It seemed he had somehow discarded his years; he ran like a yearling, bounding ahead of us.
To our left, the horizon appeared as dawn began its timid creep toward day. I welcomed the light that made our footing surer even as I cursed how it would reveal us to our enemies. We pressed on, varying our pace as the morning grew stronger, trying to ration our mounts' endurance. The last two days had been hard on both horses. To run them to dropping would not help our situation.
"When will it be safe to stop?" the Fool asked me during a period when we had slowed to let the horses breathe.
"When we reach Buckkeep Castle. Perhaps." I did not add that the Prince would not be safe until I had turned back and killed the cat. We had only his body in our keeping. The Piebalds still had his soul.
At mid-morning, we passed the tree where their archer had ambushed us. It made me realize how much I was trusting the wolf to choose our path. He had decided this way was safe and I was following him unquestioningly.
Are we not pack? Of course you must follow your leader. The tease in his thought could not quite mask his weariness.
We were all tired; men, wolf, and horses. A sustained trot was the best I could wring from Myblack now. Dutiful was a lolling weight in my arms as we jolted along. The pain in my back and shoulders from supporting his weight vied with the dull throbbing in my head. The Fool still sat his horse well but made no attempt at conversation of any kind. He had offered once to take the Prince on Malta with him, but I had declined. It was not that I thought that he or his horse lacked the strength. I could not define exactly why I felt I must keep possession of Dutiful's body. I worried that he had been so long insensible. Somewhere, I knew his mind worked, that he saw with the cat's eyes, felt with the cat's body. Sooner or later, he would realize—"
The Prince stirred in my arms. I kept silent. It took him some little while to come back to himself. As he regained his senses, he twitched unpleasantly in my arms, reminding me of my own seizures. Then he sat up with a sudden hoarse gasp of breath. Breath after breath he took, as he turned his head wildly from side to side, trying to make sense of his situation. I heard him swallow. In a dry and cracked voice he asked, "Where are we?"
Useless to lie. Above us on the hill, Laurel's mysterious standing stones cast their shadows. He would surely recognize them. I didn't bother to answer him at all. Lord Golden rode closer to us.
"My Prince, are you well? You have been long unconscious."
"I am well. Where are you taking me?"
They come!
In a breath, our situation had changed. I saw the wolf fleeing back toward us. On the road behind him, horsemen had suddenly appeared. I made them five at a quick count. Two hounds, Wit-beasts both, ran alongside them. I swiveled in my saddle. Two rises back, other riders were cresting a hill. I saw one lift an arm, waving a triumphant greeting to the other group of riders.
"They've caught us," I said calmly to the Fool.
He looked ill.
"Up the hill. We'll put one of those barrows at our back." I reined Myblack from the road, and my companions followed.
"Let me go!" my Prince commanded me. He struggled in my arms, but his long insensibility had left him weak. It was not easy to keep my grip on him, but we had not far to go. As we came abreast of the barrow and the adjacent standing stone, I reined in Myblack. My dismount was not graceful, but I pulled the Prince down with me. Myblack stepped wearily away from us, and then turned to give me a look of rebuke. In an instant the Fool was beside us. I sidestepped Dutiful's swing at me, caught his wrist and stepped behind him with it. I caught his other shoulder and held him firmly, one arm twisted high behind his back. I was no rougher than I had to be, but he did not give in easily. "Breaking your arm or dislocating your shoulder wouldn't kill you," I pointed out to him harshly. "But it would keep you from being a nuisance for a time."
He subsided, grunting with pain. The wolf was a gray streak pouring himself up the hill toward us. "Now what?" the Fool asked me as he stared around us wide-eyed.
"Now we make a stand," I said. The riders below us were already spreading wide. The barrow at our backs would be a poor barrier against attack from behind, blinding us as much as it shielded us. The wolf stood with us, panting.
"You'll die here," the Prince pointed out through gritted teeth. I still held him quite firmly.
"That seems very likely," I conceded.
"You'll die, and I'll go with them." His voice was strained with pain. "So why be stupid? Release me now. I'll go to them. You can run. I promise I'll ask them to let you go."
My eyes met the Fool's over the boy's head. I knew what my answer to that would be, but then I knew what I'd be sending the Prince to face. It might buy us an opportunity to come after him again, but I doubted it. The woman-cat would see to it that they hunted us down and killed us. Death standing and waiting, or death after flight? I didn't want to choose how my friends would die. I'm too tired to flee. I'm dying here. The Fool's eyes wavered to Nighteyes. I do not know if he grasped that flicker of thought, or if he simply saw the wolf's weariness. "Stand and fight," he said faintly.
He drew his sword from its sheath. I knew he had never fought in his life. As he lifted his blade, he looked very uncertain. Then he took a breath, and set his face in the lines of Lord Golden's expression. He squared his shoulders and an expression of cold competence came into his eyes.
He can't fight. Don't be stupid.
The riders were closing in. They walked their horses up the hill toward us, unhurried, letting us watch our deaths come.
You have an alternative?
"You can't hold me and fight!" Dutiful's voice was elated. He obviously believed that they had already won. "The moment you let go, I'll run. You'll die for nothing! Let me go now, let me talk to them. Maybe I can bargain for your life."
Do not let her have him. Kill him before you let them take him.
I felt a great coward, but shared the thought anyway. I do not know if I can do that.
You must. We both know what they intend. If you cannot kill him then… then take him into the pillar. The boy can Skill, and you were linked with the Scentless One once. It may be enough. Go into the pillar. Take them with you.
The riders below conferred with one another briefly, then fanned out to flank us as they came. As the woman had promised, they would take no chances. They were grinning and shouting to one another. Like the Prince, they believed they had us trapped.
It won't work. Don't you remember what it was like? It took all my strength to hold you together in that passage, and we were tightly linked. I might be able to hold the boy together through the journey, or you, but not both of you. I do not know if I could even pull the Fool in with me. Our Skill-link is old and thin. I might lose you all.
You don't have to choose. I cannot go with you. I'm too tired, my brother. But I will stay here and hold them back for as long as I can, while you escape.
"No," I groaned, even as the Fool suddenly said, "The pillar. You said the boy was Skilling. Could not you?"
"No!" I cried out. "I will not leave Nighteyes to die alone! How can you suggest it?"
"Alone?" The Fool looked puzzled. A very odd smile twisted his mouth. "But he will not be alone. I will be here with him. And" he drew himself up, squaring his shoulders "I will die before I allow them to kill him."
Ah, t
hat would be so much better. Every hackle on Nighteyes' body was standing as he watched the advancing line of men and horses, but his eyes glinted merriment at me.
"Send the lad down to us!" a tall man shouted. We ignored him.
"Do you think that makes it better for me?" I demanded of the Fool. They were mad, both of them. "I might be able to go through the pillar. I might even be able to drag the boy through, though I wonder if his mind would come through intact. But I doubt that I can take you with me, Fool. And Nighteyes refuses to go."
"Go where?" Dutiful demanded. He tried to shake off my grip and I twisted his arm tighter. He subsided.
"For the last time, will you yield?" the tall horseman shouted up at us.
"I seek to reason with him!" Lord Golden called back. "Give me time, man!" He put a note of panic in his voice.
"My friend." The Fool set his hand on my shoulder. He pushed me softly, backward toward the stone. I gave ground and took Dutiful with me. The Fool's eyes never left mine. He spoke softly and carefully, as if we were alone and had all the time in the world. "I know I can't go with you. It grieves me that the wolf will not. But I still tell you that you must go and take the boy. Don't you understand? This is what you were born for, why you have stayed alive despite all the odds against you all these years. Why I have forced you to stay alive, despite all that was done to you. There must be a Farseer heir. If you keep him alive and restore him to Buckkeep, that is all that matters. We keep the future on the path I have set for it, even if it must go on without me. But if we fail, if he dies…"
"What are you talking about?" the Prince demanded angrily.
The Fool's voice faded. He stared down the hill at the steadily advancing men, but his gaze seemed to go farther than that. My back was nearly touching the monolith. Dutiful was suddenly quiescent in my grip, as if spelled by the Fool's soft voice. "If we all die here," he said faintly. "Then… it ends. For us. But he is not the only change we have wrought… time must seek to flow as it always has, washing all obstacles away. So… fate finds her. In all times, fate battles against a Farseer surviving. Here and now, we guard Dutiful. But if we all fall, if Nettle becomes the lone focus of that battle…" He blinked his eyes a number of times, then he drew a ragged breath before he turned back to me. He seemed to be returning from a far journey. He spoke softly, breaking ill tidings to me gently. "I can find no future in which Nettle survives after the Prince has died." His face went sallow and his eyes were old as he admitted, "There are not even any swift, kind ends for her." He drew a deep breath. "If you care anything at all for me, do this thing. Take the boy. Keep him alive."
Every hair on my body stood up in horror. But, I choked, all the sacrifices I had made to keep her safe? All for nothing? My mind completed the picture. Burrich, Molly, and their sons would stand beside her, would fall with her. I could not get my breath. "Please go," the Fool begged me. I could not tell what the boy made of our talk. He was a weight I grasped, firmly immobilizing him as my mind raced furiously. I knew there was no escape from this maze fate had set us. The wolf formed my thought for me. If you stay, we all still die. If the boy does not die, the Witted take him, and use him to their own ends. Dying would be kinder. You cannot save us, but you can save the boy.
I cannot leave you here. We cannot end like this, you and I. Tears blinded me just when I needed to see most clearly.
We not only can, we must. The pack does not die if the cub survives. Be a wolf, my brother. Things are clearer so. Leave us to fight while you save the cub. Save Nettle, too. Live well, for both of us, and someday, tell Nettle tales of me.
And then there was no more time. "Too late now!" a man shouted up at us. The line of men and horses had curved to surround us. "Send us the lad, and we'll end you quick! If not—" And he laughed aloud.
Don't fear for us. I'll force them to kill us quickly. The Fool rolled his shoulders. He lifted his sword in a two-handed grip. He swung it once, experimentally, then held it aloft. "Go quickly, Beloved." Poised, he looked more a dancer than a warrior.
I could either draw my sword or keep a grip on the Prince. The standing stone was right behind me. I gave it one hasty glance over my shoulder. I could not identify the wind-eroded symbol carved in this face of it. Wherever it took me would have to be good enough. I did not recognize my voice as I demanded of the world, "How can the hardest thing I have ever done in my life also be the most cowardly?"
"What are you doing?" the boy demanded. He sensed something was about to happen, and though he could not have guessed what it was, he began to struggle wildly. "Help me!" he cried to the encircling Piebalds. "Free me now!", The thunder of charging horses was his answer.
Inspiration struck me. As I tightened my grip on the struggling boy, I spoke to the Fool. "I'll come back. I'll take him through and come back."
"Don't risk the Prince!" The Fool was horrified. "Stay with him and guard him. If you came back for us and were killed, he'd be alone in… wherever. Go! Now!" The last smile he gave me was his old Fool's smile, tremulous and yet mocking the world's ability to hurt him. There was a wildness in his golden eyes that was not fear of death, but acceptance of it. I could not bear to look at it. The closing circle of horsemen engulfed us. The Fool swung his sword and it cut a gleaming arc in the blue day. Then a Piebald charged between us, swinging his blade and yelling. I dragged the Prince back with me.
I caught a last glimpse of the Fool standing over the wolf, a sword in his hands. It was the first time I had ever seen him hold a weapon as if he actually intended to use it. I heard the clash of metal on metal and the wolf's rising snarl as he sprang for a horseman's leg.
The Prince yelled wildly, a wordless cry of fury that was more cat than human. A rider charged straight at us, blade lifted high. But the towering black stone was at my back. "I'll return!" I promised them. Then I tightened one arm around Dutiful, clasping him to my chest. I spoke right by his ear. "Hold tight to who you are!" It was the only warning I could give him. Then I twisted, and pressed my hand against the stone's graven symbol.
Chapter XXIII
The Beach
The Skill is infinitely large, and yet intimately small. It is as large as the world and the sky above it, and as small as a man's secret heart. The way the Skill flows means that one can ride it, or experience its passage, or encompass the whole of it within one's self. The same sense of immediacy pervades all.
This is why, to master the Skill, one must first master the self.
Hailf Re, Skillmaster to Queen Frugal
I had expected darkness and disorientation. I had expected the Skill pulling at me, and a struggle to hold the Prince and myself together. I forced myself to be aware of both of us, and to keep him intact. Holding on to him within my Skill-barriers was much like clutching a handful of salt in a deluge. There was the same sensation that if I relaxed my grip at all, he would trickle away from me. There was all that, and an illogical sensation that we fell upward. I clutched Dutiful to me, promising myself that it would soon be over. I was not prepared to fall from the pillar into icy seawater.
Saltwater flooded my mouth and nose as I gasped in shock. We tumbled together in the water. My shoulder struck something. Dutiful struggled wildly, and I nearly lost my grip on him. The water sucked at us, and then, just as I saw light through a layer of murky green and deduced which way was up, a wave gathered us and flung us against a rocky beach.
The impact broke my grip on the Prince. The wave rolled us on the rocky shore without letting us reach air. The mussel-and-barnacle-encrusted rocks tore at me. Then, as the wave retreated, my body snagged on the rocks, hooking my sword belt, and the water stranded me there. I lifted my head, choking and gagging out water and sand. I blinked, trying to see Dutiful, and spotted him still in the water. He was belly-down on the beach, scrabbling to catch hold of rocks as the outgoing wave sucked at him. He slid backward toward deeper water, then managed to find a grip and lay still, gasping. I found a breath.
"Get up!" I yelled.
It came out as a hoarse caw. "Before the next wave. Get up."
He looked at me without comprehension. I staggered upright and flung myself toward him. Catching the back of his collar, I dragged him over the shredding barnacles and up the rocky beach toward the higher shoreline. A wave still caught us and flung me to my knees, but the water was not powerful enough to drag us out again. The next time the wave went out, Dutiful managed to get to his feet. Holding on to one another, we staggered up past the toothy rocks and into a belt of black sand festooned with squelching strands of tangled kelp. When we reached the loose dry sand, I let go of Prince Dutiful. He took perhaps three more steps and then dropped to the ground. For a time he just lay on his side, breathing. Then he sat up, spat out sand, and wiped his nose on his wet sleeve. He looked all around us with no comprehension, and when his eyes came back to me, his expression was that of a confused child.
"What happened?"
The sand in my teeth gritted whenever I moved my mouth. I spat. "We came through a Skill-pillar." I spat again.
"A what?"
"A Skill-pillar," I repeated. I looked back to point it out to him.
There was nothing out there but ocean. Another wave rushed in, reaching higher up the beach. Scummy white foam laced the sand as the water retreated. I came awkwardly to my feet and stared out over the incoming tide. Just water. Moving waves. Crying gulls above the waves. No Skill-pillar of black stone broke that heaving green surface. There was not even a clue as to where it had deposited us out offshore.
