by Robin Hobb
“You shall be a coterie, those of you who prove yourselves. Such a coterie as has never been before, I would think. At the height of Springfest, I myself will present you to your king, and he shall see the wonder of what I have wrought. As you have come this far with me, you know I will not be shamed before him. So I myself will test you, and test you to your limits, to be sure that the weapon I place in my king’s hand holds an edge worthy of its purpose. One day from now, I will scatter you, like seeds in the wind, across the kingdom. I have arranged that you will be taken hence, by swift horse, to your destinations. And there each of you will be left, alone. Not one of you will know where any of the others are.” He paused, I think to let each of us feel the tension thrumming through the room. I knew that all the others vibrated in tune, sharing a common emotion, almost a common mind as they received their instruction. I suspected they heard far more than the simple words from Galen’s lips. I felt a foreigner there, listening to words in a language whose idiom I could not grasp. I would fail.
“Within two days of being left, you will be summoned. By me. You will be directed who to contact, and where. Each of you will receive the information you need to make your way back here. If you have learned, and learned well, my coterie will be here and present on Springseve, ready to be presented to the King.” Again the pause. “Do not think, however, that all you must do is find your way back to Buckkeep by Springseve. You are to be a coterie, not homing pigeons. How you come and in what company will prove to me that you have mastered your Skill. Be ready to leave by tomorrow morning.”
And then he released us, one by one, again with a touch for each, and a word of praise for each, save me. I stood before him, as open as I could make myself, as vulnerable as I dared to be, and yet the brush of the Skill against my mind was less than the touch of the wind. He stared down at me as I looked up at him, and I did not need the Skill to feel that he both loathed and despised me. He made a noise of contempt and looked aside, releasing me. I started to go.
“Far better,” he said in that cavernous voice of his, “if you had gone over the wall that night, bastard. Far better. Burrich thought I abused you. I was only offering you a way out, as close to an honorable way as you were capable of finding. Go away and die, boy, or at least go away. You shame your father’s name by existing. By Eda, I do not know how you came to exist. That a man such as your father could fall to such depth as lying with something and letting you become is beyond my mind to imagine.”
As always, there was that note of fanaticism in his voice as he spoke of Chivalry, and his eyes became almost blank with blind idolatry for him. Almost absentmindedly, he turned away and walked off. He reached the top of the stairs, and then turned, very slowly. “I must ask,” he said, and the venom in his voice was hungry with hatred. “Are you his catamite, that he lets you suck strength from him? Is that why he is so possessive of you?”
“Catamite?” I repeated, not knowing the word.
He smiled. It made his cadaverous face even more skull-like. “Did you think I hadn’t discovered him? Did you think you’d be free to draw on his strength for this test? You won’t. Be assured, bastard, you won’t.”
He turned and went down the steps, leaving me standing there alone on the rooftop. I had no idea what his final words meant; but the strength of his hatred had left me sickened and weak as if it were a poison he’d put in my blood. I was reminded of the last time all had left me on the tower roof. I felt compelled to walk to the edge of the tower and look down. This corner of the keep did not face the sea, but there were still jagged rocks aplenty at the foot of it. No one would survive that fall. If I could make a decision whose firmness lasted for one second, then I could put myself out of it all. And what Burrich or Chade or anyone else might think of it would not be able to trouble me.
A distant echo of a whimper.
“I’m coming, Smithy,” I muttered, and turned away from the edge.
Chapter
17
The Trial
The man ceremony is supposed to take place within the moon of a boy’s fourteenth birthday. Not all are honored with it. It requires a Man to sponsor and name the candidate, and He must find a dozen other Men who concede the boy is worthy and ready. Living among the men-at-arms, I knew of the ceremony, and knew enough of its gravity and selectivity that I never expected to participate in it. For one thing, no one knew my birth date. For another, I had no knowledge of who was a Man, let alone if twelve Men existed who would find me worthy.
But on a certain night, months after I had endured Galen’s test, I awoke to find my bed surrounded by robed and hooded figures. Within the dark hoods I glimpsed the masks of the Pillars.
No one may speak or write of the ceremony details. This, I think, I may say. As each life was put into my hands, fish, bird, and beast, I chose to release it, not to death but back to its own free existence. So nothing died at my ceremony, and hence no one feasted. But even in my state of mind at that time, I felt there had been enough blood and death around me to last a lifetime, and I refused to kill with hands or teeth. My Man still chose to give me a name, so He could not have been totally displeased. The name is in the old tongue, which has no letters and cannot be written. Nor have I ever found any with whom I chose to share the knowledge of my Man name. But its ancient meaning, I think, I can divulge here. Catalyst. The Changer.
* * *
I went straight to the stables, to Smithy and then to Sooty. The distress I felt at the thought of the morrow went from mental to physical, and I stood in Sooty’s stall, my head leaned against her withers, and felt queasy. Burrich found me there. I recognized his presence and the steady cadence of his boots as he came down the stable walkway, and then he halted abruptly outside Sooty’s stall. I felt him looking in at me.
“Well. Now what?” he demanded harshly, and I heard in his voice how weary he was of both me and my problems. Had I been any less miserable, my pride would have made me draw myself up and declare nothing was wrong.
Instead, I muttered into Sooty’s coat, “Tomorrow Galen plans to test us.”
“I know. He’s demanded quite abruptly that I furnish him horses for this idiotic scheme. I would have refused, had he not a wax signet from the King giving him authority. And no more do I know than that he wants the horses, so don’t ask it,” he added gruffly as I looked up suddenly at him.
“I wouldn’t,” I told him sullenly. I would prove myself fairly to Galen, or not at all.
“You’ve no chance of passing this trial he’s designed, do you?” Burrich’s tone was casual, but I could hear how he braced himself to be disappointed by my answer.
“None,” I said flatly, and we were both silent a moment, listening to the finality of that word.
“Well.” He cleared his throat and gave his belt a hitch. “Then you’d best get it over with and get back here, then. It’s not like you haven’t had good luck with your other schooling. A man can’t expect to succeed at everything he tries.” He attempted to make my failure at the Skill sound as if it were of no consequence.
“I suppose not. Will you take care of Smithy for me while I’m gone?”
“I will.” He started to turn away, then turned back, almost reluctantly. “How much is that dog going to miss you?”
I heard his other question, but tried to avoid it. “I don’t know. I’ve had to leave him so much during these lessons, I’m afraid he won’t miss me at all.”
“I doubt that,” Burrich said ponderously. He turned away. “I doubt that a very great deal,” he said as he walked off between the rows of stalls. And I knew that he knew, and was disgusted, not just that Smithy and I shared a bond, but that I refused to admit it.
“As if admitting it were an option, with him,” I muttered to Sooty. I bade my animals farewell, trying to convey to Smithy that several meals and nights would pass before he saw me again. He wriggled and fawned and prote
sted that I must take him, that I would need him. He was too big to pick up and hug anymore. I sat down and he came into my lap and I held him. He was so warm and solid, so near and real. For a moment I felt how right he was, that I would need him to be able to survive this failure. But I reminded myself that he would be here, waiting for me when I returned, and I promised him several days of my time for his sole benefit when I returned. I would take him on a long hunt, such as we had never had time for before. Now, he suggested, and soon, I promised. Then I went back up to the keep to pack a change of clothes and some traveling food.
The next morning had much of pomp and drama to it and very little sense, to my way of thinking. The others to be tested seemed elated. Of the eight of us that were setting out, I was the only one who seemed unimpressed by the restless horses and the eight covered litters. Galen lined us up and blindfolded us as threescore or more of people looked on. Most of them were related to the students, or friends, or the keep gossips. Galen made a brief speech, ostensibly to us, but telling us what we already knew: that we were to be taken to different locations and left; that we must cooperate, using the Skill, in order to make our ways back to the keep; that if we succeeded, we would become a coterie and serve our king magnificently and be essential to defeating the Red-Ship Raiders. The last bit impressed our onlookers, for I heard muttering tongues as I was escorted to my litter and assisted inside.
There passed a miserable day and a half for me. The litter swayed, and with no fresh air on my face or scenery to distract me, I soon felt queasy from it. The man guiding the horses had been sworn to silence and kept his word. We paused briefly that night. I was given a meager meal, bread and cheese and water, and then I was reloaded and the jolting and swaying resumed.
At about midday of the following day, the litter halted. Once more I was assisted in dismounting. Not a word was said, and I stood, stiff and headachy and blindfolded in a strong wind. When I heard the horses leaving, I decided I had reached my destination and reached up to untie my blindfold. Galen had knotted it tightly and it took me a moment to get it off.
I stood on a grassy hillside. My escort was well on his way to a road that wound past the base of the hill, moving swiftly. The grass was tall around my knees, sere from winter, but green at the base. I could see other grassy hills with rocks poking out of their sides, and strips of woodland sheltering at their feet. I shrugged and turned to get my bearings. It was hilly country, but I could scent the sea and a low tide to the east somewhere. I had a nagging sense that the countryside was familiar; not that I had been to this particular spot before, but that the lay of the terrain was familiar somehow. I turned, and to the west saw the Sentinel. There was no mistaking the double jag of its peak. I had copied over for Fedwren a map less than a year ago, and the creator had chosen the Sentinel’s distinctive peak as a motif for the decorative border. So. The sea over there, the Sentinel there, and with a suddenly dipping stomach, I knew where I was. Not too far from Forge.
I found myself quickly turning in a circle, to survey the surrounding hillside and woodlands and road. No signs of anyone. I quested out, almost frantically, but found only birds and small game and one buck, who lifted his head and snuffed, wondering what I was. For a moment I felt reassured, until I remembered that the Forged ones I had encountered before had been undetected by that sense.
I moved down the hill to where several boulders jutted out from its side and sat in their shelter. It was not that the wind was cold, for the day promised spring soon. It was to have something firmly against my back, and to feel that I was not such an outstanding target as I had been atop the hill. I tried to think coolly what to do next. Galen had suggested to us that we should stay quietly where we were deposited, meditating and remaining open in our senses. Sometime in the next two days, he should try to contact me.
Nothing takes the heart out of a man more than the expectation of failure. I had no belief he would really try to contact me, let alone that I would receive any clear impressions if he did. Nor did I have faith that the drop-off he had chosen for me was a safe location. Without much more thought than that, I rose, again surveyed the area for anyone watching me, then struck out toward the sea smell. If I were where I supposed myself to be, from the shore I should be able to see Antler Island and, on a clear day, possibly Scrim Isle. Even one of those would be enough to tell me how far from Forge I was.
As I hiked I told myself I only wanted to see how long a walk I would have back to Buckkeep. Only a fool would imagine that the Forged ones still represented any danger. Surely winter had put an end to them, or left them too starved and weakened to be a menace to anyone. I gave no credence to the tales of them banding together as cutthroats and thieves. I wasn’t afraid. I merely wanted to see where I was. If Galen truly wanted to contact me, location should be no barrier. He had assured us innumerable times that it was the person he reached for, not the place. He could find me as well on the beach as he could on the hilltop.
By late afternoon, I stood atop rocky cliffs, looking out to sea. Antler Island, and a haze that would be Scrim beyond it. I was north of Forge. The coast road home would go right through the ruins of that town. It was not a comforting thought.
So now what?
By evening, I was back on my hilltop, scrunched down between two of the boulders. I had decided it was as good a place to wait as any. Despite my doubts, I would stay where I had been left until the contact time was up. I ate bread and salt fish and drank sparingly of my water. My change of clothes included an extra cloak. I wrapped myself in this and sternly rejected all thoughts of making a fire. However small, it would have been a beacon to anyone on the dirt road that passed the hill.
I don’t think there is anything more cruelly tedious than unremitting nervousness. I tried to meditate, to open myself up to Galen’s Skill, all the while shivering with cold and refusing to admit that I was scared. The child in me kept imagining dark ragged figures creeping soundlessly up the hillside around me, Forged folk who would beat and kill me for the cloak I wore and the food in my bag. I had cut myself a stick as I made my way back to my hillside, and I gripped it in both hands, but it seemed a poor weapon. Sometimes I dozed despite my fears, but my dreams were always of Galen gloating over my failure as Forged ones closed in on me, and I always woke with a start, to peer wildly about to see if my nightmares were true.
I watched the sunrise through the trees and then dozed fitfully through morning. Afternoon brought me a weary sort of peace. I amused myself by questing out toward the wildlife on the hillside. Mice and songbirds were little more than bright sparks of hunger in my mind, and rabbits little more, but a fox was full of lust to find a mate and farther off a buck battered the velvet off his antlers as purposefully as any smith at his anvil. Evening was very long. It was surprising, just how hard it was for me to accept, as night fell, that I had felt nothing, not the slightest pressure of the Skill. Either he hadn’t called or I hadn’t heard him. I ate bread and fish in the dark and told myself it didn’t matter. For a time I tried to bolster myself with anger, but my despair was too clammy and dark a thing for anger’s flames to overcome. I felt sure Galen had cheated me, but I would never be able to prove it, not even to myself. I would always have to wonder if his contempt for me had been justified. In full darkness, I settled my back against a rock, my stick across my knees, and resolved to sleep.
My dreams were muddled and sour. Regal stood over me, and I was a child sleeping in straw again. He laughed and held a knife. Verity shrugged, and smiled apologetically at me. Chade turned aside from me, disappointed. Molly smiled at Jade, past me, forgetting I was there. Burrich held me by the shirtfront and shook me, telling me to behave like a man, not a beast. But I lay down on straw and an old shirt, chewing at a bone. The meat was very good, and I could think of nothing else.
I was very comfortable until someone opened a stable door and left it ajar. A nasty little wind came creeping across t
he stable floor to chill me, and I looked up with a growl. I smelled Burrich and ale. Burrich came slowly through the dark, with a muttered, “It’s all right, Smithy,” as he passed me. I put my head down as he began to climb his stairs.
Suddenly there was a shout and men falling down the stairs. They struggled as they fell. I leaped to my feet, snarling and barking. They landed half atop me. A boot kicked at me, and I seized the leg above it in my teeth and clamped my jaws. I caught more boot and pant than flesh, but he hissed in anger and pain, and struck at me.
A knife went into my side.
I set my teeth harder and held on, snarling around my mouthful. Other dogs had awakened and were barking, the horses were stamping in their stalls. Boy, boy, I called for help. I felt him with me, but he didn’t come. The intruder kicked me, but I wouldn’t let go. Burrich lay in the straw and I smelled his blood. He did not move. I snarled around the mouthful. I heard old Vixen flinging herself against the door upstairs, trying vainly to get to her master. Again and then again the knife plunged into me. I cried out to my boy a last time, and then I could no longer hold on. I was flung off the kicking leg, to strike the side of a stall. I was drowning, blood in my mouth and nostrils. Running feet. Pain in the dark. I hitched closer to Burrich. I pushed my nose under his hand. He did not move. Voices and light coming, coming, coming…
I awoke on a dark hillside, gripping my stick so tightly my hands were numb. Not for a moment did I think it a dream. I couldn’t stop feeling the knife between my ribs and tasting the blood in my mouth. Like the refrain of a ghastly song, the memories came again and again, the draft of cold air, the knife, the boot, the taste of my enemy’s blood in my mouth, and the taste of my own. I struggled to make sense of what Smithy had seen. Someone had been at the top of Burrich’s stairs, waiting for him. Someone with a knife. And Burrich had fallen, and Smithy had smelled blood….
