Fools Errand, Page 52

  It is necessary. I regret it, but it must be, for Lord Golden has come too far into our territory. He has seen the faces of our folk, and ridden our paths. He has to die.

  Can you not let him go? He is sympathetic to our cause. Shown our strength, he might simply go back to the Queen and say he had never found Where is your loyalty? How can you trust him so quickly? Have you forgotten how many of our own folk have been killed by the Farseer reign? Or do you wish to see me and all our people die?

  This question was like the snap of a whip and it pained me to feel Dutiful cower before it. My heart is with you, my love, with you, he assured her.

  Good. That's good. Then trust only me, and let me do what I must do. There is no need for you to dwell on it. You need not feel responsible for what people bring down upon themselves. It is none of your doing. You tried to leave quietly. They are the ones who pursued you and attacked us. Put it from your mind.

  Then she wrapped him in love, in a surging wave of warm affection that overpowered any thought of his own that he might have. But she seemed to be only at the edges of that flow. It was catlove, the fierce clawsandteeth love of a feline. The emotion drenched me and, despite my wariness, I near succumbed to it myself. I felt the Prince accept that she would do what she must do. She only did it so that they could be together. Was any price too high to pay for that?

  She's dead.

  The wolf's thought was like a voice in the room of a sleeping man. For a moment, I incorporated it into my dreams. Then the sense of it struck me like a punch to the belly. Of course. She's dead. She rides the cat.

  And in that foolish moment of my sharing with the wolf, she was aware of me.

  What is this? Her fear and outrage were nothing compared to her utter shock. She had never experienced anything like this. It was outside her magic completely, and in the rawness of her astonishment, she betrayed much ofher self.

  I wrenched free of all contact before she could know any more than that someone had been there, watching her, just as I felt her make surer her grip upon him. It reminded me of a great cat seizing a mouse in her jaws and paralyzing it with a bite. I got that same sense of both possession and devouring. For one clear moment, I hoped that the Prince perceived her as clearly as I did. He was a toy for her, a possession and a tool. She felt no love for him.

  But the cat does, Nighteyes pointed out to me. And in that twisting disparity, I came back to myself. It reminded me of my jolting leap from the tree. Slammed back into my own flesh, I sat up, gasping for air and space. Beside me, the Prince remained inert, but Nighteyes was instantly with me, thrusting his great head under my arm. Are you all right, little brother? Did she hurt you?

  I tried to answer, but instead rocked forward, moaning as a Skillheadache exploded in my skull. I was literally blinded, isolated in a black night riven by lightning bolts of blazing white across my vision. I blinked, then knuckled my eyes, trying to make the glaring light go away. It burst into colors that sickened me. I hunched my shoulders and curled up against the pain.

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  A moment later, I felt a cold cloth laid across the back of my neck. I sensed the Fool beside me, blessedly silent. I swallowed and drew several deep breaths and then spoke into my hands. “They're coming. The Piebalds we fought today, and others. They know where we are from the Prince. He's like a beacon fire. We can't hide, and they're too many for us to fight and survive. Running is our only chance. We can't wait for moonrise. Nighteyes will lead us,”

  The Fool spoke very softly as if he guessed at my pain. “Shall I wake the Prince?”

  “Don't bother trying. He's far and deep, and I don't think she'll let him come back to his body right now. We'll have to take him as a dead weight. Saddle the horses, will you?”

  “I will. Fitz, can you ride as you are?”

  I opened my eyes. Floating jags of light still divided my vision, but now I could see the darkened meadow beyond them. I forced a smile to my face. “I'll have to ride, just as my wolf will have to run. And you may have to fight. Not what any of us would choose, but there it is. Nighteyes. Go now. Choose a path for us, and get as far ahead of us as you can. I don't know from which direction the other attackers are coming. Spy ahead for us. ”

  You think to send me out of harm's way. The thought was almost reproachful.

  I would if I could, my brother, but the truth is that I may be sending you directly into danger. Scout for us. Go now.

  He rose stiffly and stretched. He gave himself a shake, and then set out, not at a lope, but at his distancedevouring trot. Almost immediately, he became invisible to me, the gray wolf gone into the gray meadow. Go carefully, my heart, I wished after him, but softly, softly, lest he know how much I feared for him.

  I rose, moving very carefully, as if my head were an overfull glass. I did not actually believe my brains would spill out of the top of my skull if I were careless, but I almost hoped it. I took the Fool's wet handkerchief off the back of my neck and held it to my brow and eyes for a time. When I looked down on the Prince, he hadn't moved. If anything, his body was curled more tightly. I heard the Fool come up behind me leading the horses and I turned cautiously to look at him.

  “Can you explain?” he asked softly, and I realized how little he knew. It was all the more amazing that he so unquestioningly acted on my requests.

  I drew a breath. “He's using the Skill and the Wit. And he hasn't been trained in either, so he's vulnerable, very vulnerable. He's too young to understand just how much at risk he is. Right now, his consciousness rides with the cat. For all intents, he is the cat. ”

  “But he will awaken and come back to his body?”

  I shrugged. “I don't know. I hope so. Fool, there is more. There is someone else joined to the cat. I, that is, we, Nighteyes and I, suspect that she is the cat's former owner. ”

  “Former? I thought Witted ones bonded to their animals for life?”

  “They do. She would be dead now. But her consciousness is within the cat, using the cat. ” “But I thought the Prince ”

  “Yes. The Prince is there, too. I do not think he realizes that this woman he loves does not exist as a woman anymore. I know he has no concept of how much power she has over him. And over the cat. ” “What can we do?”

  The throbbing in my head was making me sick to my stomach. I spoke more harshly than I intended. “Forcibly separate the boy from the cat. Kill the cat, and hope the boy doesn't die. ”

  “Oh, Fitz!” He was appalled. I didn't have time to care.

  “Saddle just two of the horses, Malta and Myblack. I'll put the boy in front of me. And then we have to ride. ”

  I did nothing while the Fool prepared the horses. I didn't pack up anything, for I didn't intend to take anything with us. Instead I just sat still and tried to persuade my head to ease. It was made the more difficult in that I was still Skilltwined with the boy. I felt more his absence than his presence. I sensed that there was pressure upon him, but it was a Witpushing. I could not decide if she reached trying to know more of me, or if she reached trying to possess - , the boy's body. I did not wish to respond to it; they already knew enough of me from that earlier glancing touch. So I sat, head in hands, and looked at Kettricken's son. As Verity had taught me so long ago, I carefully set my Skillwalls. This time, I set them to include the boy at my feet. I did not consider what I was trying to hold out. Instead, I focused on keeping open the space that was his mind, reserving it for him to return to.

  “Ready,” the Fool said quietly, and I stood up again. mounted Myblack, who was amazingly steady under me as the Fool hoisted the boy up into my arms. As always, the strength of the slender man surprised me. I arranged the Prince before me so that I had one arm to hold on to him, and one hand for the reins. It would have to do. In an instant, the Fool was mounted on Malta beside me. “Which way?” he asked.

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  Nighteyes? I ke
pt the questing as small and secret as I could. They might sense our Wit, but I doubted they could use that to follow us.

  My brother. His reply was as discreet. I nudged Myblack and we moved off. I could not have told anyone where Nighteyes was, but I knew that I moved toward him. The Prince was a swaying weight in my arms. It was already uncomfortable. Giving in to my frustration with my pain and his dead weight, I gave him a rough shake. He made a faint sound of protest, but it might have been just air moving out of his lungs. For a time we traveled through forest, ducking swoops of branches and pressing through tangles of underbrush. The Prince's horse, stripped of harness, followed us. We did not go swiftly. The footing was treacherous for the weary horses and the trees dense. I followed the wolf's elusive presence down into a ravine. The horses clattered along through a rushing stream over slippery wet rocks. The ravine became a vale, then spread wide and we rode under moonlight through a meadow. Startled deer bounded away from us. Into the forest again, our hooves thudded on deep layers of packed ancient leaves. Then we came to a steep place I did not recognize, but when we completed our scrabbling mount of that hill, the night spilled us out onto the road. The wolf's route had cut the rough country and put us back on the same road we had traveled that morning. I pulled in Myblack and let her breathe. Ahead of us, on the next rise, the stingy light of the quartermoon showed me the silhouette of a wolf waiting for us to appear. As soon as he saw us, he turned, and trotted down the next hill and out of sight. AH is clear. Come swiftly.

  “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 midmorning, 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. ”

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  “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 jstÊ

  had suddenly appeared. I made them five at a quick count. Two hounds, Witbeasts both, ran alongside them. I swiveled in rny 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 companionsfollowed.

  “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 wideeyed.

  “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 -av, 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 womancat 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 mome
nt 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. 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 Foolin with me. Our Skilllink 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.

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  “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, that 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. ”