Fool's Quest (46 page)

“No.” The Fool forbade it before I could.

“Would you take me on as your servant, then?” Ash asked in the most wistful tone I had ever heard.

“I cannot,” the Fool said regretfully. “But I am sure Fitz would see you well placed before we go.”

“Go where?” Ash asked, echoing my own thoughts.

“Back to where I came from. On a dire mission of our own.” He looked blindly toward me. “I do not think we should wait, Fitz, for your Skill or my eyesight. A few more days, and I believe I shall be fit to travel. And we must set out as soon as we possibly can.”

“Did Ash read you the scrolls I left? Or Spark perhaps?” The girl grinned. But my foray did not distract the Fool.

“They were worthless, as you well know, Fitz. You don't need old scrolls or a map. You have me. Heal me. Restore my sight, and we can go. I can get you there, to Clerres. You took me through a stone to bring me here; we can get to Clerres the same way that Prilkop took me.”

I made myself pause and draw a deep breath. Patience. His heart was fixed on destroying Clerres. As was I, but both logic and love anchored me where I was and doomed me to the suffocation of waiting. I was not sure if rationality could move him, but I would try. “Fool. Do you not understand at all what has befallen Chade, and how it affects me? I dare not attempt to Skill, not to try to heal you nor to enter a stone alone. Taking you with me? No. Neither of us would ever emerge.”

He opened his mouth to speak and I raised my voice.

“Nor will I leave Buckkeep until my hope of finding Bee within the Six Duchies is exhausted. Those of the Wit search for her now. And there is a chance that Chade will recover enough to help us reach for Shun. Shall I race off to Clerres, a journey of months by ship, leaving Bee to her captors' whims for all those days, when word of her here in Buck or in Rippon may reach us any moment? I know you are impatient to go. Standing still and waiting for word feels like being slowly burned alive. But I will endure it rather than rush off and abandon her here. And when we do go to Clerres, when we take our vengeance to them, it had best be on a ship with troops. Or do you truly believe I can journey to a distant city, beat down their walls, kill those you hate, and emerge with my life and their captives intact?”

He smiled and it was frightening when he said softly, “Yes. Yes, I do believe we can. Moreover, I believe we must. Because I know that where an army would fail, an assassin and one who knows their ways will succeed.”

“So let me be an assassin! Fool, I have said that you and I will take our vengeance on them. And we will. My hatred for all they are burns just as hot as yours. But mine is not a raging forest fire, but a bed of tended coals in a smithy. If you wish me to do this as an assassin, then you must allow me to do it as I was trained to do it. Effectively. Efficiently. With ice in my blood.”

“But—”

“No. Listen. I've said their blood will run. It will. But not at Bee's expense. I will find her, I will take her home, and I will stay with her until she is recovered enough to be without me for a time. Bee must come first. So become accustomed to delay and use it wisely. Rebuild your body and your health, just as I spend my waiting days honing my old skills.”

The fire crackled. Ash stood silent as a sentry, breathing raggedly. His eyes darted from the Fool to me and back again.

“No,” the Fool said at last. He was adamant.

“Have you not heard a word I've said?” I demanded.

It was his turn to raise his voice. “I have heard them all. And some of what you say makes sense. We will wait, for a time, and though I think that wait will be fruitless, how sweet it would be for both of us if it were not. For all of us. I held her in my arms for but the briefest moments, but in that time, the connection was made. I do not know that I can describe it to you. I could see again. Not the sight of eyes, but my sight of what might be. All the possible futures and the most crucial turning points. And for the first time, I held in my arms someone who shared that with me. Someone to whom I could pass on all I had learned. Someone to come after me, a true White Prophet uncorrupted by the Servants.”

I said not a word. Guilt was choking me. I had broken that embrace, had torn Bee from his arms and punched my knife blade into his belly, over and over.

“But if tonight a message about her whereabouts reaches you, and if you recover Bee tomorrow, then we should leave the day after.”

“I will not abandon her again!”

“Of course not. Neither will I. She will be where she is safest. She goes with us.”

I gawked at him. “Are you insane?”

“Of course I am! As well you know! Torture does that to a man!” He laughed without humor. “Listen to me. If Bee is truly your daughter, if she has your fire at all, then she will
want
to go with us, to bring down that hive of cruelty.”

“If?” I sputtered in outrage.

A horrible smile lit his face. His voice sank. “And
if
she is my child, as I am certain she is, then when you find her you will discover that she already knows she
must
go there and aid us. She will have seen it on her path.”

“No. I don't care what she has ‘seen' or what you advise. I would never take my child into slaughter!”

His smile only grew wider. “You will not have to. She will take you.”

“You are mad! And I am past weariness.”

I walked away from him, to the far end of the room. This was as close to a real quarrel as we had come since the Fool had returned. He, of all people, should be able to understand my anguish. I did not want to be at odds with him right now. And I had so little faith left in myself or my judgment that when he questioned it, it felt like an attack.

I heard Ash's whisper to him. “You know he is right. First, you must rebuild your strength and endurance. I can help with that.”

I did not hear the Fool's muffled response. But I heard Ash say, “And I can help with that as well. When the time comes, all will be ready.”

I spoke when I knew I had control of my voice. No anger, no hurt rode my words. “Tell me of those who follow the woman. Not the mercenaries she hired, but the pale folk. They puzzle me. They are Whites or part-White. If the Servants treat the Whites so badly, why do they follow her and do her bidding? Why must we kill them? Surely they would welcome being free of her?”

He shook his head slowly. His voice was calm and informative. Did he wish to smooth things over as badly as I did? “Children believe what they are told. They are on ‘a path,' Fitz. They know nothing except obeying her. If they are not useful to her, then they are useless. And the useless are discarded. Euthanized when they are small, gently if they are fortunate. They will have seen some of their fellows given a night draught of poison. The ones who were intractable or did not manifest any talent become as slaves. Those who have a little talent are kept if they are obedient. Some come to believe everything they are told. They will be ruthless in following her orders. They will obey her even to giving up their lives. Or taking any life that opposes them. They are fanatics, Fitz. Show them any mercy and they will find a way to kill you.”

I pondered silently for a time. Ash had gone very still, and was listening as if he were absorbing every word. I cleared my throat. “So. There will be no hope of them rising against Dwalia. No hope of converting them to our cause.”

“If you find the ones who took her … not just the mercenaries they've hired. I mean the ones who made this plan. The luriks. Dwalia. They may seem kindly to you. Or young. Misguided. Or as if they were simply servants, obeying orders. Don't trust them. Don't believe them. Have no mercy, feel no pity. Every one of them dreams of rising to power. Every one of them has witnessed what the Servants have done to their fellows. And each has chosen to serve them rather than defy them. Every one of them is more treacherous than you can imagine.”

I fell silent. And they were the ones who held Bee captive? I could pit my new guard against them, or ask Dutiful for seasoned troops. But my fury went cold as I imagined Bee, small as she was, scuttling for shelter in the midst of such a melee. Trampling hooves, swinging blades. Would Dwalia and her luriks kill my child rather than allow us to win her back? I could not bring myself to phrase that question.

“They will never turn against Dwalia,” the Fool admitted reluctantly. “Even if you could engage them while they are within the Six Duchies, which I consider very unlikely, they will fight to the last death. They have been told so many tales of the outside world that they will fear capture much more than death.”

He fell silent for a time, pondering. Ash had put away his scissors and was sweeping up fallen hair. “So. Enough of badgering each other. We have agreed that we will go to Clerres. Let us set aside for now
when
we will go. And even how we will travel there. Let us lay what plans we may. Once we reach Clerres the school has its own fortifications we must win past. Even once we are inside, there is such a nest of evil spiders that it will take cleverness to root them all out. I think we must rely on stealth and cunning more than force of arms.”

“I am cunning,” Ash said quietly. “I think I might be of great use to you on such a mission.”

The Fool turned a speculative glance toward him, but “No,” I said firmly. “Despite all you have known in your short life, I do not take someone as young as you into a situation like that. We are not speaking of a knife in the dark, or a dose of poison in the soup. Dozens, the Fool has said. Perhaps scores. It's no place for a youngster.”

I dropped into a chair beside him at the table. “Fool, this is not a light undertaking you are asking of me. Even if I can accept that every one of the Servants must die, I still must wonder if I can do it. I am as rusty at assassination as I am at axework! I will do all I can. You know that. Those who have taken Bee and Shun, yes. They ended their lives when they came to my home. They must die, but not in a way that endangers my daughter or Shun. And those who hurt you. Yes. But beyond that? You are speaking of slaughter. I think you imagine my abilities to be far greater than they are.” My voice dropped as I had to add, “Especially my ability to deal death and not feel the cost. And when we reach Clerres? Do all of them truly merit death?”

I could not read the cascade of emotions that flickered over his face. Fear. Despair. Incredulity that I would doubt his judgment. But it ended with him shaking his head sorrowfully. “Fitz, do you think I would ask for this were there any other way? Perhaps you think I seek this purely for my own survival. Or vengeance. But it's not. For every one we must kill, there are ten, a dozen, twenty held there in an ignorant slavery. Those, possibly, we can free, to go about whatever lives they can build for themselves. Children bred to one another like cattle, cousin to cousin, sister to brother. The malformed children they create, the ones born with no sign of their White bloodlines, are destroyed as carelessly as you might pull a weed from a summer garden.” His voice shook and his hands trembled against the table. Ash reached toward him. I shook my head at him. I did not think the Fool wished to be touched just then.

His words halted. He clasped his hands together tightly, and I watched him try to find calmness. Motley left off grooming herself and hopped closer to him. “Fool? Fool?”

“I'm here, Motley,” he said as if she were his child. He extended his hand toward the sound of her voice. She hopped to his wrist and he did not flinch. She climbed up his sleeve, beak over claw, until she reached his shoulder. She began to preen his hair. I saw his clenched jaw relax. Still, his voice was flat and dead as he spoke. “Fitz. Do you understand that is what they intend for Bee? For our child? She is a valuable addition to their breeding stock, a strain of White blood they have not yet been able to add. If they have not already deduced she is mine, they soon will.”

Ash's eyes flew wide open. He started to speak. A sharp gesture from me stopped him. I moved my hand to my heart and tried to calm it. I drew a deep breath. Ask the questions. “So. How long will this journey to Clerres take us?”

“In truth, I can't say with surety. When first I traveled from the school to Buckkeep, it was by a very roundabout route. I was young. More than once I lost my way, or had to take ship to a port other than the one I desired in the hope of finding a ship there that would take me closer to Buck. Sometimes I was months in one location before I had the wherewithal to travel on. Twice I was held against my wishes. Back then, my resources were very limited, and the Six Duchies little more than a legend to me. And when I returned to Clerres with Prilkop, we traveled part of the way by the stones. It still took us quite a time to get there.” He paused. Was he hoping that I would offer to take him by that route again? If so, he would wait for a long time, even when my control of the Skill was restored. Chade's current state had only increased my reluctance ever to enter them again.

“But however we go, we had best start as soon as we are able. The dragon's blood Ash gave me has had a remarkable effect on my health. If I continue to improve, if you can help me regain my eyesight … Oh, even if neither happens. We will wait for the messenger you hope for. But how long? Ten days?”

There was no reasoning with him. I would not give him false promises. “Let us wait until the Rousters return with Thick and FitzVigilant. It will not be many days. And perhaps by then your eyes will have improved as much as the rest of you. And if not, we will ask Thick and the rest of Nettle's coterie to see if they can restore your vision.”

“Not you?”

“Until Nettle judges my Skill to be controlled again, no. I will be in the room but I will not be able to help.” I repeated aloud the promise I'd made to myself. “It's time for me to cede to her true authority as Skillmistress. And respect her knowledge. She has warned me not to Skill. So I will not. But the others can help you.”