Fool's Quest (78 page)

“There's a log here. Behind you. A little more. Sit down.”

The Fool sat, more abruptly than I intended. Uneasiness rippled through me as he carefully gathered his skirts around him. The white glove on his left hand was feminine, as was his movement as he adjusted the hood of his cloak. I saw Lant's lip twitch, as if he were a cat smelling something foul. I felt a surge of irritation with him. “Spark. How is she?” I asked Perseverance, and he flinched at the name.

“I don't know.”

I crouched down beside the girl and spoke for the Fool's benefit. “She's not unconscious. Her eyes are open and she's making sounds. But there is no awareness in her eyes.” I lifted my gaze to Per. “May I please have the butterfly cloak? Let's keep her as warm as we can.”

Without hesitation, he stood up, shed the garment, and handed it to me. I took off one of the cloaks I was wearing and gave it to him. He bundled into it gratefully as I tucked one edge of the butterfly cloak under Spark, rolled her onto it, and then snugged it around her, leaving only her face bare. She looked like a brightly colored cocoon. Her sounds grew softer and became a high soft humming. Her twitching eased. “Tell me everything,” I commanded the Fool.

He pulled his cloak more closely around himself. Even in the cold winter air, I could smell the mustiness of it. It was thick wool, lined with fur, from Lady Thyme's closet. The heavy woolen skirts he wore came down to the top of his boots, which were leather, cut more for a city street than a snowy forest. He brushed his short, pale hair back from his brow and gave a small sigh. “You left me. You told me you were going to do it, and I heard in your voice that you meant it. So I immediately made my other arrangements. I wasn't happy to do it, Fitz, but you left me no choice. I persuaded Spark that my place was beside you, as indeed it is in this venture. Lady Rosemary had dismissed her, to fend for herself in Buckkeep Castle, so it took little effort to make her completely mine. I persuaded her to attempt a foray back into Chade's old quarters. She procured the dragon's blood for me.”

“Why dragon's blood?”

“Hush. Let me speak.” He looked unerringly at Lant. “There are tea herbs in that pack we left. Left front pocket.” He glanced over at the pot. “The water will boil soon.” Lant did not move instantly, but then he rose and turned toward the tent. “There are two cups in the pack also. The tea is a restorative one. It may help Spark,” he called after Lant, then shifted his attention back to me. “The clothing was easier. No one bothered us about that. It's from Lady Thyme's wardrobe, of course. Spark said the lock on the door was a good one, but old. And she had been taught how to outwit locks. Once we were in, we took the greater part of an afternoon to select what we wished. And Spark proved to have a knack at adjusting clothing for size. That was what took the most time. She had to move it, a garment or two at a time, down to my rooms, and there she worked on the cutting and fitting and hemming. We were mostly finished with it the last time you came battering at the door. I dared not let you in for fear you would immediately guess our plan.”

It did not escape me that he had deflected my question about dragon's blood. I'd have to corner him later and pester it out of him. Lant came back with the tea herbs. He glanced at me and I nodded, and he went about that task. Per had drawn closer to listen to the tale. The Fool turned his blind eyes in the boy's direction and smiled at him. Per bowed his head. I did not blame him. The Fool's golden gaze had become a daunting thing to meet.

“How did you get to the Witness Stones?” I could not imagine the blind Fool and the burdened girl making that trek.

“We didn't.” The Fool spoke starkly. “In the dark of night, we dressed warmly and Spark shouldered our pack. She had obtained a walking staff for me. And we went down to the dungeons of Buckkeep. It was a trick to get past the guards, but when they changed for the night, we managed it. And Spark had done it before, following Chade. She knew where to take us. Dutiful had put an iron grate across that corridor, and locked it securely, but again Spark knew the trick of opening it. And once we were through, we took our first big gamble. She spread dragon blood on the palm of my hand, then held tight to me. I pressed my palm to the old Skill-stone, the one that whoever rebuilt Buckkeep Castle from an Elderling ruin had used in the foundation. And it worked. We stepped out in Aslevjal.”

I recalled it well. I stared at him. “How long did you stay there?”

“Long enough to locate the correct facet of the pillar to bring us here. Another smear of dragon blood and on we came. Only to find Lant and Perseverance here. I was startled to find them. Spark, however, seemed almost to expect Perseverance. Though I sensed a bit of a chill from him when he saw how we were dressed.” He turned his blind gaze on the lad again. Per said nothing and stared at the fire. “I guessed where you had gone. I even considered following you. I would like to once more walk in the Stone Garden. To touch Verity-as-Dragon.” A strange smile curved his mouth. “To touch, a last time, Girl-on-a-Dragon. Did you visit her?”

“No. I didn't.” In some ways, the thought of that stone dragon still put a chill up my spine.

He lowered his voice. “Will she recover? Spark?”

I wanted to be angry with him, to demand he tell me why he had risked her so wildly. “I don't know. Four portal journeys in less than two days? I'd never attempt it. We'll keep her as warm as we can, try to get a hot drink down her, and wait. It's all I know to do.” I bit back the recriminations and questions. “I would love to understand why you seem so little affected.”

He suddenly sat up straight and stared around the ancient pavilion almost as if he could see. “Fitz. We camped here. Do you recall? When I was dead?”

“How could I not recall it?” I ignored the peculiar looks that both Per and Lant were giving me. They had been staring at the fire but hanging on the edges of our conversation avidly. I had no intention of explaining to them what had happened here on that long-ago summer day. Just the Fool's mention of it had brought it vividly to mind. It was not that I had become him in death that still shook me to my core; it was the remembrance of how, as we had traded our bodies that he might resume his existence as the Fool, we had mingled and for that long instant, become one creature. One being.

And it had felt so correct. So perfectly balanced.

“It was here,” I confirmed again.

“It was. And when we left here, we left my things here. The Elderling tent. My little cook-pot …”

“Decades ago,” I reminded him.

“But they were Elderling-made. And you made our camp on the pavilion stones. Do you recall where we camped? Could you look for what's left of them, under the snow?”

I could. I recalled where I had pitched the tent, recalled, too, where I had built the funeral pyre for him. “Possibly.”

“Please, Fitz. Look for them now. It would be warm shelter for all of us. Even if only enough of it remains to be blankets, it will warm us better than wool and furs.”

“Very well.” I knew I'd get no more of the tale out of him until I had done as he asked. I found a likely branch and thrust it into the fire. As I waited for it to kindle into a torch, I asked Per, “How is she?” He had gradually edged closer to his friend.

“She's stopped moaning and muttering. She's still now. Is that good?”

“I don't know. I think she's been through four Skill-pillar trips in quick succession. I'm not sure I could survive that, let alone an untrained mind like hers.”

“But Mage Gr—your friend seems unscathed.”

I said nothing to that. I didn't want to speak of dragon blood and how I'd seen the Fool changing since he'd drunk it, let alone smeared it on his palm. “Keep her warm. Talk to her. Be her anchor to this world. Lant, come with me, please.”

He rose with alacrity, and as I held our pathetic “torch” aloft, he followed me into darkness. I took a bearing from the Skill-pillar, and recalled where the ornamental stone wall had been in relation to our tent. And the funeral pyre had been there. I lifted the torch higher. Was there a slight mound there beneath the snow, the reminder of limbs and logs and branches that had rotted there for years? I walked toward it.

The tent had been beyond it. I walked more slowly, kicking my feet deeper into the snow, trying to get the soles of my boots all the way down to the stone of the pavilion. And suddenly my toe caught and dragged on something. Was it possible that anything of the Fool's grand tent remained after all these years? I hooked my toe under it and pulled it up to the surface. Fabric. Brightly dyed so that the colors shone even in our feeble torchlight. All those years ago, the Fool and I had donned winter clothing and just walked away from this camp. Through the Skill-portal and back to Aslevjal I had taken him. All those years ago, and his grand tent was still here, collapsed under the snow.

“Help me drag this free,” I said to Lant, and he posted the flaming branch in the snow and bent to seize the edge of the fabric. We both pulled. It was heavy work, for more than snow weighted it. Fallen leaves and bits of moss, all the detritus that had seemed to vanish from both the pavilion and the Skill-road, were layered upon it. It came free slowly. As it emerged from the snow and I shook litter from it, the limber supports that held the tent up revived slightly, lifting the bright parade of dragons and serpents into view.

It took some time for us to drag it free. The torch burned out and still we struggled. There were objects inside the tent, so abruptly had the Fool and I departed, and I dreaded we would tear it before it came free, but it held. I recalled well how it had blocked out the icy winds of Aslevjal, and how the warmth of our bodies had been enough to heat it. Even if it was no longer tight, it would be shelter for our enlarged party. We dragged it slowly to our fireside. Frost rimed the bright panels, and it was hard to find the collapsed entry. “We found it,” I said, and the Fool beamed like a child.

Spark was still, her eyes open and her lips moving slightly. From time to time, the direction of her gaze shifted, and once she smiled at no one. Her lips moved, speaking silently. Revelation struck me.

“How can I have been so stupid? We have to get her off the stone flagging, away from the pavilion. Look at her. The stones are speaking to her.”

“That whispering?” Lant asked, alarmed. “I thought it wind in the trees last night. Per did not hear it at all.”

“And you, too,” I announced.

It was hard work in the dark and the cold. I put Lant and Per to digging a small fire-pit under the evergreens where the snow was shallowest. I lifted Spark and placed her inside my tent. Then I took the task of shaking the last of the snow and moss from the Elderling tent and stretching it out to find the corners. I had never paused to look at the supports before. They were white and reminded me of baleen from a great whale. I set them aside, and went back to where we had salvaged the tent. Kicking and digging in the snow with my hands, I found the remaining supports and the rusty shell of the old fire-pot. It would do.

It took me longer to set up the tent than it should have. We installed the fire-pot in the pit, moved coals, and soon had a fire to warm it. The Elderling pavilion was more spacious than my little tent had been. As soon as we had moved the bedding, I put Spark inside. We set a pot of snow to melt. “Stay with her,” I told Per. To Lant, I said, “Rummage in the packs. Put together some sort of meal for us.”

I went back to where the Fool sat by the fire still. “Your tent is up. Shall I guide you inside?”

He was staring toward it, a faint smile on his face. “I can almost sense the shape of it, for it traps the warmth so well.” He heaved a sudden sigh. “So many memories that shelter holds for me. Did I tell you that the dragon Tintaglia was the one who commanded the Rain Wild Traders to help me? That tent was given to me, and a lovely robe. But the cloak, the one you call the butterfly cloak? That was something that Prilkop found in Kelsingra. He managed to keep it, wadded small, even when we were slaves. He gave it to me in Clerres. And I gave it to Incalu. My messenger.” He fell silent.

I felt a wave of sympathy for him, but I firmed my will. “You won't distract me from one tale by dangling another in front of me, Fool. You and Spark went through the portal to Kelsingra. It's claimed by Rain Wilders who call themselves the Dragon Traders now. Queen Malta and King Reyn rule there. Dragons live there, or near there. So. What happened when you emerged?”

If I had hoped to push him closer to the truth with what I already knew of Kelsingra, I failed. “Malta,” he said, and smiled. “Possibly the most annoying young female I've ever encountered. Yet lovely. I named a horse after her. Do you remember?”

“I do. Nettle said that Burrich was stunned to receive her as a gift. So. You came out of the portal …”

He folded his lips for a moment, then spoke. “It was night. And Spark needed to sit and recover for a time. It was hard for me to let her do that, though I knew it was night, for I sensed no warmth from the surroundings. I'm blind, Fitz. But there, suddenly, the city was lit with unfailing light, and I saw the brightly clad folk you call Elderlings. We'd arrived in the midst of some sort of festival. At least, that was what the city remembered for us. And I could see! I do not think you can imagine what that is like, to be deprived for so long of my sight, to become accustomed and accepting that my vision is limited to the difference between light and dark, and then to suddenly see again. Colors and people's faces, to catch shifting expressions, to see the moving shadows on the walls, the glorious torchlight! Oh, Fitz!”

For a time he fell silent, just breathing, as if he were a starving man who had just described a feast. I waited. “Well, I knew of course that it was a deception. Or a performance by the memory stone of the city, if you will. That did not lessen its fascination for me. If anything, it sharpened it. I wanted to know more. Strange to say, when Spark began to attempt to speak to the passing people, I became alarmed for her rather than for myself. I got her to her feet, and we walked together through the streets. And it was wonderful, Fitz, to walk arm in arm with her, but not need her vision. Well, almost. There are still parts of the city that are in need of repair, for it is a large place, still far too large for the population it has now. I asked her to be wary, to watch for live folk like ourselves, people who walked through the shadow-population the city showed us. She said she would try, but her voice was vague and I was not sure she could discern what I meant.” He paused again, and again his sightless gaze wandered to the Elderling tent. “I'm cold,” he said.