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“I smell him. I smell one dragon-touched, chosen by a dragon we have long believed dead. Are you here by his command?”

I guessed what he smelled. The dragon’s blood the Fool had used. Per made a retching sound. I heard no sound from the Fool or Spark. I took a breath. “We mean no harm,” I called to the dragon. Then I swiveled my head. My Wit had told me someone else approached, and the figure I saw striding toward me was one from my childhood nightmares. He was tall and scarlet-skinned, with blazing blue eyes, as if light shone through sapphires. His tall frame was cloaked in a flowing tunic of gold and loose black trousers. He was long-limbed in proportions that were appropriate to his height, but not human. He wore battle harness such as I’d never seen, but the sword that he pulled ringing from its sheath was an all-too-familiar tool to me. Elderling, like the creatures that had stared down from the tapestry that had graced the wall of my boyhood bedchamber. He spoke as he strode toward us. “Well done, Arbuc! I knew these invaders could not evade us for long! And now they will answer for …”

His words trickled away as he halted and stared at us. “These are not the thieves I chased! Who are you, how do you come here, and what do you wish? Answer with words or blood, it’s all one to me.” He stood and held his weapon in a style I did not recognize. Formality. Always choose formality first.

I did not sheathe my blade but neither did I move it in a threatening way. I was glad now that I’d layered my pretty cloak over my serviceable one. I made as courtly a bow as I could with a bared weapon. “Well met, good sir. We are emissaries to Queen Malta and King Reyn of the Dragon Traders. We come from the Six Duchies. We would be most grateful if you would escort us to their palace.”

My lack of aggression puzzled him. I saw that Lant had taken my cue and lowered the tip of his blade. Per stood at the ready. Of the Fool and Spark, I heard not a whisper. I hoped no betraying toe peeped out from under the butterfly cloak’s camouflage.

The Elderling’s gaze traveled from me to Lant to Per. I knew we were not particularly presentable but I retained my dignity and did not lower my eyes. “How did you get here?” he demanded.

I avoided direct refusal in my answer. “Sir, as you no doubt can tell, we have come a long and weary way. In the Mountains we dealt with cold and were even attacked by a bear. We ask only for audience with the most gracious rulers of Kelsingra. No more than that do we seek.”

I saw him turn his eyes toward the cliffs and mountains that backed the city we stood in. I tried to remember all I could of this city. I’d been here once before. Indeed, I had come here by my first inadvertent stumble through a Skill-portal, on my journey to find Verity. Without turning my head, my eyes marked the location of the tower where I had first glimpsed the intricate map the Elderlings had left. As I recalled what little I knew of it, I decided to take a risk. “Or, if you are busy on errands of your own, we shall be happy to venture on to the Tower of the Map and wait there for your king and queen to receive us. We know our arrival is unannounced. We do not presume to hope they will see us immediately.”

I heard the clatter of boots and looked past the scarlet Elderling to see an armed troop advancing toward us. They were men, not Elderlings, and their weaponry and armor were of more familiar sorts than those the red man bore. Six in the front rank, and three more ranks behind them. Outnumbered. A conflict unwinnable with blades.

It required all my self-discipline to take my eyes off the scarlet Elderling. I looked down and carefully sheathed my blade as if it were an unfamiliar act. Then I smiled genially up at him, just a harmless emissary.

Another Elderling had come to join the dragon. He stood beside the powerful creature and despite his height, the dragon dwarfed him. This Elderling was lightly scaled in green and silver and he reached out a hand to touch the dragon’s shoulder. The green dragon abruptly advanced two steps. He took in our scent again and said, “One of them is dragon-claimed. I smell it on him.” The immense head on the thickly muscled neck twisted. “A dragon I have not smelled before,” he said, as if dredging his memory for a name. “A dragon unseen by us. Does he live yet?” The head with its spinning silver eyes canted in the other direction, but his gaze remained fixed on me.

The militant red Elderling’s gleaming eyes narrowed as he regarded us. “An unknown dragon? Which of you belongs to a dragon?”

How to answer that? I retreated toward truth. “I do not understand the terms you use. Please. If you will escort us to where we can await audience with your rulers, I am sure all will be made clear.”

“I am sure it will,” he said after a long pause, but his voice was neither warm nor welcoming.

Chapter Thirty-Six
An Elderling Welcome

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Select your Skill-couriers by these traits. First, let each courier be at least of journeyman status. Select for independence. Both arrogance and stubbornness may be seen as a virtue for this assignment. A highly developed sense of self is an asset for a courier. Vanity is sometimes a helpful marker, for the vain woman or conceited man is ever self-aware. Youth and a hearty constitution are also advantages.

A courier should serve no more than three years, with two years of rest between each year of service. A specific route of pillars should be assigned and the courier should travel the same routes over and over. Thus will his sense of place become well developed. The Skill-user who knows where he is going and recognizes where he is when he arrives is better able to maintain his self intact.

If the courier is strong enough to serve as an escort for the unSkilled, see that he is patient and responsible. Let those he guides always rest for at least three days between each leg of a journey.

I kept my diplomat’s poise and swept him a bow. “We are so grateful to you. I am Prince FitzChivalry Farseer, of the Six Duchies. Lord Lant Fallstar accompanies me, and our serving lad, Perseverance of Withywoods.”

As I introduced them, Lant sheathed his blade and made a far more elegant bow than I could ever have mastered, one that involved much sweeping of his cloak. I smothered a smile as Perseverance made a brave attempt to copy him. I gestured casually at our tumbled baggage. “Perhaps you could arrange for our things to be brought with us? The bear made short work of our picketed horses, and did great damage to our bags.” This was the gamble I was most reluctant to take. I knew that I would have taken an opportunity to search the baggage of any strangers who had mysteriously appeared inside the walls of Buckkeep Castle. The red fellow looked down at us in disapproval bordering on disdain.

“We keep no slaves here. As you have carried them this far, a bit farther will not hurt you.”

“Very well.” I tried to conceal my relief. “And, sir, I do not recall that you favored us with your name?”

A subtle reminder that I would know who he was and would perhaps speak of him to his queen. He had not sheathed his weapon and he did not look daunted by my request. “I am General Rapskal, leader of the Kelsingra Militia. Gather your things. I will take you to my rulers.”

I glanced back at the dragon and his keeper. The Elderling said something to him and then hastened away. The dragon apparently decided we were not interesting. He turned and lumbered off in a different direction. In the distance, I heard a crow caw.

And so we loaded up with our heavy packs once more. I saw no sign of the butterfly cloak and what it concealed, and I took care not to look for it. I had heard Spark speak when we arrived; perhaps that meant she was not in too poor a condition. Realizing one makeshift pack seemed to be missing, I gave a quick glance round, hoping it was under the cloak and not lost to the Skill-passage. Ah, well: Its absence allowed me to be mostly unencumbered and properly aristocratic as we were marched through Kelsingra.

It was a strange experience for me. I raised my Skill-walls and still the city spoke to me of a sunny winter day from its youth. A huddle of human merchants hastened past me, traders from some far city perhaps. They stayed close together and walked swiftly, glancing all about them as they passed us. A youth with a heavy line of scales on his brow and lizard-like wattles along his jaw swept the walkway outside a shop where meat hung on hooks over smoky fires. A girl with a basket on her arm passed us at a trot. Interspersed among these mundane forms, the ghosts of Elderlings strode and laughed and haggled with one another. I wondered if it was my Skill that made them seem so real. A sudden fistfight broke out between two of them and I instinctively moved away from it. “So. You can see them,” Rapskal observed. He did not slow for the ancient altercation, and I did not reply to him.

I wondered how Lant and Per perceived it, and wondered even more if the city whispered to the human guardsmen who walked ahead of, beside, and behind us. With a waft of smell and wind, a green-and-silver dragon passed over us, climbing steadily into the sky. I caught not his thoughts exactly, but his intent. He went to the hunt and for one peculiar moment I longed to hunt with him.

The day was cold and the wind off the unseen river had that wet bite to it that cuts through a man. General Rapskal did not slow his pace for weary travelers with heavy loads. Even so, I had time to notice that the city was sparsely populated. Some streets seemed to have inhabited structures, and the next would show signs of long desertion and disrepair. From my journey on the Skill-road, I knew that anything wrought from Skill-worked stone retained its shape and purpose far longer than any ordinary work of man. The wind might carry debris and scatter dust on the wide streets, but no errant seed had found a crack to take root in, no straggling vine struggled to tear down even the quake-cracked walls. This city had recalled for deserted generations that it was a city, and as if to mock its paltry number of inhabitants it seemed to better remember its distant past as a center of Elderling culture. I took note of all I saw and contrasted it with what Chade and King Dutiful believed of Kelsingra. Unless we were on the edges of a much more populous center, Kelsingra and the Dragon Traders were presenting a far more prosperous face to the world than they truly could muster.

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