Fool's Quest - Страница 20

“Somewhat,” I hedged.

“Somewhat? As we passed, we merged and blended.”

“No.” Now he was the one who was lying. It was time to speak the truth. “That is not what I recall. It was not a temporary merging. What I recall is that we were one. We were not wholes blending as we passed. We were parts, finally forming a whole. You and me and Nighteyes. One being.”

He could not see me and yet he still averted his face, as if I had said a thing too intimate for us to witness. He bowed his head, a small affirmation. “It happens,” he said softly. “A mingling of beings. You’ve seen the results, though you may not have recognized it. I certainly didn’t. That tapestry of the Elderlings that once hung in your room.”

I shook my head. I’d been a child the first time I’d seen it. It was enough to give anyone nightmares. There was King Wisdom of the Six Duchies, treating with the Elderlings, who were tall, thin beings with unnaturally colored skin, hair, and eyes. “I don’t think that has anything to do with what I’m talking about now.”

“Oh, it does. Elderlings are what humans may become through a long association with dragons. Or more commonly, what their surviving offspring may become.”

I saw no connection. “I do recall, long ago, when you tried to convince me that I was part dragon.”

A smile twisted his weary mouth. “Your words. Not mine. But not so far from what I was theorizing, even if you’ve phrased it very poorly. Many aspects of the Skill put me in mind of what dragons can do. And if some distant ancestor of yours was dragon-touched, so to speak, could it be why that particular magic manifests in you?”

I sighed and surrendered. “I’ve no idea. I don’t even know quite what you mean by ‘dragon-touched.’ So, perhaps. But I don’t see what that has to do with you and me.”

He shifted in the bed. “How can I be so tired, and not one bit sleepy?”

“How can you start so many conversations and then refuse to finish any of them?”

He went off into a coughing fit. I tried to tell myself he was feigning it but went to fetch him water anyway. I helped him sit up and waited while he drank. When he lay back down, I took the cup and waited. I said nothing, simply stood by the bed with the cup. After a time I sighed.

“What?” he demanded.

“Do you know things you aren’t telling me?”

“Absolutely. And that will always be true.”

He sounded so much like his old self and took such obvious pleasure in the words that I felt almost no annoyance. Almost.

“I mean about this. About what bonds us in such a way that I can take you with me through a Skill-pillar, and almost without effort enter your body to heal it?”

“Almost?”

“I was exhausted afterward, but that was from the healing, I think. Not from the joining.” I would say nothing of what it had done to my back.

I thought he would detect I was holding something back. Instead he spoke slowly. “Because perhaps the joining already exists and always does.”

“Our Skill-bond?”

“No. You haven’t been listening.” He sighed. “Think again about the Elderlings. A human lives long in the company of dragons, and eventually he begins to take on some of the traits of the dragon. You and I, Fitz, lived in close company for years. And in the healing that was actually a snatching back from death, we shared. We mingled. And perhaps we became, as you claim, one being. And perhaps we did not completely sort ourselves back into our own separate selves as thoroughly as you think. Perhaps there was an exchange of our very substances.”

I thought about this carefully. “Substances. Such as flesh? Blood?”

“I don’t know! Perhaps. Perhaps something more essential even than blood.”

I paused to sort the sense from his words. “Can you tell me why it happened? Is it dangerous to us? Something we must try to undo? Fool, I need to know.”

He turned his face toward me, took a breath as if he was going to speak, then paused and let it out. I saw him thinking. Then he spoke simply, as if I were a child. “The human that lives too long near the dragon takes on aspects of the dragon. The white rose that is planted for years beside the red rose begins to have white blossoms threaded with red. And perhaps the human Catalyst who is companion to a White Prophet takes on some of his traits. Perhaps, as you threatened, your traits as a Catalyst have infected me as well.”

I studied his face for signs of a jest. Then I waited for him to mock me for my gullibility. Finally I begged him, “Can you just explain?”

He blew out a breath. “I’m tired, Fitz. And I’ve told you as clearly as I can what I think may be happening. You seem to think we are becoming or were ‘one thing,’ as you so gracefully put it. I think that our essences may be seeping across to the other, creating a bridge between us. Or perhaps it’s a vestige of the Skill-bond we once shared.” He leaned his poor head back on the pillows. “I can’t sleep. I’m weary and tired, but not sleepy. What I am is bored. Horribly bored with pain and darkness and waiting.”

“I thought you just said that being bored—”

“Is lovely. Horribly lovely.”

Well, at least he was showing signs of his old self. “I wish I could help you. Sadly, there isn’t much I can do about your boredom.”

“You already did something for me. The sores on my back are much better. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And now I fear I must leave you for a time. I’m supposed to meet with Lady Kettricken, as Lord Feldspar of Spiretop. I will need to dress for that role.”

“And you must go right now?”

“I should, if I’m to be properly dressed and in line for a private audience with her. I’ll come back afterward. Try to rest.”

With regret, I turned away. I knew how the time must drag for him. He had always been a lively fellow, a juggler, a tumbler, adept at sleight of hand, with a mind as quick and clever as his fingers. He had cavorted through King Shrewd’s court, quick with a witty retort, always a part of the gay whirl that Buckkeep society had been when I was very young. Now sight and clever fingers and agile body had all been taken from him. Darkness and pain were his companions.

“After Prilkop’s benefactor bought me from my ‘owner,’ at an insultingly low price I might add, we were fairly well treated. His new patron was not a noble but a fairly wealthy landowner. It was only by the greatest of good fortune that the man was well versed in the lore of the White Prophets.”

He paused. He knew I had halted, intrigued by his words. I tried to calculate how much time had passed. It was difficult to tell in the perpetual twilight of the room. “I have to leave soon,” I reminded him.

“Do you truly?” he asked, a mocking lilt in his voice.

“I do.”

“Very well.”

I turned.

“For ten days, we rested and were well fed in his home. He arranged new garments for us, packed provisions, and then he himself drove the horse and cart to Clerres. It was a journey of nearly a month to get there. Sometimes we camped, and at other times we were able to stay at inns. Both Prilkop and I worried greatly at what the man was sacrificing of pocket and time to get us there, but he would always say he was honored to do it. Our road led us through a mountain pass, nearly as frozen and cold as a Buckkeep winter, and then down, down we went. I began to recognize the scents of the trees, and I knew the names of the wayside flowers from my boyhood. Clerres itself had grown a great deal since last I had seen it, and Prilkop was astounded that the place he remembered as a simple village had grown to an edifice of walls and towers and gardens and gates.

“Yet so it was. The school had prospered, and in turn the city had prospered, for there was a trade now in the searching of prophecies to give advice to merchants and would-be brides and builders of sailing ships. From far and near they came, to pay a fee in the hope of getting an audience with the Head Servant, and then to tell their tale to him. And if he judged them worthy, they could buy a license for a day or three or twenty, and cross the causeway to the White Island. There, one of the acolyte Servants would be put to researching the prophecies to see if any pertained to that particular venture or wedding or voyage.

“But I am getting ahead of myself.”

I clenched my teeth and then let him win. “Actually, you’ve gone backward in your telling, as you well know. Fool, I desperately want to hear this story, but I must not be late to my audience.”

“As you wish.”

I had taken four steps when he added, “I only hope I am not too weary later to tell you the rest.”

“Fool! Why are you being like this?”

“Do you really want to know?” The old lilt of mockery was back in his voice.

“Yes.”

He spoke more softly and soberly than he had before. “Because I know it makes you feel better when I mock you.”

I turned to look back at him, denial on my lips. But some trick of the firelight showed him to me as he was. Not at all like my friend of old. He looked like a badly carved puppet of himself, something as battered and ragged as a beloved old toy. The light touched the scars on his face, the gray-painted eyes, and the straw-thatch of hair on his skull. I couldn’t utter a word.

“Fitz, we both know I teeter on a knife’s edge. It’s not if I will fall, but when. You are keeping me balanced there and alive. But when it happens, as I fear it must, it will not be your fault. Nor mine. Neither of us could have steered this fate.”