Fool's Quest - Страница 84

Daily, I visited Chade. It was rather like visiting a favorite tree. The delvenbark had quenched his Skill. He no longer dwindled, but it remained to be seen how much of himself he could regain. Steady kept watch over him. I spoke banalities to him. He listened, it seemed, but spoke little in response. A servant brought food for all three of us. Chade fed himself, but would sometimes pause and seem to forget what he had been doing. When I spoke of Shine he seemed to take no more than a polite interest. When I asked directly if he could recall the words with which he had sealed her from the Skill, he looked more puzzled than troubled by the question. When I tried to press him, to insist that he at least remember his daughter, Steady intervened. “You have to let him come back. He has to find the pieces of himself and put them back together.”

“How do you know such things?” I demanded.

“The tiny blocks of memory stone that Chade brought back offered us all sorts of knowledge. Nettle thinks they were cut into small pieces to be safer to use. We do not let anyone experience many of them, and no one explores them alone. As each one is studied, an account is given of what is learned. I was entrusted with one that dealt with those who lost themselves in pursuing knowledge too deeply. I wrote my account of what I learned. And Nettle and I believe it is similar to what has befallen Lord Chade. We hope that if we give him time and rest and keep any more of him from leaking away, he will come back to himself.”

He paused. “Fitz, I can only guess what he is to you. When I lost my father, you did not try to step into his place. But you sheltered my mother and brothers and Nettle to the best of your ability. I do not think it was solely because of your love for my mother. I think you understood all we had lost. I’ll always feel indebted to you. And I promise you that I will do all in my power to bring Chade back to us. I know you think he holds the key to regaining Bee. We all hate that we must stand by and do nothing as we wait for word of her. Please trust that what I do now, I do because I believe it is the fastest way to see Chade regain his senses and be able to help us.”

And that comfort, thin as it was, was the best I could gain from those visits.

That night, when I could not sleep, I tried to occupy myself. I read several scrolls on the Skill, and the accounts of what had been learned from the memory blocks. Kettricken and Elliania had put their scribes to scouring the libraries of Buckkeep for any mention of Clerres or White Prophets. Four scrolls awaited me. I skimmed them. Hearsay and legend, with a dollop of superstition. I set them aside for Ash to read to the Fool, and comforted myself by imagining that I could poison all the wells in Clerres. The required amount of toxin would depend on the flow of the water. I fell asleep to my calculations.

The next day slowly ticked by. I passed that day as I had the one before. And another day came, with a storm of wind and snow that would delay the Rousters’ return. There had been no word from any of the Witted of soldiers on the road, and nothing from the patrols that Dutiful had dispatched. It was hard to cling to that hope, and harder to let go of it. I told myself that if the storms let up, Thick would get home and we might pry Shine’s word from Chade and Skill it to her. I busied myself as best I could, but each moment seemed a day to me.

I went to see the Fool at least twice every day. The dragon’s blood continued to affect him, with changes that overtook his body so rapidly they were frightening. The scarring on his face, the deliberate tracks of the torturer across the planes of his cheeks and brow, began to fade. His fingers became straighter, and although he still limped, he did not wince with pain at every step. His appetite was the equal of a guardsman’s, and Ash saw to it that he could indulge it.

Spark was most often Ash when I saw her in what had become the Fool’s chambers, though now I caught glimpses of her as Spark about the keep. I marveled at what I saw. It was not merely a change of clothing and a frilled cap with buttons. She was an entirely different creature. She was industrious and thoughtful as Ash, but the occasional smile that came and went on her face was all Spark. A sidelong glance from her was not flirtatious but mysterious. Several times I encountered her in Chade’s rooms doing minor tidying or bringing cool water to replenish his ewer. Her eyes slid by me at such encounters so I never betrayed that I knew her in any other guise. I wondered if anyone other than Chade, the Fool, and me knew of her duality.

It was Ash I spoke with one morning when I had climbed the stairs after what had become a daily practice bout with my guardsmen. I had come to see how the Fool was doing. I found the Fool garbed in a dressing-gown of black and white, sitting at Chade’s worktable as Ash tried valiantly to tame the Fool’s growing hair. To see him garbed so woke my memories of his days as Shrewd’s jester. The new growth on his scalp stood up like the fuzz on a newly hatched chick’s pate, while the hanks that remained of his longer hair hung lank and coarse. As I climbed the final step, I heard Ash say, “It’s hopeless. I’m cutting it all to the same length.”

“I suppose that’s the best solution,” the Fool agreed.

Ash snipped each lock and set it on the table, where the crow immediately investigated it. I had come near silently, but the Fool greeted me with, “What color is my new hair?”

“Like wheat ready for the harvest,” Ash said before I could respond. “But more like dandelion fluff.”

“So it was when we were boys, always floating in a cloud about his face. I think you will look like a dandelion gone to seed until it is long enough for you to bind.”

The Fool put his hand up to touch it, and Ash pushed it away with an annoyed grunt. “So many changes, so fast. Still, each time I wake I am surprised to find myself clean and warm and fed. The pain is still a constant, but the pain of healing is a bearable thing. I almost welcome the deep aches and even the sharp twinges, for each one tells me that I am getting better.”

“And your vision?” I dared to ask.

He fixed his whirling dragon eyes on me. “I see light and darkness. Little more than that. Yesterday, when Ash walked between me and the hearth fire, I perceived his passing shadow. It is not enough, but it is something. I am trying to be patient. How is Chade?”

I shook my head and then recalled he could not see me do that. “Little change that I can see. The sword cut he took is healing, but slowly. The delvenbark has cut him off from his Skill. I know he was using it to maintain his body. I suspect he was consuming other herbs as well. And now he is not. I do not know if I am imagining that the lines in his face are deeper and the flesh fallen from his cheeks, but—”

“You are not imagining it,” Ash said quietly. “Every time I venture into his room, he seems to have aged. As if every change he did with his magic is falling away, and his true age catching up with him.” He set his scissors down, his task finished. Motley pecked at the shining shears, and then decided to groom her feathers instead. “What good have they done if they save him from dying of the Skill only to let him die of his years?”

I had no answer to that. I had not considered it.

Ash followed it with another question. “And what will become of me if he dies? I know it is a selfish thing to wonder, but wonder I do. He has been my teacher and protector here at Buckkeep Castle. What will become of me if he dies?”

I did not want to think of such an eventuality but I answered as best I could. “Lady Rosemary would assume his mantle. And you would remain an apprentice to her.”

Ash shook his head. “I am not sure she would keep me. I think she dislikes me in direct proportion to how much Lord Chade favors me. I know that she believes he is lenient with me. I think if he were gone, she would dismiss me and take on apprentices more dutiful to her.” In a softer voice, he added, “And then I would be left with the only other profession I have ever studied.”

“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.”