And now I knew the source of Lord Golden’s stream of income in his wild gambling days at Buckkeep court. What he had invested wisely in Bingtown, he spent with a shocking profligacy in Buckkeep Town. Because he had known then that he was going to die and saw no point in saving any of it. Oh, this was good. So many bits and pieces of the Fool’s lives were being handed to me. I smiled at Amber across the table and somehow she knew, for she showed me her teeth. “It helped me through a difficult time,” Amber responded congenially.
Malta spoke delicately. “I cannot help but notice that life has put you through many changes since last I saw you. I mourn that you have lost your sight. And I had not realized that you had had enough contact with dragons to undergo a change.”
There was a baggage train of questions packed into that comment. I waited. “I promised you my story when I came to you, and you have waited so patiently. Let us finish eating, then, and I shall tell it.” Ah, so I was not the only one he used his delaying tactic upon.
The rest of the meal passed uneventfully. Lant said little except to thank them for the meal and to compliment the food, and I volunteered little more than that. Often I felt Reyn’s eyes upon me, measuring me, and I strove to behave as a Farseer prince should, even as I wondered what sort of a tale Amber had spun around us.
Our meal over, a servant cleared the table and set out brandy and glasses for us, with a selection of spicy teas offered as well. The brandy was Sandsedge, from the Six Duchies, and I wondered if that was intended as a compliment. I accepted a small glass with pleasure and sincere thanks. Reyn had just opened his mouth to reply when the door opened and a frail old Elderling came in. He moved slowly, a servant at his side and a cane in his hand. He breathed audibly through his nose, and took short cautious steps as he made his way toward the table. His hair was as golden as Malta’s and his scaling as blue as Reyn’s. Even so, I was startled when Malta said brightly, “And here is Phron, come to wish us good night.”
Amber could not see but perhaps she could hear Phron’s breathing and his hesitant step as he made his way to the table and then eased himself into a chair. The servant stooped, to ask if he would prefer brandy or tea. “Tea. Please.” A gasp punctuated the man’s request, for so his voice betrayed him to be. I looked at him afresh. His eyes were an intense blue, and the scaling of blue and silver that marked him was both intricate and fanciful. It was no chance growth, like a calico kitten’s fur. The patterns on his face and bared arms were as deliberate and artful as a tattoo. But the purplish tint to his lips that puffed in and out as he breathed and the dark circles under his eyes were not part of that coloring. Phron. Malta’s son. Not an old man, but a young one made old by illness.
Malta had gone to her son’s side. She extended a hand to indicate us. “Prince FitzChivalry, Lord Lant, Lady Amber, I am pleased to present our son, Ephron Khuprus.”
I stood, took two steps and bowed to him. The closer I got to him, the louder my Wit-sense of him rang. He extended his hand to me, and so I offered mine. He surprised me when he clasped my wrist in the Six Duchies style of warrior greeting warrior, but I returned it. The moment my hand closed against his skin, my awareness of him doubled in a way I had never experienced. It was not comfortable for me and yet it did not seem he was even aware of it. Dragon and boy, boy and dragon rang against my senses in a way I could scarcely stand. And with that doubled sense of him, an even deeper sense of wrong, wrong, wrong within his body. He was weak and breathless, starved and weary from the wrongness. It jangled against my senses unbearably, and thoughtlessly I reached out and touched the error.
The boy gasped. His head sagged forward on his chest and for a moment he was totally still. We remained as we were, our wrists locked in each other’s grip. I reached to catch his shoulder with my free hand as he sagged toward me. I could not let go as the Skill poured through me and into him.
In a long-ago spring in the Mountains, Nighteyes and I had once witnessed an ice dam in a creek giving way. In a thundering roar, the pent-up water had burst through, and in a moment the white of the snowy creek bed had become a brown rush of water, sticks, and even logs tumbling as the flood gushed down the hillside. The Skill-tide that I had sensed all around me, that had surrounded me and prevented me from reaching Nettle, suddenly found an open channel. It coursed through me, powerful and pure and laden with pleasure in making things perfect. The Skill-joy that was as much sensory as it was intellectual flooded my mind and my body. The boy made a strangled sound and perhaps I echoed that muffled cry.
“Phron!” Malta cried out in alarm and in an instant Reyn was on his feet.