I sat up straight, startled, and lost the contact. No, no, lie down, be very still, breathe slow and deep, and wait. Wait. It was like watching a game trail from up in a tree. Wait.
Da, can you sense me? It’s Nettle. I got your bird, and I have news for you. Da?
I took slow deep breaths and tried to stay balanced on the knife’s edge between sleep and wakefulness. I ventured into the Skill-current. It seemed weaker, almost elusive. Nettle, I am here. Is all well with you? And your child? A shiver went through me. Nettle’s child, my grandchild. Banished from my mind for all these weeks.
Not yet. But soon. Her response was a whisper on the wind but with it came a warm thread of her pleasure that my first thought had been for her and the child. Soft as thistledown, her words floated to me. Your bird message reached us, but I did not fully understand. We have sent Lady Rosemary as an emissary there. Why did you wish Skill-healers to go to Kelsingra?
I believe it would benefit all. I opened my mind to her and shared my pity for the dragon-touched folk there. I added to it my practicality; an unshakeable alliance could be formed with these peoples, and possibly we would gain a greater understanding of the Skill if we had access to Kelsingra and all that the Skill had wrought there. I tempered it with a warning about dragon-Silver and my conviction that it was the same stuff that Verity had slathered onto his hands so that he could finish his stone dragon. Incredibly powerful and dangerous stuff. Do not let Chade get wind of it or he will long to experiment with it! How is Chade? I miss him and so does Lant.
Hush! Think not his name!
Her warning was too late. I felt a ripple of something, like a breeze that stirs the canvas before the wind hits a sail fully. Then Chade swept into my mind, obliterating me. He was mad, triumphantly so, and ecstatic with Skill. FITZ! He boomed my identity out into the Skill-current. As if he had violently stirred a pot of water, I felt that the Skill whirled and drenched me. THERE YOU ARE, MY BOY! I’VE MISSED YOU SO! COME WITH ME, I’VE SO MUCH TO SHOW YOU!
Dutiful! Coteries all, to me, to me! Contain Lord Chade. Contain him!
I was ripped out of myself. Torn from my body, my mind spread as thin as spilled wine on a table. I was a flurry of snowflakes scattered by the wind, the dispersing fog of breath on an icy night. I heard distant cries and shouts and sensed a struggle somewhere. Then, as clear as a drop of icy water on the back of my neck, I felt the uncertain touch of another mind.
Da? Are you a dream? Da?
I had never touched minds with Bee in the Skill-stream. I did not hear her voice; I did not see her face. But the touch of her thoughts was so uniquely Bee that I could have no doubt it was her.
It was feeble and thin, a child’s voice shouting into strong wind over water. I reached for her. Bee! Is it you, are you alive?
Da? Where are you? Why didn’t you come for me? Da?
Bee, where are you? My first desperate question.
On a ship. Bound for Clerres. Da? They are cruel to me. Please help me. Why don’t you come for me?
Then, like a great sweeping wind, Chade blasted through my thoughts, scattering me. Bee? Does she Skill, then? My daughter Skills, my Shine does. She is strong in the Skill, but they keep her from me!
Da? DA?
Chade was a tumultuous wind, catching and scattering smaller Skill-entities in his roaring passage. I feared Bee would be tossed and broken, torn to shreds in any encounter. I shoved her away.
Bee, flee! Wake up, turn away, break clear. Get away! Don’t touch your mind to mine.
Da? She clung to me, desperate and afraid.
There was no time to reassure her. I pushed her then, hard, as if I pushed her out of the path of a runaway horse. I felt her fear and hurt, but I tore myself clear of her reaching thought and engaged Chade to prevent him from scorching her. Chade, stop! You are too strong! You will sear all of us to nothing, as Verity burned out poor August! Take control of your Skill, Chade, please!
You, too, Fitz? Will you suppress me as well? Traitor! You are heartless. This is my magic, my birthright, my glory!
Then pour it down his throat if you must! Quickly! Three of the apprentices are having seizures!
That was Nettle, at a great distance, both shouting and Skilling with all her strength. I sensed Chade’s anger and hurt that we were conspiring against him. We had all turned on him, he was certain of it, because we were jealous of his magic and wanted all his secrets. None of us had ever truly loved him, not one of us, except for Shine.
As abruptly as a curtain dropping at the end of the puppet-show, all was gone. There was no roaring Skill from Chade, no whisper from Nettle, and worst of all, when I groped for Bee’s uncertain Skilling, I found nothing. Nothing at all.
I found I was on the floor beside my bunk. Tears were streaming unchecked down my cheeks.
She was out there, my Bee, tossed and torn in a storm of Skill, captured and treated badly. The Fool had been right all along. I could not give up. I plunged in again, sieving the Skill-current for her, over and over, until I felt my strength failing. When I came back to my surroundings, I was curled in a ball. My body ached and my head pounded. Old, I felt a hundred years old. I had failed and abandoned not only my child but my old mentor.
I spared a thought for him. Chade, poor old Chade, lost in the magic that he had so longed for. Now it mastered him, and he rode it as one rode a runaway steed. We had hurt him tonight, and I knew it was not the first time he had felt abandoned and persecuted. I wished I could be there to sit by his bed and take his hand and assure him that, yes, he was loved and had always been loved. His hunger for that had burned me almost as much as his wild Skilling.
But fiercely as I longed to be with Chade, my anxiety for Bee consumed me. On a ship, she had said, bound for Clerres. Alive. Absolutely alive! But in a terrible situation. But alive. And wondering why I had not come to save her. Her captors were cruel to her. But she lived! The amazement of that echoed through me like bells ringing. The surging joy of being certain she had survived collided with my terrible fears for her. How had she managed, all those months, alone with her captors? It burned that I had pushed her away when she reached for me.
But alive! Indubitably alive! That knowledge was air in my lungs, water after drought. I pulled myself to my feet. She was alive! I had to share the news with the Fool. Our primary quest was now her rescue!
And then bloody vengeance on those who had kept her from me.
‘I already told you she was alive.’