We went by a roundabout way back to the level trail and two of the mothers insisted that we must turn back for they were very unsettled and did not want to witness another incident with ‘an unruly horse’. All the youngsters were looking at me with wide eyes. Per dropped back again to the end of our procession.
Later, Nettle called me in for ‘a word’. It was more than one word, and her baby cried and she walked up and down gently bouncing her the whole time she was reminding me that I must bear myself with dignity now. I did not ask her if she had decided about my Skill. Now was not a good time to remind her that I was wilful in many ways. Riddle escorted me back to my chambers afterward. As he left me at the door, he said, ‘If it is any comfort, your father did not enjoy this aspect of his life either. But he managed it, and so must you.’
I went to bed early that night, thinking that some of Dwalia’s beatings had been easier to take then Nettle’s lecture and disappointed face. As I did now, I set my walls well before I tried to sleep, to keep my nightmares in as much to keep others out. My window was dark and the castle quiet when I awoke to distant music. For a time, I was still and listened, wondering who would be making music at such an hour and for whom. I could not identify the instrument, but the music suited my mood perfectly. It was lonely and yet not fully sad, as if being alone were not such a bad thing.
I got up out of bed and donned a dressing-gown. The door to Caution’s nook was closed: she was a sound sleeper. I stepped into the corridor and hesitated. But no one had ever forbidden me to move alone in Buckkeep at night. I closed the door softly behind me. I listened but could not determine where the music was coming from. I closed my eyes to better focus and walked, away from my chamber and Nettle and Riddle’s grand rooms at the end of the hall. Door after door I passed. From time to time, I stopped to listen and get my bearings. Then I would go on.
The music grew stronger. I came to a door and pressed my ear to it. I heard nothing. Yet when I stepped back from it, the music was loud. I argued with myself. My curiosity won. I tapped at the door.
There was no response.
I tapped again, louder, and waited. No response.
I tried the door. It wasn’t latched. I pushed it open to reveal a cosy chamber, smaller than mine. There was a low fire burning in the hearth; even in summer, the old stones of Buckkeep seemed chill. In front of the fire, in a cushioned chair with his short legs propped up on a padded stool, a round-faced man was Skilling out the music he dreamed.
I was utterly charmed by this and felt a lift of heart, as if I had stepped into an old tale. A grey cat was asleep on his lap. She lifted her head. We are comfortable, she informed me.
‘Does he always Skill music when he sleeps?’ I spoke softly.
The cat just looked at me. Then the man opened his eyes and looked at me. He showed no surprise or alarm. His eyes were cloudy, like an old dog’s. He had odd features, little eyes with fat eyelids and small ears tight to his skull. He licked his lips and left the end of his tongue out. Then he said, ‘I was dreaming a song for Fitz’s little girl. If I ever got to meet her.’
‘That would be me,’ I said, and ventured closer.
He pointed to a cushion on the floor near his chair. ‘You can sit on that, if you want. It’s Smokey’s cushion, but he’s sitting with me right now. He won’t mind.’
Yes, I will.
I sat on the hearth and looked up at him. ‘Are you Thick?’ I asked him.
‘They call me that. Yes.’
‘My father wrote about you. In his journals.’
A wide smile opened his face. He was simple, I realized. ‘I miss him,’ he said. ‘He used to bring me candy. And little cakes with pink sugar frosting on them.’
‘That sounds lovely.’
‘They were delicious. And pretty. I liked to put them in a row and look at them.’
‘I liked to put my mother’s candles in a row. And smell them. But never burn them.’
‘I have four brass buttons. And two wooden ones, and one made from shell. Do you want to see them?’
I did. I wanted simple things, like sharing buttons. The cat made a rumble, jumped off his lap and arranged himself on a cushion. It hurt Thick to get up to open a cupboard and take his box of buttons out, and I knew that he was old. Walking was not easy for him, but his buttons were important. He brought their box back to his chair. His blanket had fallen to the floor. I picked it up and put it over his legs again. As he showed me each button, he told me the story of finding it. Then I asked him, ‘Can you teach me to make the Skill-music?’
He grew very still. ‘My music?’ he said very softly. He was uncertain. Guarded.
I was quiet. Had I spoiled everything by asking for this?
He held out his hand to me. I hesitated, then I set my hand in it and his fingers closed around mine. His touch hummed with power. ‘We have to be very quiet,’ he told me. ‘I’m not supposed to let my music be loud.’ He did something to my walls and suddenly we were behind his in a very peculiar way. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘This is how to make the music.’ He smiled and said, ‘We will start with the cat’s purr.’
On that night, I gained a friend and a teacher.
I was back in my bedroom well before dawn. He had taught me a music made of cat purrs, the creak of a rocking chair and the low crackling of a fire. He had cloaked me in ‘See her not!’ before I crept back to my room. I was sleepy the next day. I didn’t care. He was waiting for me when I returned that night. I helped him build the ‘tent’ as he called it that was stouter than any Skill-wall I’d ever managed. He had saved some gingerbread from earlier in his day, for all his meals were brought to him now. We shared that, and shared our cat-purr music, adding more things to it. I felt honoured when he put in me laughing at the cat as he danced after a dropped spool. It was more fun than I’d ever had with anyone in my whole life.
Even better than the day my father had taken me to the market in Oaksbywater, for there were no slain dogs or stabbed beggars. We just played.
For someone who had never had a playmate, it was astonishing.
FORTY-SIX
* * *
The Quarry
The Six Duchies has many folk-tales about people vanishing into Skill-pillars. And many about people suddenly stepping out of one. In many of them, people are fleeing unjust punishment, and the stones give them sanctuary from their attackers. In ones in which foreign or peculiar folk appear, they grant wishes, such as improved health.
All those tales, I believe, are rooted in the inadvertent use of a Skill-pillar by someone who is untrained.
A history of the Skill-pillars in the Six Duchies and beyond, Chade Fallstar
Something is wrong with the moon.