Hope and horror vied for possession of Beloved’s features. ‘He cannot be alive,’ he declared. But oh, how he longed to believe my father lived.
‘I told Nettle and Riddle. We went to see Lady Kettricken. Nettle is planning to send a coterie through to see if it’s real. She says they will bring Fitz back. But Nighteyes says he is dying, even if my father doesn’t believe it. The wolf says he should stay at the quarry and carve a dragon. He says they should not bring him back here.’
‘Carve a dragon?’ Spark looked very confused.
I heard the scuff of steps and turned to see Lant and Per. Per burst out, ‘Your father lives!’ at the same moment that Lant exclaimed, ‘Thank Eda that we found you!’ But most shocking of all was when Motley swooped in, to land on Per’s shoulder and shout, ‘Fitz! Fitz! The quarry. The quarry!’
‘We are leaving before nightfall,’ Beloved announced. He looked out over the parapet and abruptly announced, ‘Kettricken goes with us.’
‘And how will we travel?’ Spark asked. She sounded sick.
‘As you and I did before. From the dungeon-stone to Aslevjal. From Aslevjal to the market-circle. Thence on foot to the Skill-stone quarry. Spark, I recall how it hurt you last time. You need not come.’
‘We have no dragon’s blood to help you make the journey.’
‘I have the Silver on my fingers. I believe I can do it. Any who fear the journey need not come.’
‘Of course I will go with you.’ She sounded bitterly defeated as she said it.
I spoke up. ‘If he can open the stone, I know how to give Skill-strength. And I can draw it from Per, if need be.’ Per gave a grim-faced nod. Lant had not spoken, but there was sick determination on his face.
Spark crossed her arms on her chest. ‘Kettricken is elderly and her joints give her much pain. She will never be able to keep up.’
‘Oh, you do not know her as I do,’ Beloved said grimly. ‘She will make that journey. I will not leave her behind.’
Spark threw her hands in the air. ‘This is mad. And the end of my occupation here at Buckkeep. We are all risking our lives and our sanity.’ She sounded angry as she rounded on Per and Lant. ‘Why are you still standing here? Fetch all that is needful. Lord Chance, you must be the one to propose this to Kettricken. I will not.’ She shifted her attention to me. ‘You. Go about your schedule as if nothing is happening. Even to disrobing for bed tonight. Wait until we come to fetch you.’
FORTY-EIGHT
* * *
Time
There is a cage made of crawling, squirming things. Inside is something that used to be a man. A black-and-white rat looks at him, and then giggles and turns handsprings as it abandons him.
I make no illustration for this dream. It felt as if it would be true, and I would witness it.
Bee Farseer’s dream journal
‘Anything a bear can eat, a man can eat, too.’ Burrich told me that, long ago, after I died in Regal’s dungeon and before I had found myself as a human again. He was looking guardedly at a leaf-buried bear-kill we had stumbled across on one of my supervised walks. He had very hastily cut some chunks from the decomposing fawn and then we had left the bear’s cache quickly.
Aged meat is far more tender than a fresh kill. I remembered that meat fondly. But he was correct in all aspects of what he had said. A man can eat grubs from under a rotted log, or a frog. Tender roots and the young shoots of water-grasses. Even pond scum can thicken a soup, if one has something to cook soup in. But pond algae can be eaten by the handful, along with watercress, and the roots of cattails can be roasted in a low fire. Sometimes I wondered if Verity had subsisted in the same way before Kettricken and I had arrived at the quarry to hunt real food for him.
The morning after my wolf left me, I awoke and rubbed my sandy eyes. As I sat up, a terrible coughing spell took me. When I could gasp in a breath, I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. It left a smear of blood. I looked at it and a sad, sick certainty rose in me. Then, a terrible feeling in my mouth. Not pain. I would have preferred pain. I leaned forward and spat on the ground in front of me. Blood and saliva. And several pale squirming things, no thicker than a bowstring, no longer than a finger joint.
Oh.
I went to the pond, sucked in water, sloshed it through my mouth and spat on the ground. Another one.
Small bits of information tumbled and joined in my mind. An idea threatened me. The pale messenger that Bee and I had burned. I mulled over that memory and then denied it. Nighteyes had insisted that I had worms. I did. That was all. I crouched down to study the creature that had lived inside me. It was a kind I had not seen before, in man or beast. But that was all it was. Just a worm. I wondered if I could be lucky enough to find wild garlic or orangeroot growing nearby. Both were good for clearing parasites from the body. But a more practical plan would be to begin my journey to the ancient market and go from there to Buck. There would be healers there.
I scooped up more water in my hands and rubbed my face. When I dropped my hands, they were tinged pink. I touched my nostrils and looked at my fingers. No.
I touched my fingertips to my eyes. They came away red. And with the blood on my fingertips came a sickening certainty. The messenger had wept blood. She had said the worms the Servants had infected her with were eating her eyes. That she could scarcely see any more. I lifted my eyes and looked about me. I could still see.
But for how long?
I had two tasks every day that I performed faithfully. I gathered more firewood, and I went to the water to drink. I longed to go to the creek to fish, but my strength was failing me. Nosebleeds were a daily occurrence now, and my back and thighs were covered with small, itching sores. The only parts of my legs that were free of the sores were where the Silver had splashed me.