I stumbled a bit as I emerged into the pillar room. Then dizziness took me and I sat down flat on the dusty tiles until it passed. ‘Not enough sleep, and using the stones twice in too short a period of time. Not good,’ I told myself firmly. ‘Not wise.’ I tried to stand up, and then decided to sit down again until the tower stopped spinning. It took several moments of sitting there before I realized something obvious. The floor was no longer cold. I put both hands flat against it, as if to prove it to myself. It was not exactly warm; it was more neutral, neither warm nor cold. I stood, and noticed that the windows were losing their haze of thick frost. I thought I heard whispering behind me and turned quickly. No one was there. Perhaps it was an errant summer wind, a warm wind from the south sweeping the island. Very peculiar. I had no time to dwell on it.
I left the pillar room and basket on my arm, tried to hasten through the icy labyrinth. My head pounded. I had not imagined the change in temperature. In one corridor, water slipped over the stones of the floor in a shallow running flow. The gentle warming of the chambers and halls lessened and then ceased as I approached the juncture where stone walls met ice. Little black spots danced before my eyes. I stopped and leaned my brow against the icy wall and rested. The spots receded and slowly I felt more myself. The coolness seemed to help. By the time I emerged from the crack in the ice wall onto the narrow path down to the Black Man’s cavern, I had my cloak wrapped well about my basket and me.
I made my way down the steep path and knocked again at the Black Man’s door. No one answered. I knocked again, hesitated for a time and then tried the string latch. The door swung open and I entered.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim room. The fire had burned low. The Fool was sleeping heavily on a pallet made up near the hearth. There was no sign of Prilkop. I shut the door quietly, put my basket on Prilkop’s low table and took off my cloak. Silently I moved to the Fool’s side and crouching down, peered into his sleeping face. The darkening of his skin was already apparent. I wanted to wake him and ask him how he was. Sternly I resisted that impulse. Instead, I unloaded the basket, finding a wooden platter for the bread and cheese and a basket for the fruit. Prilkop’s water barrel was nearly empty. I put water on to heat for tea, and then took his buckets out and down to the place where the trickle down the rockface came to a slight overhang and fell free. I waited while they filled, and then hauled them up again. By that time, the water was hot, and I made fragrant spice tea.
I think the aroma of the tea was what woke the Fool. He opened his eyes and lay still, staring at the awakened fire for a time. He did not move until I said, ‘Fool? Are you any better?’
Then he gave a small start and turned his head sharply toward me as he jerked his body into a protective ball. I was sorry to have frightened him, and well understood that reflex.
I made no comment on it, saying only, ‘I’ve come back, and brought food with me. Are you hungry?’
He pushed his blankets back a little and half sat up, and then sagged back down into his bedding. ‘I’m getting better. The tea smells good.’
‘No apricots, but I brought you plums.’
‘Apricots?’
‘I thought your mind was wandering a bit when you asked me to fetch you apricots. The fever, you know. Still, if there had been any to hand, I’d have filched some for you.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. Then, staring at me, ‘You look different. More than just being clean.’
‘I feel different. But the clean helps, too. I wish I could have brought the Buckkeep steams with me for you. I think they’d do you good. But as soon as you can walk at all, I’ll get you home. I’ve told Kettricken that we’ll be putting you up in Chade’s old tower room for a time, until you’ve completely recovered and decided who you’d like to become next.’
‘Who I’d like to become …’ He made a small sound of amusement. I could not find the right sort of knife for cutting the bread, so contented myself with tearing off the end of the loaf for him. I took him bread and cheese and a plum, and when the tea had finished steeping, poured him a cup. ‘Where’s Prilkop?’ I asked as he sipped at his tea. I was a bit annoyed that he had left the Fool here alone.
‘Oh, out and about. He has been investigating the Elderling stronghold, to see what damage has been done to it. We’ve had more time for talk while you were gone, in the moments when I was awake. There were not many, I think. He told me tales of the old city; they seem interwoven with my dreams. I suspect that is where he is now. He spoke of seeing what damage she had done, and what he could put right. I suspect he did things to make the city less hospitable, in hopes of driving her out. Now he plans to undo them. I asked him, “For whom?” and he said, “Perhaps just for the sake of putting it right.” He lived there alone for many years after all the others died. For generations, perhaps. He did not tally the passing years, but I am convinced he has been here a very long time. He welcomed the Pale Woman when she first arrived for he thought she had come with her Catalyst to fulfil Prilkop’s goals.’
He drew breath and sipped at the tea. ‘Eat first and then tell stories,’ I suggested to him.
‘Tell me yours while I eat. Something momentous has happened to you. It’s in your bearing and eyes.’
And so I spoke to him, as I could have to no other, divulging all that had befallen me. He smiled but it seemed weighted with sadness, and nodded to himself as if I were but confirming things that he already knew. When I had finished, he tossed his plum pit into the fire and said quietly, ‘Well. It is nice to know that my last vision and prophecy was a true one.’
‘So. I’ll live happily ever after, as the minstrels sing?’
He twisted his mouth at me and shook his head. ‘You’ll live among people who love you and have expectations of you. That will make your life horribly complicated and they will worry you sick half the time. And the other half, annoy you. And delight you.’ He turned away from me and took up his cup and looked into it, like a hedge-witch reading tea leaves. ‘Fate has given up on you, FitzChivalry Farseer. You’ve won. In the future that you now have found, it’s almost likely that you’ll live to a ripe old age, rather than that fate will try to sweep you from the playing board at every opportunity.’
I tried to lighten his words. ‘I was getting a bit tired of being hauled back from death’s door and beyond every time I turned around.’
‘It’s nasty. I know how nasty now. You’ve shown me that.’ He almost had his old smile as he asked me, ‘Let’s leave it at this and call it even, shall we? One time pays for all?’ I nodded. Then as if he had to say it swiftly before I interrupted, ‘Prilkop and I have been talking about what should happen next.’
I smiled. ‘A new plan to save the world? One that doesn’t involve me dying quite so often?’
‘One that doesn’t involve you at all,’ he said quietly. ‘You could say that we are going home, after a fashion. Back to the place that shaped us.’
‘You said no one there would remember you; that there was little point to going back there.’ I was starting to feel alarm.
‘Not to the home that birthed me; I am sure I am no longer recalled there. But to the place that prepared both of us to face our destinies. It was a sort of school, you might say. I know I’ve spoken of it to you, and told you, too, that I ran away from it when they refused to recognize the truth of what I told them. There, I will be well remembered, and Prilkop also. Every White Prophet who has ever passed through there is well remembered.’