The Prince shook his head. ‘My walls are up and tight. No, this comes from within me.’ He watched Chade pour some yellowish tea from the pot, scowl, and return it to steep some more.
‘It’s not a Skill-influence,’ Chade concurred bitterly. ‘It’s the damn Fool, talking to the Wit-coterie and the Hetgurd folk, stirring up sympathy for the dragon and preying on the Hetgurd superstitions. Hold to your resolve, my prince. Remember, you gave the Narcheska your word that you would lay the dragon’s head on her mother’s hearth for her.’
‘That you did,’ Peottre observed heavily as he lifted the tent flap. ‘May I come in?’
‘Yes, you may,’ Dutiful replied. ‘And yes, I recall what I promised. But I never promised to take joy in the doing of it.’
My Wit had warned me that someone had approached the tent, but I had expected it to be Swift or Riddle. I wondered why the Outislander had come, and hoped he would not hold his tidings until I had departed. But the nod he gave me seemed to concede my right to be there. Nor did he offer any ominous words of danger on the path ahead, but instead gave a hard smile as he said, ‘Today was little joy for any of us. And tomorrow will be as wearying. After such a cold and wet day, I thought I would share with you our cure for such a miserable journey.’ He sighed heavily. ‘This weather will not make our task any easier. The rain eats into the snow, weakening places that once were sound. Tomorrow, we must be wary of avalanche as well as crevasses as we cross the saddle of the island.’
As he spoke, he was unwrapping a dark cake from a stained square of fabric. I was hungry and my nose was keen. Whatever it was, it had been soaked in brandy to preserve it. He broke a piece from it, revealing raisins, bits of suet, and what was probably dried apple. The brandy smell grew stronger. Thick sat up eagerly, but warily. I was still shielded from his Skill, but his worry reached me faintly. Fish oil. Would it taste of fish oil?
Peottre seemed to notice my avid stare, for he grinned as he offered me the first chunk. ‘You look to be the one coldest and wettest still,’ he observed. It was true, since the others had already changed into drier clothing. I took it gratefully. As I bit into it, he said, ‘These cakes are what our warriors call “courage cake”. We make them with dark thick honey, dried fruits and strengthening herbs, and then all is soaked in brandy to make it keep well. A man can fight a day or travel two on but a handful of this.’
The sweetness and brandy-echo filled my mouth. As I swallowed, I caught a familiar aftertaste. The bitterness of elfbark had been cloaked by the cloying sweetness of the honey, suet and fruit. I knew I should warn Chade, even as my weary body shouted in anticipation of the surge of energy it would bring.
Then the world went dead around me.
I do not know how else to describe it. The first time I encountered Forged folk was also the first time I was aware that I had the Wit-magic. I had never realized that I had an extra sense of the kinship of all creatures until I saw living beings that made no imprint on that sense. Forging removed one from the intertwining net of life, made humans into individual unconnected things that ate and raped and existed with absolutely no empathy or sympathy for other living creatures. Only in meeting them had I discovered how the Wit connected me to all living things.
This was a similar experience, but its antithesis. I had thought of the Skill as a magic that only linked me to other Skill-users. Now I was suddenly severed from all the myriad tiny connections it made to all folk. The great voice of the human world, the constant murmur of other thoughts and minds around me, was stilled. I blinked and hastily probed an ear with my finger, wondering for a fraction of a second what had happened to me. I saw, I heard, I smelled, I touched, and the taste of the food lingered still in my mouth, but some other sense, unnamed and unknown until that instant, had been completely quenched in me by that single bite. I made a sudden prodigious effort to reach Chade and Dutiful with the Skill but it was like asking a frozen hand to grip. I remembered how once that sense had been triggered, but now it was a numbed place inside me.
Smiling, Peottre had handed Thick a chunk of the cake. The little man had his mouth opened wide and his hand was travelling toward it. I lunged to catch his wrist and pulled it away from him. He moved his mouth after it, snapping at the treat in a gesture that would have been comical if it were not such a threat to the coterie. ‘Elfbark!’ My deprivation of the Skill made me shout the word, as if mere voice alone could not convey such a warning.
I immediately moderated my tone, behaving as if my remark were intended for Thick alone. ‘No, Thick! You know the herb makes you sick. Let me have that and I promise that I’ll find you something else good to eat. No, Thick, please.’
‘What herb? I’m not sick! It’s mine, it’s mine! You said we were friends and wouldn’t hurt each other. Let go! Not fair, it’s not polite to grab!’
In his love of sweets, he struggled with me for it. I dared not let him have even a taste. Never had I had such a strong reaction to the herb. I felt the rush of its energy through me, and wondered how deeply would I fall into the inevitable trough of despair which followed elfbark use. Then I had scooped the handful of cake from his grasp. He sat down flat on the floor, gave one angry sob and then went off in a coughing fit. I handed the cake hastily to Chade with the improvised warning, ‘I wouldn’t eat this in front of him, sir. I know how he is about sweets. If he sees you having some without him, well, I’d predict a disruption that would deafen us all.’