My footsore journey north through Chalced persuaded me that folk there are the most inimical in the world. I enjoyed Chalced fully as much as Burrich had led me to believe I would. Even their magnificent cities could not move me. The wonders of its architecture and the heights of its civilization are built on a foundation of human misery. The reality of widespread slavery appalled me.
I paused in my tale to glance at the freedom earring that hung from the Fool’s ear. It had been Burrich’s grandmother’s hard-won prize, the mark of a slave who had won freedom. The Fool lifted a hand to touch it with a finger. It hung next to several others carved of wood, and its silver network caught the eye.
‘Burrich,’ the Fool said quietly. ‘And Molly. I ask you directly this time. Did you ever seek them out?’
I hung my head for a moment. ‘Yes,’ I admitted after a time. ‘I did. It is odd you should ask now, for it was as I crossed Chalced that I was suddenly seized with the urge to see them.’
One evening as we camped well away from the road, I felt my sleep seized by a powerful dream. Perhaps the images came to me because in some corner of her heart, Molly kept still a place for me. Yet I did not dream of Molly as a lover dreams of his beloved. I dreamed of myself, I thought, small and hot and deathly ill. It was a black dream, a dream all of sensations without images. I lay curled tight against Burrich’s chest, and his presence and smell were the only comforts I knew in my misery. Then unbearably cool hands touched my fevered skin. They tried to lift me away, but I wiggled and cried out, clinging to him. Burrich’s strong arm closed around me again. ‘Leave her be,’ he commanded hoarsely.
I heard Molly’s voice from a distance, wavering and distorted. ‘Burrich, you’re as sick as she is. You can’t take care of her. Let me have her while you rest.’
‘No. Leave her beside me. You take care of Chiv and yourself.’
‘Your son is fine. Neither of us is ill. Only you and Nettle. Let me take her, Burrich.’
‘No,’ he groaned. His hand settled on me protectively. ‘This is how the Blood Plague began, when I was a boy. It killed everyone I loved. Molly, I couldn’t bear it if you took her away from me and she died. Please. Leave her beside me.’
‘So you can die together?’ she demanded, her weary voice going shrill.
There was terrible resignation in his voice. ‘If we must. Death is colder when it finds you alone. I will hold her to the last.’
He was not rational, and I felt both Molly’s anger and her fear for him. She brought him water, and I fussed when she half-sat him up to drink it. I tried to drink from the cup she held to my mouth, but my lips were cracked and sore, my head hurt too badly and the light was too bright. When I pushed it away, the water slopped on my chest, icy cold and I shrieked and began to wail. ‘Nettle, Nettle, hush,’ she bade me, but her hands were cold when she touched me. I wanted nothing of my mother just then, and knew an echo of Nettle’s jealousy that another child claimed the throne of Molly’s lap now. I clutched at Burrich’s shirt and he held me close again and hummed softly in his deep voice. I pushed my face against him where the light could not touch my eyes, and tried to sleep.
I tried so desperately to sleep that I pushed myself into wakefulness. I opened my eyes to my breath rasping in and out of my lungs. Sweat cloaked me, but I could not forget the tightness of my hot, dry skin in the Skill-dream. I had wrapped my cloak about me when I lay down to sleep; now I fought clear of its confines. We had chosen to sleep away the deep of the night on a creek bank; I staggered to the water and drank deeply. When I lifted my face from the water, I found the wolf sitting very straight and watching me. His tail neatly wrapped all four of his feet.
‘He already knew I had to go to them. We set out that night.’
‘And you knew where to go, to find them?’
I shook my head. ‘No. I knew nothing, other than that when they first left Buckkeep, they had settled near a town called Capelin Beach. And I knew the, well, the “feel” of where they lived then. With no more than that, we set out.
‘After years of wandering, it was odd to have a destination, and especially to hurry towards it. I did not think about what we did, or how foolish it was. A part of me admitted it was senseless. We were too far away. I’d never get there in time. By the time I arrived, they would be either dead or recovered. Yet having begun that journey, I could not deviate from it. After years of fleeing any who might recognize me, I was suddenly willing to hurl myself back into their lives again? I refused to consider any of it. I simply went.’
The Fool nodded sympathetically to my account. I feared he guessed far more than I willingly told him.